Heathrow Airport and Emirates Come to an Agreement
The CEO of London’s Heathrow Airport and the President of Emirates Airline released a joint statement regarding the agreement about the capping of the airline’s capacity to remediate the situation faced by the airport.
Due to staff shortage, London’s Heathrow Airport has been dealing with issues related to luggage claiming, among others. This prompted them to cap their passenger capacity to 100,000 per day till September 2022.
On the morning of Thursday, 14th of July, a “constructive meeting” was held between the representatives of London’s Heathrow Airport and Emirates Airlines of the Middle East regarding this matter.
Before this meeting, Emirates was completely against the idea of capping their capacity, as they believed that the problem faced was only Heathrow's and none of their concern.
In a statement made earlier, the president of the Dubai-based carrier said, "This [cap] is entirely unreasonable and unacceptable, and we reject these demands. Until further notice, Emirates plans to operate as scheduled to and from LHR.”
The airline stated that its ground handling team at Heathrow were “fully ready and capable of handling our flights”. And based on that they believe that “the crux of the issue lies with the central services and systems which are the responsibility of the airport operator”.
After this meeting, Sir Tim Clark, the President of Emirates Airlines, and John Holland-Kaye, the CEO of Heathrow, made a joint statement, “Emirates agreed the airline was ready and willing to work with the airport to remediate the situation over the next two weeks, to keep demand and capacity in balance and provide passengers with a smooth and reliable journey through Heathrow this summer,”
They further added, “Emirates has capped further sales on its flights out of Heathrow until mid-August to assist Heathrow in its resource ramp-up, and is working to adjust capacity. In the meantime, Emirates flights from Heathrow operate as scheduled and ticketed passengers may travel as booked."