Emirates Airline condemns Heathrow Airport’s ‘unacceptable’ demand to cancel flights, refuses to comply OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
The airline industry has been paralyzed in recent weeks by a perfect storm of challenges, from labor shortages and supply disruptions to soaring fuel prices.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Emirates Airline has taken a hard line at London’s Heathrow Airport, the UK’s largest aviation hub currently plagued by travel chaos.
Earlier this week, Heathrow asked airlines to stop selling summer tickets after imposing a limit of 100,000 passengers per day leaving the airport to reduce long lines, cancellations and baggage retrieval delays.
Emirates, Dubai’s flagship airline and one of the largest long-haul carriers in the world, has refused to comply, calling Heathrow’s decision “unacceptable” and accusing management of “blatant disregard for customers”.
And it appears determined to continue its scheduled flights, despite what it said threatened legal action from Heathrow.
It is “deeply regrettable that LHR gave us 36 hours last night to comply with capacity cuts, a figure that appears to have been picked out of thin air,” Emirates said in a statement released Thursday.
“Their communications not only dictated the specific flights on which we had to discard paying passengers, but also threatened legal action for non-compliance. This is completely unreasonable and unacceptable, and we reject these demands.”
International passengers walk through the arrivals hall of Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport on November 26, 2021 in London, England.
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Emirates said the ground handling and catering staff at London Heathrow, which is run by its subsidiary dnata, are “fully ready and able to handle our flights.” Therefore, it said, “the core of the problem lies with the central services and systems under the responsibility of the airport operator.”
The London-Dubai route is one of Emirates Airline’s busiest, and those flights – six a day since October 2021 – have had consistently high load factors for the past 10 months, so Heathrow should have been prepared for this, Emirates said.
“Now, with blatant disregard for consumers, they want to force Emirates to refuse seats to tens of thousands of travelers who have paid and booked months in advance for their highly anticipated package holidays or trips to see their loved ones,” the Emirates said. statement read.
“And this, during the super-peak period with the upcoming UK holidays, and at a time when many people are desperate to travel after 2 years of pandemic restrictions.”
The UAE airline added that 70% of its customers flying from Heathrow “go outside of Dubai to see loved ones in distant destinations, and it will be impossible to find new onward connections for them any time soon.”
“Until further notice, Emirates plans to operate as planned to and from LHR,” it said.
Heathrow’s response
In a statement, a Heathrow spokesperson said the airline network “continues to suffer from Covid-related challenges” and that a key issue is “airline ground handling teams that currently only have up to 70% capacity to meet passenger demand,” which it said. says it has recovered to about 85% of pre-pandemic levels.
“For months we asked airlines to help come up with a plan to solve their financing problems, but no clear plans came forward and with each passing day the problem got worse,” the statement added.
“We had no choice but to make the difficult decision to impose a capacity limit intended to provide passengers with a better, more reliable journey and to keep everyone working at the airport safe.”
Suitcases will not be collected from baggage claim at Heathrow’s Terminal Three. The UK’s largest airport has ordered airlines to stop selling summer tickets.
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The spokesperson noted that the 100,000-person limit for departing passengers is still much higher than the 64,000 limit imposed at Schiphol Airport, which in 2021 was ranked as the busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic.
The average daily number of passengers at Heathrow for both departing and arriving passengers is 219,458, split roughly equally between the two, according to the airport’s website. Dubai is the second most popular departure destination after New York.
“It would be disappointing if an airline, instead of working together, wanted to put profits on a safe and reliable passenger journey,” the Heathrow statement said.
Ongoing travel chaos
Major flight hubs and airlines are taking a hard hit from what industry analysts say is failing to plan and prepare for the revival in travel demand, two years after the Covid-19 pandemic forced a tidal wave of layoffs.
In North America and Europe, in particular, travelers are describing chaos at airports, with dozens of canceled or delayed flights, lost luggage and boarding times of more than four hours. That’s partly due to labor shortages caused by the pandemic, as layoffs have put pressure on airports and airlines dealing with a surge of summer passengers eager to travel.
But that has done little to allay the frustration of customers and airlines losing money and flights.
“LHR chose not to act, not to plan, not to invest,” said the Emirates Airline statement, using its acronym for the airport. “Now faced with an ‘airmageddon’ situation because of their incompetence and inaction, they are shifting the entire burden – from costs and the struggle to clean up the mess – onto airlines and travelers.”
“London Heathrow shareholders should scrutinize the decisions of LHR’s management team,” it added.