We want everyone travelling this summer to be confident they will get away on holiday, with their bags. There is concern that “airport chaos” will ruin summer holidays after over two years of Covid cancellations. We need to be encouraging investors, not slashers, to make every passenger journey better so that we can rebuild the UK’s aviation sector.”Īirlines are to blame for travel chaos for underpaying baggage handlers “This is the time when we should be investing to rebuild capacity as fast as possible so that we can give passengers the easy, quick and reliable journeys they deserve and are paying for. “That’s why we stepped in and implemented a cap on departing passengers – just like Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Gatwick and many other airports around the world. In the last few weeks, we have seen a shocking increase in planes departing without bags and passengers having their flights cancelled after they were already onboard. Lord Deighton said: “For months we have been asking airlines to keep their ground handling resource in balance with demand. Heathrow last week capped the number of passengers that could fly from the airport this summer to 100,000-a-day, forcing some airlines into a fresh round of cancellations. Lord Deighton, however, turned on Mr Walsh, accusing British Airways bosses of overseeing “decade of slashing” before “being refashioned as a service organisation by its new team”. He said that Mr Holland-Kaye should be fired if the travel chaos continues into next year. “For months ground handling companies have been trying to recruit and train skilled workers, but if their airline customers aren’t willing to pay market rates, then they aren’t able to fill the posts.”įormer British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh, now head of airlines group IATA, is one of a growing number of executives to have criticised Heathrow over its lack of preparation in recent days. Airlines have driven down costs over the years, and this was one of the first costs they slashed during the pandemic. He said: “Ground handling is a highly competitive, labour intensive, low margin business, characterised by short term contracts. This was followed by revelations by this newspaper that the airport chief executive ignored the warnings of airlines at the end of last year that the airport was underprepared for a glut of summer holiday bookings as “simply not credible”.īut writing in The Telegraph, Lord Deighton, a former Treasury official, investment banker and chief executive of the London Olympic Organisation Committee, lays the blame at the feet of airlines. Mr Holland-Kaye has come under pressure in recent days as the Government issued him with an ultimatum to assure them that the airport is appropriately staff amid widespread travel disruption. Lord Paul Deighton has leapt to the defence of under-fire Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye by laying the blame on airlines for the travel chaos witnessed at airports this year. The chairman of Heathrow has launched a searing attack on “slasher” airlines for failing to attract enough baggage handlers at the airport by paying higher wages.
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