Airlines and airports have reported a massive hike in the numbers of flights leaving the UK during the upcoming bank holiday weekend. Data from aviation analytics firm Cirium reveals scheduled departures are up 521 per cent compared to the 2021 early May bank holiday in a major bounce back.
Between Saturday and Monday (April 30 to May 2) there are scheduled to be 7,068 flights departing UK airports - equating to more than 1.2 million seats. The number of flights leaving the country is expected to be just 22 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Busiest day this weekend is scheduled to be Monday, May 2, when there are 2,567 scheduled departures with most popular destinations Dublin, Amsterdam, Palma de Mallorca and Malaga. The UK airport expected to see the most departures is London Heathrow, with 1,619, followed by London Gatwick (968), Manchester (671) and London Stansted (670).
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has urged airlines to “get reliability back into the system again”. He made the comment as passengers suffered major disruption in recent weeks.
Travellers have faced long queues at airports such as Birmingham, Heathrow and Manchester. British Airways continues to cancel around 100 daily flights due to staff shortages. Low-cost airline easyJet cancelled hundreds of flights in the run-up to Easter.
Mr Shapps said airlines “underestimated how much demand there will be”, and a rise in coronavirus cases “would have caused problems” with “a lot of people” off work.
He told Times Radio: “I am concerned and I’m going to be meeting with some of the airlines who have been routinely cancelling. I’m sure it’s in their interest as it is (for) the travelling public to see them get their schedules back together, and I’m meeting with them this week to understand their plans to bring the schedules back together."
His message followed figures which confirmed demand for UK flights had risen this year, coinciding with the scrapping of all coronavirus restrictions for arrivals. Heathrow recorded its busiest month since the start of the pandemic, with 4.2 million passengers using the west London airport in March.
That represented nearly an eight-fold increase on the total for the same month last year. Tim Alderslade, chief executive of trade association Airlines UK, said: “This summer should be a bumper one and for many routes we’re seeing demand above where we were in 2019.
“But we can’t lose sight of the fact the sector has been through its worst ever crisis and it will take several years to deal with the debt airlines had to take on to make it through the pandemic with no passengers."
He called on the Government to “focus ruthlessly” on where it can “really make a difference”, such as supporting the development of sustainable aviation fuels and modernising the UK’s airspace.
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