Heathrow: Strikes and ongoing charging issues fail to dent December’s passenger levels
Heathrow Airport’s passenger numbers skyrocketed last month despite challenges posed by Border Force Strikes.
The west London hub said 5.9 million travellers passed through its gates during the festive month, up 90 per cent on 2021 levels.
Overall, the airport remained in line with former expectations, with 61.6 million passengers using Heathrow in 2022.
John-Holland Kaye, chief executive, said 2022 ended on a high with its busiest Christmas in three years.
He added that the airport had provided a, “smooth and efficient service for passengers, thanks to the hard work of our colleagues and close planning with airlines, their ground handlers and Border Force.”
Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS, working as Border Force staff at several UK airports including Heathrow and Gatwick, staged an eight-day walkout between Christmas and New Year’s Eve over salaries.
Heathrow said the the industrial action didn’t cause as much disruption as initially feared, as most of its arriving customers reported “a friendly and efficient journey through immigration in spite of industrial action.”
Heathrow has been the centre of several controversies over the past year.
The airport’s relationship with its airline customers took a turn for the worse, with an ongoing row over the price per passenger the airport can charge carriers.
Airline bosses have repeatedly accused Heathrow of downplaying its recovery to get a more favourable deal from the UK aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
The situation reached a new low in early December after the CAA set an interim price of £31.57 per passenger for 2023.