London Heathrow Airport is experiencing resurgent passenger figures, notching up a Covid-era record of 5.3 million passengers in May, about 79% of pre-pandemic levels, and an eight-fold increase on May 2021

Now that the pandemic has started to ease in terms of the travel regulations, more people are seeing this as an opportunity to travel once again. The CEO of Heathrow, believes that the airport will continue to make good gains, in regard to the capacity to come from future travellers. 90% of the airport’s passengers actually passed through security checkpoints within a 10-minute period within May, even though with the great numbers, came cancellations and delays, simply because the airport was not prepared for the great numbers of passengers moving through the airport.

CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “I’m immensely proud of the way my team has worked with airlines and other partners to ensure passengers got away during the platinum jubilee half-term. We continue to make good progress with our plans to ramp up capacity.”

The Heathrow management said operations ran smoothly last month with 90% of passengers getting through airport security within 10 minutes. The airport stands by its bid to impose inflation-busting fee hikes.

“Failure to invest risks degrading passenger experience at a time when it has never been more important,” Holland-Kaye said.

The Jubilee weekend and holiday was a pretty big moment for travelling history, so many travellers packed their bags and set off for a long weekend away with their families, only to find the intense lines and checking in queues that awaited them at the airport.

Airport staff are now working efficiently and closely together, as they are fully aware that this approaching summer may be the busiest yet for the airport. Suddenly, with summer fast approaching, many countries are easing their restrictions in aid of supporting tourism and the economy which has badly been affected by the pandemic over the past few years. However, staff are still unsure what the next few months will actually look like. It is their aim to prevent delays and future cancellations with the large influx of travellers.

Additionally, with the large number of passengers travelling back and forth every single day, the numbers will most likely create a demand on the checking on procedures and the administrative side of travelling. It is important that all airports within the UK, Heathrow and more, focus on handling the capacity with ease and efficiency. It has been years since we have seen flooding airports with great numbers, so it is normal that in that regard, airports have taken a step back in their approaches. They just need to pick up the slack now, to prevent chaos moving forward.

Ramping up airport policy smoothly, will ensure that the services of the airport will slowly meet the demands to come. While predictions of the numbers are never certain, we have never seen so many borders opened since covid, all at once. With less and less vaccine regulations all over the world, it would make sense how people would just up and book for some time away, doesn’t it?

Heathrow have taken the initiative to extend their airport plans, with a recovery plan to manage the large numbers to come. With a new terminal being reopened, this will most definitely make the movement of travellers manageable and efficient. Terminal 4 will be reopening in the final weeks of June, meaning summer is very much ready to commence.