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Emirates Airline Refuses Heathrow Demand To Cut Passengers

Emirates’ flagship A380 to return to Perth’s skies from Dec 1

Emirates

Emirates Airlines on Thursday (July 14) denied demand from London Heathrow to reduce passenger numbers to ease summer travel chaos sparked by staff shortages.

Emirates said in a statement, “This is entirely unreasonable and unacceptable, and we reject these demands.”

Earlier, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye announced a cap to limit the number of passengers handled daily at 100,000 until 11 September and urged airlines to stop selling tickets to limit the impact of cancellations and delays on customers.

The Airline also added, “At London Heathrow Airport (LHR), our ground handling and catering – run by dnata, part of the Emirates Group – are fully ready and capable of handling our flights. So the crux of the issue lies with the central services and systems which are the responsibility of the airport operator.”

“Emirates is a key and steadfast operator at LHR, having reinstated 6 daily A380 flights since October 2021. From our past 10 months of regularly high seat loads, our operational requirements cannot be a surprise to the airport.”

“Now, with blatant disregard for consumers, they wish to force Emirates to deny seats to tens of thousands of travellers who have paid for, and booked months ahead, their long-awaited package holidays or trips to see their loved ones. And this is 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.”

“Emirates believes in doing the right thing by our customers. However, re-booking the sheer numbers of potentially impacted passengers is impossible with all flights running full for the next weeks, including at other London airports and on other airlines. Adding to the complexity, 70% of our customers from LHR are headed beyond Dubai to see loved ones in far-flung destinations, and it will be impossible to find them new onward connections at short notice.”

“Moving some of our passenger operations to other UK airports at such short notice is also not realistic. Ensuring ground readiness to handle and turn around a widebody long-haul aircraft with 500 passengers on board is not as simple as finding a parking spot at a mall.”

“The bottom line is, that the LHR management team are cavalier about travellers and their airline customers. All the signals of a strong travel rebound were there, and for months, Emirates has been publicly vocal about the matter.  We planned ahead to get to a state of readiness to serve customers and travel demand, including rehiring and training 1,000 A380 pilots in the past year.”

“LHR chose not to act, not to plan, not to invest. Now faced with an “airmageddon” situation due to their incompetence and non-action, they are pushing the entire burden – of costs and the scramble to sort the mess – to airlines and travellers.”

“The shareholders of London Heathrow should scrutinise the decisions of the LHR management team.”

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