Heathrow hits back at 'bizarre' Ryanair criticism

26.07.2022, 12:12 bbc.com

The boss of Heathrow Airport has hit back at criticism from Ryanair, saying it is "bizarre" to blame airports for not having enough staff. John Holland-Kaye told the BBC it was up to airlines, not airports, to provide ground handling workers. On Monday, a Ryanair executive criticised airports for not recruiting enough staff to cater for the rebound in travellers. Thousands of passengers have faced delays and cancellations recently. A shortage of staff has contributed to the disruption. Airports and airlines, which cut jobs during Covid lockdowns, have struggled to recruit workers as demand for travel has returned. Ground handling staff are responsible for a range of services at airports, including loading and unloading baggage. The row comes as the UK's largest airport reported another loss in the first half of the year, even though people were travelling more for business and holidays. Heathrow reported an adjusted loss before tax of £321m for the six months to the end of June, down from a £787m loss at the same point last year. On Monday, Ryanair's chief financial officer said airports had not recruited enough staff to cater for the rebound in travellers, saying they "had one job to do to". Neil Sorahan said "various governments" and airports needed to be held to account for "not staffing up appropriately". Speaking to the BBC's Today programme, Mr Holland-Kaye labelled those comments as "bizarre". He added: "Airports don't provide ground handling, that's provided by the airlines themselves. So this is like accusing us of not having enough pilots." Mr Holland-Kaye said the summer getaway had started well, but added that a shortage of airline ground handling staff was a constraint on its capacity. He added punctuality had improved since it introduced a daily passenger cap. Earlier this month, Heathrow announced it was limiting the number of passengers who can depart each day over the peak summer months to 100,000. Mr Holland-Kaye said: "We've seen a material improvement in performance since it came into place. Punctuality has improved, baggage performance has improved, and that shows that the difficult decisions we took two weeks ago are having the impact so that passengers can travel with confidence at Heathrow this summer."

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