Heathrow passenger numbers lowest for 50 years

Heathrow airport has said its passenger numbers fell to their lowest level for 50 years in 2021, as the pandemic restricted air travel.

The UK's largest airport does not expect numbers to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2025 or 2026, chief executive John Holland Kaye said.

However, it is "expecting a surge of Brits heading for summer sun" in 2022.

Heathrow passenger numbers in 2021 fell to 19.4 million, down from 22 million in 2020 and the lowest since 1972.

Before the pandemic the airport had about 80 million passengers per year.

The airport blamed the reduction on the UK having tighter travel restrictions than most European Union countries during the pandemic.

Mr Holland Kaye told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme: "It's going to take a little time, a few years, before we get back to the kind of passenger numbers we experienced before the pandemic.

"I think it'll be probably 2025, 2026, before we fully get back there."

He added: "We need to not only get rid of all of the testing and quarantine requirements that exist around the world, but also the risk that new requirements will be imposed at short notice that could mean you're stuck in a country you don't want to be in, because of a new variant of concern."

"That's exactly what happened early in December, and passengers need to be confident that's not going to happen again if we have another variant of concern," he said.