London Heathrow is to impose a capacity cap over the next two months and has asked airlines to stop selling summer tickets.
The UK’s hub airport said it was making the move to cap passenger numbers at 100,000 per day until mid-September to ensure travellers can “have a safe and reliable journey”.
In an open letter to passengers, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “Some airlines have taken significant action, but others have not, and we believe that further action is needed now to ensure passengers have a safe and reliable journey.
“We have therefore made the difficult decision to introduce a capacity cap with effect from 12 July to 11 September. Similar measures to control passenger demand have been implemented at other airports both in the UK and around the world.”
Holland-Kaye added that the maximum number of departing passengers that the airport, airlines and ground handlers could currently handle was “no more than 100,000” per day.
“The latest forecasts indicate that even despite the [slots] amnesty, daily departing seats over the summer will average 104,000 – giving a daily excess of 4,000 seats,” he said.
“On average only about 1,500 of these 4,000 daily seats have currently been sold to passengers, and so we are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers.”
Heathrow hopes that this action to cap numbers will “protect flights for the vast majority of passengers” using the airport his summer, although Heathrow admitted it would lead to more flight cancellations.
“We recognise that this will mean some summer journeys will either be moved to another day, another airport or be cancelled and we apologise to those whose travel plans are affected,” said Holland-Kaye.