Heathrow upbeat

For the month of April Heathrow reported 5m passengers travelled through its terminals, with outbound leisure travellers and Brits cashing in airline travel vouchers driving the recovery in passenger demand which is expected to last throughout the summer.

As a result the airport has increased the 2022 forecast from 45.5m passengers to nearly 53m, still well short of the 80m of 2019.  It says that 97% of passengers passed through security within 10mins at Easter and, with a dig at other airports, saying that some have experienced queues of over 3hrs.

The airport plans to reopen Terminal 4 by July and is already recruiting up to 1,000 new security officers.  (See BTN 2 May Heathrow’s first quarter.)

In a detailed statement Heathrow noted that the ongoing war in Ukraine, higher fuel costs, continuing travel restrictions for key markets such as the United States and the potential for a further Covid-19 variant of concern created uncertainty going forward. The airport noted last week’s warning from the Bank of England that inflation is set to pass 10% and that the UK economy will likely ‘slide into recession’ and says that travel demand will reach 65% of pre-pandemic levels overall for the year citing British Airways with a return to only 74% of pre-pandemic travel this year.

Heathrow expects to remain lossmaking throughout this year and does not forecast paying any dividends to shareholders in 2022.  

www.heathrow.com

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