Emirates fully-prepared for a battle with LHR
 

Emirates have issued a withering statement in response to the demand by LHR that airlines must cut capacity during the UK summer peak travel period.

It is taking a strong stand and is - understandably - not willing to accept what it sees as a perverse imposition from Heathrow management whose competence is, as we all know, being called into question not just by many carriers but by the flying public too.

A well-constructed article here from OMAAT ………

https://onemileatatime.com/news/emir...NhQDpMEjEJpjT0

Kudos to EK. While other airlines have cancelled flights to AMS & LHR, or cut capacity, they have continued to service their pax. Only last month KL stranded their pax around the world flying empty aircraft back to AMS. QF’s network is thrown into disarray when one of their A388s goes tech. EK appears to be the most reliable airline in the current climate.

I’m curious if dnata ground handling avoids the luggage chaos at affected airports?

I imagine it will and dnata will be under orders to prioritize EK flights where possible right now, definitely one of the benefits of flying EK this year!

What really upsets me is that LHR and all other UK airports have been moaning for months that all sorts of Covid related restrictions were killing their business, the businesses around their airports etc etc. As soon as restrictions were lifted, the passengers who they so badly wanted to use their airports came back.
Is that a surprise?? It would appear that they had not done any scenario planning on how to handle the step change in passenger volumes.
I struggle to have any sympathy for LHR, LGW etc etc (including AMS by the way). When you lay off 10’s of thousands of people, you better have a plan to get them back. Or do you expect them to sit at home, going hungry and waiting to be recalled? Come on!

Kudos to to EK.

I think they are under playing the effect on NHS workers returning to visit families issue and over playing leisure.

My partner just returned from The Philippines on QR.

Both ways ex MAN at least 10% of passengers were Asian NHS etc workers getting home to see family for the first time for at least 2 years.

And paying crazy flight prices as well as UK health surcharges of £624 per year on top of regular NIC's!

Health care workers get the immigration health surcharge refunded I understand?

https://www.gov.uk/apply-immigration...rcharge-refund

To be fair to the UK aviation industry, they experienced over a year of insane travel restrictions (it was quite clear COVID was spreading across borders irrespective of aviation being closed). Furlough finished circa November 2021 yet travel restrictions continued. Then circa March 2022, the government removed all travel restrictions pretty much overnight whilst also having recently introduced counter terrorism checks on airside pass holders. Depending on the role, many aviation jobs take several months to train and certify staff. So in March, the government suddenly announced aviation should resume without giving thought to the whole recertification of staff and CTC checks.

Whilst I sympathize with your frustrations, I am sure the shareholders of BA, MAG, Swissport etc would have been mightily upset if these organisations had maintained a full staff throughout COVID (or when no furlough was available) waiting and waiting for the government to remove its insane travel restrictions and restart aviation.

And it looks like they are losing the battle, they've just zeroed out inventory from London all airports till 31 July.... and my EK 8 on 18 July seat map still showing 5 out of 14 f seats unoccupied. Yesterday it was F4 A4 J6 C6 now all showing 0 and this is on all flights till 31 july. From 1 August, some availability showing.

Update here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62182881