An airline has rejected an order from a London airport to cancel flights to comply with a cap on passenger numbers as the aviation sector struggles to cope with increased travel demand. Emirates accused Heathrow Airport of showing “blatant disregard for consumers” by attempting to force it to “deny seats to tens of thousands of travellers” through the cap.
A Heathrow spokesperson said it would be “disappointing” if “any airline would want to put profit ahead of a safe and reliable passenger journey”. Virgin Atlantic also criticised the airport’s actions and claimed it was responsible for failures which are contributing to the chaos.
On Tuesday, Heathrow introduced a cap of 100,000 daily departing passengers until September 11 in an effort to avoid poor service levels. It pleaded with carriers to stop selling summer tickets to limit the disruption to passengers.
