Heathrow Airport had its best ever day for punctual departures last month on Tuesday 22 March when 94 per cent of all departures were on time.
As well as this, 93.9 per cent of arrivals were also on time - no later than 15 minutes after the scheduled time, the measurement used across the world for all modes of transport. March was also Heathrow’s second best ever on record for departures punctuality at 85.1 per cent, coming a close second to October 2009 at 85.7 per cent.
Due to the capacity constraints at Heathrow, the slightest thing can affect the operation – such as strong winds or fog. These things cannot be controlled by operators BAA, or the airlines flying the planes or separate ground handling companies who deal with them on the ground.
Two days in the month were significantly impacted by strong winds and a 35 minute runway closure due to a disabled aircraft. Heathrow’s operation is very sensitive to such things because it operates pretty much at capacity with no headroom.
Nick Cullen, Heathrow’s chief operating officer, said:
“This shows that when we’re not suffering from things beyond our control, like bad weather or strikes, we can run a smooth operation and get people away on time. Although we still need to improve, these stats demonstrate that the commitment of Heathrow’s 77,000 staff is starting to pay off with some real improvements. Because we’ve got such a complex operation, we’re looking at how we can work more closely with ground handling companies who deal with planes on the ground and be more collaborative with the 90 airlines we’ve got here.”
Notes for editors
Below are explanations of what ‘being at capacity’ means and what ground handlers do at Heathrow.
What does running at capacity mean for Heathrow?
When people say Heathrow is ‘running at full capacity’ what they mean is that there is no more space.
Almost every slot during standard operating hours of 6am to 11.30pm is taken up and flights are capped at 480,000 each year. Heathrow’s two runways are among the most efficiently used in anywhere in the world, with planes able to land and take off just 45 seconds apart.
Passenger numbers can still grow through the same planes being fuller or by airlines running larger jets. Heathrow’s £5bn capital investment programme is improving the terminals so they are more spacious, more modern and better suited to handling 70 million customers a year. The brand new Terminal 2 will replace the old Terminals 1 and 2 but it won’t create any new capacity for planes to land.
On average, around 40 to 44 aircraft take off every hour and at peak times more than 220,000 passengers use the airport each day. When problems arise, it is therefore much harder to recover than at other airports where there is more capacity (either because they have less passengers or just have more space). With so many people and planes crammed into the operation, any displacement has wide ramifications.
A comparison we all experience could involve supermarkets that may have additional till points empty for peak times. When they get busy, they create more capacity to relieve congestion by opening another till. Problems can be quickly solved by the operation’s ability to flex its capacity.
At Heathrow, there is nowhere for the congestion to go. This isn’t down to a poor operation or bad management, it is just a reality of being the world’s busiest international airport and operating at full capacity much of the time. Heathrow is vital to the UK economy and Colin Matthews has made significant improvements to it during his three and half years as CEO. Without all the flights Heathrow offers to 180 destinations, we would have to rely on Paris or Amsterdam to connect with the world.
Simply put, there is no slack in the Heathrow operation – which means that when problems arise there is always a knock-on effect. Those problems are often out of Heathrow’s direct control and an issue at another airport or on an aircraft can trigger a domino-effect chain of events.
For example, fog and strong winds mean that less planes are allowed to land in a given period. It’s down to safety. If visibility is reduced by fog, rather than having one plane in and out every 45 secs, the time gap will be increased. This means delays build up in the sky – (referred to as ‘stacking’) – as planes circle the airport, burning up fuel. Allowing them to land quicker would mean less noise and less pollution, but with the runway infrastructure it has, there is nothing Heathrow can do.
When the stack becomes too big, air traffic control have to then contact the departure airports of other incoming planes to request that they wait on the ground rather than queue in the air when they arrive. This saves needless fuel usage and pollution.
The capacity crunch is difficult from everyone’s perspective. It’s all a circle: once airlines cancel the difficulty is telling people to stop them coming. If Heathrow had more capacity it would have a great ability to recover its schedule quickly and cope with fluctuations in demand without forcing airlines to reduce their flights.
So with the operation’s resilience hampered by a lack of spare capacity, when operations have to be cut back at short notice (due to weather or a security threat), airlines are forced to cut demand, even though that demand still exists. With 90 airlines flying in and out of Heathrow, the challenge to operators is working more closely together and collaborating more so that problems out of everyone’s control can be solved as quickly as possible.
Heathrow background brief
What do ground handlers do?
At Heathrow, ground handlers are responsible for the majority of things that happen to aircraft while they’re on the ground. This can include everything from checking in luggage and boarding passengers (‘passenger handlers’) to draining sewage and refuelling planes before towing them into parking bays (‘ramp handlers’).
Some ground handlers are third party companies contracted by airlines while others are wholly owned by airlines, although others will often hire their services. Airlines with less-frequent flight schedules or fewer resources at a particular location sometimes subcontract ground handling or on-call aircraft maintenance to another airline, as it is a short-term cheaper alternative to setting up its own ground handling or maintenance capabilities.
The ‘ramp’ is the area away from the runway/taxiway where planes are sorted out before departing. For examples, ramp handlers would have been vital in helping with de-icing operations and in towing planes away from parking bays to enable snow to be cleared.
Ramp handling at Heathrow is carried out by 11 companies. Some of these include British Airways, American Airlines, United Airlines and Alitalia who all ‘self handle’ as well as third party firms including Cobalt, Plane Handling, Servisair and ASIG.
Their duties would include:
- Moving air bridges and mobile stairs for alighting passengers
- Loading baggage and cargo
- Towing aircraft into and away from parking stands
- De-icing planes
