UK. Heathrow Airport served more than 6 million passengers last month, following on from its imposition of a cap of 100,000 departing passengers a day, announced on 12 July.
The airport said the move has contributed to fewer last-minute flight cancellations, better aircraft punctuality and more efficient baggage delivery.
Its latest estimate is that 16 million passengers will be served at Heathrow across the July to September period.
Heathrow noted that it has seen the largest rise in passenger numbers of any European airport in the last year.
Integral to increasing the departing passenger cap is increasing airline ground handler capacity and resilience, the airport said, revealing that it has initiated a review of ground handling to support that objective.
Recruitment for the summer peak period began last November, since when the airport has hired an additional 1,300 recruits. Security resource is now back at pre-pandemic levels, enabling 88% of Heathrow passengers to clear security within 20 minutes or less.
The airport also praised the UK Border Force, which it believes has performed well so far this summer. “We are working to help them secure sufficient resource to serve the peak in passengers returning to the UK over the next few weeks,” a note from the airport company said.
Reflecting on the effectiveness of the passenger cap, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “Passengers are seeing better, more reliable journeys since the introduction of the demand cap. I want to thank all my colleagues across the airport for their amazing work in getting people away on their holidays.”
He added: “This has only been possible because of the collective and determined efforts of airport, airline and wider Team Heathrow teams.”
