UK. London Heathrow Airport served 5.6 million travellers in November, up by +81% year-on-year though the figure was down on the 5.9 million recorded in October. Passenger traffic in the first 11 months reached 55 million, around 70% of pre-pandemic levels.
The airport company is anticipating a busy December as many people travel over Christmas for the first time in three years. The busiest route is expected to be to and from New York JFK in the US.
As reported, Heathrow Airport has enlisted hundreds of ‘Little Here to Helpers’ to launch the festive season for passengers with a huge Christmas giveaway programme. Some 10,000 Christmas gifts will be given out across all four terminals in the run-up to New Year, in partnership with retail and F&B concessionaires.
The airport company acknowledged that a planned Border Force strike over the Christmas period will hit some travellers but said that most will be unaffected.
“We are doing everything we can to protect a full flight schedule on strike days, so departing passengers should expect to travel as normal,” said the airport company.
“Arriving passengers with UK, EU, US, Canadian and some other passports will be able to use e-gates as usual and their journeys should be largely unaffected on strike days. Border Force has contingency measures to ensure other arriving passengers are cleared safely and as quickly as possible.”
Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “We are ready to welcome millions of passengers heading off to enjoy the holidays with family and friends. We have extra people in the terminals on the busiest days, including me and my management team, to ensure we get people on their way as smoothly as possible and start to bring the joy back into travel. We are doing everything we can to protect full operating schedules on Border Force strike days and departing journeys and the vast majority of arriving journeys should be unaffected.”
