Emirates has hit back at Heathrow airport’s announcement that it is limiting flights with a new capacity cap that came into force on July 12 (see story here). Emirates has published an open statement decrying the fact that Heathrow provided only 36 hours for airlines to comply with the cut in flights “of a figure that appears to be plucked from thin air” and that the airport company “dictated the specific flights on which we should throw out paying passengers, but also threatened legal action for non-compliance”.
Emirates is clearly unhappy with the move by Heathrow to ensure the airport runs more smoothly during the busy summer season, and has totally rejected the demands. The Gulf carrier noted that its own ground handling services run by dnata were “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”.
The airline goes on to stress that as a “steadfast operator” that had already reinstated six daily A380 flights since October 2021 that its “regularly high seat loads” should not come as 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,” said Emirates in a public statement.
The airline adds that re-booking the numbers of potentially impacted passengers was “impossible” since it is operating full flights from London for the next few weeks and added to that complexity 70% of those customers use Dubai as a hub and “it will be impossible to find them new onward connections at short notice”.
Emirates adds that moving airports was also impossible at such short notice, specifically for widebody aircraft. The airline’s statement describes the actions of Heathrow’s management team as “cavalier about travellers and their airline customers”, adding that the airport should have expected a strong rebound in travel and prepared accordingly.
“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,” said Emirates.
The airline finishes its statement by welcoming a move by the UK Department for Transport and Civil Aviation Authority to seek information from Heathrow on its response plans, systems resilience, and to explain the cap of 100,000 daily passengers. “Considering LHR handled 80.9 million passengers annually in 2019, or a daily average of 219,000, the cap represents greater than a 50% cut at a time when LHR claims to have 70% of ground handling resources in place,” said Emirates.
Until further notice, Emirates stated that it “plans to operate as scheduled to and from LHR”.