London’s
Heathrow Airport said Monday that it would continue to limit the
airport’s capacity to 100,000 departing passengers a day through October 29,
extending an effort to ease chaos at airports that has marred summer travel in
Europe.
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The airport imposed
a cap in July, citing staff shortages that led to canceled flights, long lines,
and lost luggage. The limit was originally set to last through September 11. If
operations improve before October, the restrictions could be lifted earlier,
the company said in a statement.
Heathrow said in its statement that the cap had led
to fewer cancellations, shorter wait times and better punctuality. “By better
balancing passenger demand with available resources, we are able to operate a
safe airport ecosystem that prioritizes passenger needs,” the statement read.
An average of 40 percent of flights were delayed and
2.7 percent were canceled in the four weeks leading up to the cap, according to
data from FlightAware, a flight tracking company. In the four weeks after the
cap was imposed, the average rate of delay dropped to about 32 percent, and the
average rate of cancellations to 1.3 percent, although the rate has not
declined consistently every week.
The extension of the capacity limit is unsurprising
because Heathrow simply does not have enough workers to maintain its
operations, said Kathleen Bangs, a spokesperson for
FlightAware. “It’s the
hourly workers that can bring an operation like Heathrow to its knees,” she
said.
Travel was chaotic earlier this summer, as high
demand from passengers collided with staffing shortages. That led to lost
luggage, canceled flights and long lines. Amsterdam’s
Schiphol Airport, which
introduced a cap in June, has also extended its capacity limit for departing
passengers through October.
The capacity limits have been a “mixed bag” for
summer travelers, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst for
Atmosphere Research. “Maybe some lines have gone down,” he said, “but travelers
don’t have the selection of flights that they otherwise would.”
“I’m certainly hoping that we see the seat cap end
before October,” he added. “The sooner it ends, I think better for everybody:
for airlines, for the airport itself and, of course, for travelers.”
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