Heathrow hails ‘strong performance’ on punctuality and security queues

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London Heathrow has said its improved operational performance in recent weeks should give travellers “confidence” about their plans for forthcoming peak travel periods.

The UK hub airport said that it catered for 5.2 million passengers last month and had produced a “strong performance” over the February half-term school holiday period. 

The monthly traffic figure was slightly down on the 5.4 million travellers that used the airport in February 2020, just weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic struck and largely grounded international travel.

“Overall passenger satisfaction is close to pre-pandemic levels and the focus is on maintaining that as demand increases towards the summer,” said Heathrow in an update. 

“Departures punctuality was the most consistent it has been in the past 12 months and over 98 per cent of passengers were through security in under 10 minutes for the second month in a row.”

The airport was criticised last year after it was forced to set a daily cap on departing passengers last summer due to a lack of staffing, which led to the mass cancellation of thousands of flights.

Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “The February half-term went very smoothly, thanks to a great plan and teamwork across the airport. This should give everyone confidence that we are prepared for a successful Easter getaway.” 

February’s top destinations from Heathrow included Dubai, New York and Madrid, while passenger numbers to destinations in eastern Asia were eight times higher than during February 2022 due to the removal of restrictions in key markets such as China earlier this year.

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