Qantas hit by Heathrow passenger cap, alters flight schedule

The airline has shaken up its London route and will be forced to provide accommodation to travellers in Singapore.

Travellers are feeling the pain of Heathrow Airport’s directive to airlines to reduce passenger numbers by as much as 20 per cent. Picture: Justin Tallis/AFP

Qantas has been forced to change its flying schedule out of London to avoid cancelling flights following Heathrow Airport’s extraordinary directive to airlines to reduce passenger numbers.

With staff numbers yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, Heathrow has imposed a 100,000-passenger a day cap on airlines, about 20 per cent below current levels of 122,187.

In addition, Heathrow also ordered airlines not to sell any more seats for travel in and out of London’s biggest airport until September 11.

A Qantas spokeswoman said the airline was “disappointed” with the decision made by Heathrow, but were doing all they could to minimise the impact.

“We have two flights a day to London and we want to preserve them at all costs given people’s travel plans are at stake,” said the spokeswoman.

“We’ve managed to negotiate a workaround that isn’t perfect but will get our customers to their destination. We continue to work with Heathrow on improving this situation.”

As a result, Tuesday’s QF2 service to Sydney would depart 9-hours earlier than scheduled, taking off at midday from terminal 4, instead of terminal 3.

The earlier departure time meant an 11-hour stopover in Singapore, during which time customers would be provided with accommodation.

Estimated arrival time into Sydney would be the same – at 5.10am on Thursday.

It was unclear whether more flights would be retimed with discussions between Qantas and Heathrow continuing on Monday.

Even with the changes, Qantas customers were likely to be better off than those with some other airlines, which have been forced to make significant alterations to schedules at considerable cost.

British Airways asked its passengers to consider postponing their travel, and offered to reschedule bookings within the next 12-months free of charge.

In the case of Emirates, the airline was simply refusing to comply with Heathrow’s demands, saying the 36-hours notice given by the airport was “entirely unreasonable and unacceptable”.

“Re-booking the sheer numbers of potentially impacted passengers is impossible with all flights running full for the next weeks, including at other London airports and on other airlines,” said a statement issued by Emirates.

“All the signals of a strong travel rebound were there, and for months Emirates has been publicly vocal about the matter.

“London Heathrow 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 the cost and scramble to sort the mess to airlines and travellers.”

Analysis of the directive by aviation analytics firm OAG estimated the daily cost to airlines of reducing passenger numbers and cutting flights to be in the vicinity of $800m.

“In addition to the direct revenue loss to airlines, there are also the costs of attempting to rebook affected passengers,” said an OAG spokeswoman.

“Allowing for all of the costs of that activity — when airlines are probably looking at around $74 a head to rebook — is another unexpected cost for airlines.”