(CMR) More flight cancellations are expected this summer as Heathrow Airport has reportedly told airlines to stop selling tickets and imposed a cap of 100,000 passengers daily from Tuesday, 12 July to 11 September.
Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said over the past few weeks, the high number of passengers resulted in service falling to unacceptable levels. Passengers faced long queues, delays, last-minute cancellations, late baggage, and baggage not making it on flights. The new limit imposed due to staff shortage will result in a cut of 4,000 passengers a day.
“On average, only about 1,500 of these 4,000 daily seats have currently been sold to passengers, and so we are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers,” Mr. Holland-Kaye said.
“By making this intervention now, our objective is to protect flights for the vast majority of passengers at Heathrow this summer and to give confidence that everyone who does travel through the airport will have a safe and reliable journey and arrive at their destination with their bags,” Holland-Kaye added.
“We recognize that this will mean some summer journeys will either be moved to another day, another airport or be canceled and we apologise to those whose travel plans are affected,” he continued.
It is estimated that about 93,000 passengers, 1,500 over 62 days, will likely be affected by the news. Affected passengers will be contacted by their airlines.
Affected travelers will not be entitled to compensation as the reason for the cancellations will be classified as being outside airlines' control.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid