The management of London Heathrow Airport has attributed the delays being experienced by travelers to passengers with too much makeup. As airports struggle with baggage management, air traffic control, and security, travelers have experienced flight delays, cancellations, and long queues.
Speaking on Tuesday morning, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye attributed delays to people "traveling with more than they normally would" and not checking their makeup. He also said some travelers were using social media "hacks" and pretended to be incapacitated to bypass lines.
He revealed this to Nick Ferrari of LBC. "Every single lane is open and that’s because we have hired as many people working in security as we had before the pandemic."
“A lot of them are new, so they are taking time to settle in, and a lot of passengers are traveling with more than they would normally take. They have got more bags and more liquids in their bags, so that takes a little bit longer.”
He also added, "You’ll know that DfT regulations say that people can only travel with one one-liter transparent bag, and people tend not to think of makeup as being prohibited from travel, so there’s a lot of education that we need to do with people."
Heathrow Airport announced a £321 million pretax deficit for the first half of the year. The airport's CEO has accused airlines of failing to hire enough ground staff. Heathrow limited daily passenger capacity to 100,000 until September 11 due to the World Pandemic influenza pandemic.
"Ground handlers are the backbone of what you think of as being the airport, but they are employed by the airlines," he said.
"They did a very good job through until the beginning of June, but the demand was just getting too much for them, so we had to take action."
When asked about claims that dozens of wheelchair users are delayed each month because there isn't enough staff to help them board and exit aircraft, Mr. Holland-Kaye asserted that some passengers are acting disabled.
"We have seen demand has gone up significantly," he said.
“Some of this is because people are using the wheelchair support to try and get fast-tracked through the airport. That is absolutely the wrong thing to do.
“If you go on Tiktok, you will see that it is one of the travel hacks people are recommending. Please don’t do that. "
Mr. Holland-Kaye insisted Heathrow operations were "doing well" despite some passengers experiencing lines and cancellations.
"I'm proud of the hard work everyone at Heathrow is doing, which has helped millions of people get away already, and will help millions more travel on their well-earned summer breaks in the weeks ahead," he stated.
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