Heathrow plea to cut flights is ‘airmaggedon’, says Emirates

theguardian.com:

Emirates has accused Heathrow of “airmageddon” for demanding airlines cut summer flights in an attempt to ease travel disruption, describing the request as “entirely unreasonable and unacceptable”.

In a blistering statement, the airline accused the airport’s management of “incompetence” for not being ready to deal with the “super-peak period” for travel.

Heathrow announced on Tuesday that it is capping daily passenger numbers at 100,000 over the summer and telling airlines to stop selling tickets, in an attempt to tackle the consequences of the soaring demand for travel and staff shortages.

Apologising to those affected, Heathrow said on Tuesday that the passenger cap would mean some summer flights would either be moved to another day or airport, or cancelled.

Airlines have already slashed thousands of flights from their summer schedules after UK aviation authorities said they would not be punished for not using valuable takeoff and landing slots, with the intention of preventing last-minute cancellations.

Heathrow said the cuts did not go far enough, but Emirates – which operates six daily return flights between Britain’s busiest airport and Dubai – said it is “highly regrettable” that Heathrow gave it 36 hours on Wednesday to comply with capacity reductions “of a figure that appears to be plucked from thin air”.

The airline said: “Their communications not only dictated the specific flights on which we should throw out paying passengers, but also threatened legal action for non-compliance.”

Surging demand for summer travel after two years of Covid-19 restrictions has swamped airlines and airports in Europe, which are short-staffed after many pilots, cabin crew, check-in workers and baggage handlers were laid off. That has left