Heathrow puts 100,000 LIMIT on daily departing passengers throughout the ENTIRE summer holiday until September 11 and begs airlines to STOP selling tickets as airports experience recruitment crisis – as easyJet passengers threaten ‘MUTINY’ at Gatwick
- Today’s dramatic move imposes a maximum limit on departing passengers from July 12 to September 11
- Passengers have been hit by delays and cancellations at UK airports due to staff shortages
- In new sign of chaos, easyJet passengers ‘muted’ after waiting four hours for a runway
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Heathrow Airport today introduced an unprecedented limit of 100,000 for daily departing passengers until September and has ordered airlines to stop selling summer tickets as airports battle a personnel crisis.
The dramatic move imposes a cap on the number of passengers allowed to leave the airport between July 12 and September 11.
Airlines planned to operate flights with an average daily capacity of 104,000 seats during that period, meaning further cancellations are likely.
Heathrow said it has ordered airlines to “discontinue summer ticket sales to limit the impact on passengers”.
The measure will lead to more cancellations on top of the thousands of flights that have been canceled in recent months.
Affected passengers are not entitled to compensation as the reason for the cancellations is classified as beyond the control of airlines.
Passengers have been hit by delays and cancellations at UK airports due to staff shortages after thousands were laid off or left the industry during Covid. Yesterday, Heathrow canceled a further 61 flights at the last minute, disrupting 10,000 passengers.
And in a new sign of chaos, easyJet passengers mutinied after being forced to wait four hours on the runway at Gatwick Airport yesterday. The plane never even left and they had to wait “until midnight” to collect their luggage after being returned to the terminal.
John Holland-Kaye, the CEO of Heathrow, announced today that departing passengers will not be allowed to carry more than 100,000 passengers per day for the rest of the summer.
John Holland-Kaye, CEO of Heathrow, announced the passenger cap: “In recent weeks, as the number of departing passengers regularly exceeded 100,000 per day, we have begun to see periods of service dropping to levels that are unacceptable. †
Problems include long queues, delays for passengers requiring assistance, bags not traveling with passengers or arriving late, low punctuality and last minute cancellations, Mr Holland-Kaye said.
He said this is due to a combination of poor punctuality of arrivals due to delays at other airports and in European airspace, as well as increased passenger numbers “that the combined capacity of airlines, airline ground handlers and the airport is starting to increase.” exceed’.
He added: ‘Our colleagues are doing everything they can to get as many passengers out as possible, but we must not endanger them for their own safety and well-being.’
In the latest evidence of the chaos gripping UK airports, easyJet passengers were trapped on a runway for four hours yesterday in scorching conditions.
Passenger Dominey Jenner said the flight was due to leave Gatwick for Dubrovnik at 1:40 PM yesterday, but due to delays, passengers didn’t board until 4:30 PM before they had a long wait.
During that time – when the temperature outside was 30°C – she said customers were only offered ‘one glass of water’ and no food was available.
They eventually exited the plane at 8:30 p.m. after an onboard ‘mutiny’, ‘with people giving a deadline when they would just leave’.
“I heard the Gatwick Police were about to escort us because they had received calls from people on board,” she said.
Once off the plane, Ms Jenner said their luggage “didn’t arrive before midnight” and claimed passengers had to go through passport control despite flying nowhere.
MailOnline has contacted easyJet for comment.