Heathrow warns normal passenger levels years away

Heathrow Airport has said it is unlikely to carry as many passengers as it did before the pandemic "for a number of years," with 25% fewer seats to be filled this year than in 2019.

Britain's largest airport said it expected to carry between 60 million and 62 million passengers in 2022.

The cost of living crisis, Ukraine war and impact of Covid had hit demand for international travel, it said.

It also warned it needed to recruit 25,000 staff across the airport.

Airports and airlines have struggled to recruit workers to cope with the surge in demand after Covid travel restrictions were lifted. This led to delays and disruption for travellers during the peak summer season.

The staff shortages across the aviation industry led to Heathrow imposing a 100,000 daily cap on the number of departing passengers.

On Wednesday, Heathrow confirmed the cap would be removed at the end of October, but warned it could bring such limits back in the run-up to Christmas "if needed". It said such a move would avoid flight cancellations "due to resource pressures".

Despite lower passenger numbers, Heathrow returned a pre-tax profit of £643m in the nine months to the end of September. This followed a heavy £1.4 billion loss over the same period last year.