London Heathrow has criticised the UK government for the “missed opportunity” to support business as the hub airport announced record traffic for February.
British chancellor Jeremy Hunt last week announced plans for a further one-off increase in Air Passenger Duty (APD) for all non-economy passengers from April 2025 – a move that was widely criticised by those in the corporate travel industry.
Heathrow said in a statement: “The chancellor missed the opportunity to back British business at the spring budget, prioritising short-term decisions over policies that would deliver the growth and jobs the UK economy needs. Instead, he raised taxes on aviation with no ring-fencing for the green transition.”
The airport added that it had enjoyed a record February for traffic last month with 5.8 million passengers travelling through Heathrow – helped by the half-term school holiday and the extra “leap year” day during the month. The largest percentage increase was to the Asia Pacific region with traffic up by 24 per cent year-on-year.
Heathrow said it was “on track to serve more passengers this year than ever before” after nearly returning to pre-pandemic traffic levels in 2023. The airport’s record year for traffic was in 2019 when it served 80.9 million passengers.
The hub will continue to add new routes this spring including more domestic services from Loganair, British Airways’ flights to Abu Dhabi, Kos and Izmir, plus Virgin Atlantic’s route to Bangalore.
Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow’s CEO, added: “It was wonderful to welcome so many passengers for the first holiday peak of 2024 - setting a new Heathrow record. While we are serving more people, visitors to the UK are spending less since the removal of tax-free shopping, impacting businesses across the country.
“The spring budget was a missed opportunity to give the whole tourism, hospitality and retail sector the support it needs to compete internationally.”