Regional focus
The UK’s largest airport has lost £3.4bn in revenue since the beginning of the pandemic and passenger numbers are still down by 60% compared with pre-Covid-19 fi gures – yet, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye remains optimistic for the future of his airport and the industry. Elly Earls fi nds out why Heathrow Airport is focusing on recruitment and reducing carbon emissions, and why now is the time for the UK air travel industry to pull together and adapt for the future.
s Heathrow Airport approached its 75th year of operations, widespread travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines halted everything
in its tracks. The UK’s largest airport went from welcoming over 15,000 passengers an hour to fewer than 400 and aviation businesses that had been operating successfully for years faced the prospect of letting tens of thousands of staff members go. John Holland-Kaye, who became Heathrow’s CEO in 2014, remembers that one of the toughest moments of the crisis for him personally was when he had to inform his colleagues that he didn’t know when it was going to be over, and that the only way forward would be to pull together and make sacrifices. Almost two years on, Heathrow has lost about £3.4bn in revenue and passenger numbers are still 60% down on pre-pandemic levels, due in part to end-of-year cancellations over Omicron-related travel restrictions. Yet, there is cause for optimism.
In November 2021, Holland-Kaye stood at the heart of the airport helping British passengers check in for their first flights to the US in over 600 days. It felt like a turning point for the airport – after all, the US market accounts for 20% of Heathrow’s passenger traffic and 31% of its cargo tonnage.
Adapt to survive A
“The atmosphere was electric and I was reminded of just what a key role our industry plays in society,” Holland-Kaye said in a speech to the Air League, an aviation and aerospace non-profit organisation, and the UK’s largest provider of scholarships and bursaries in the industry. “We bring people together – parents, children, old friends and new business partners. And despite the challenges of the Covid crisis, there was a common cause that united our sector in a way I haven’t seen before.” Clearly, the aviation sector is not out of the woods yet. The Omicron variant has resulted in countries like Israel and Japan temporarily prohibiting foreign
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