Heathrow hits second record breaking month in a row
Image courtesy Heathrow
A total of 936,000 passengers took advantage of the bank holiday making it Heathrow's busiest Easter weekend ever and Good Friday was the busiest ever direct departure day with 118,000 people beginning their journey at Heathrow.
During March, over 94% of passengers rated their overall satisfaction at the airport as 'Good' or 'Excellent' and work continues to optimise Heathrow's current infrastructure making passenger processes faster, more efficient and more resilient, including the £1 billion upgrade to 146 security scanners and ongoing investment in the T2 baggage system.
Electronic Travel Authorisations (ETAs)
While Heathrow says it supports the overall rationale behind the introduction of Electronic Travel Authorisations (ETAs) - the government scheme making all global visitors without legal residence in the UK pay a fee of £10 to enter or transit through the UK - it noted that applying them to airside transit passengers will put UK airports at a competitive disadvantage compared to EU hubs.
Heathrow states that it is already seeing an impact, as in the first four months of ETAs being in place 19,000 fewer transit passengers travelled from Qatar, with the transfer route recording its lowest monthly proportions for over 10 years each month since the implementation of ETAs. It sees it as a huge blow to UK competitiveness as many long-haul routes, which are highly important to the UK’s economy, exports and wider connectivity, rely on transit passengers. With more connecting passengers expected to choose other hubs as the scheme expands, it says Minsters need to take action to remove this measure.
Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye said: “We're on a journey to be an extraordinary airport fit for the future and it's great to see the progress we're making this year with smooth journeys for a record number of passengers choosing Heathrow. But to keep up the momentum the government needs to exempt airside transit passengers from the ETA scheme to avoid encouraging passengers to spend and do business elsewhere. We need to level the playing field, so the UK aviation industry continues to be world-class.”
