Heathrow said it will ask airlines to cancel more flights this summer. PA
Heathrow said it will ask airlines to cancel more flights this summer. PA
Heathrow said it will ask airlines to cancel more flights this summer. PA
Heathrow said it will ask airlines to cancel more flights this summer. PA

Heathrow chairman Lord Deighton blames 'slasher' airlines for travel chaos


Paul Carey
  • English
  • Arabic

The chairman of Heathrow Airport, Lord Paul Deighton, has laid the blame for travel chaos on airlines failing to recruit enough baggage handlers.

He said wages were not being paid at market rate and that had led to a shortage of staff. He said the whole travel industry was "grappling" with the legacy of surviving during the pandemic with no income.

European airports, particularly Heathrow, have struggled to get into gear since Covid-19 travel restrictions were dropped. Passengers have endured last-minute flight cancellations, huge queues at check-in and security, and missing luggage. It was given an ultimatum by the UK government to fix the problems swiftly.

Last week, Heathrow introduced a 100,000 daily passenger limit in an attempt to manage the disruption and ordered airlines to rip up their schedules.

This was met by resistance from some airlines, notably Emirates, which said it had enough ground crew in place and should not have to cancel flights due to Heathrow's inability to cope. Emirates' president Sir Tim Clark told Farnborough Airshow on Monday that anyone who behaved in that unacceptable fashion "would feel its wrath".

Decades of flight: Heathrow through the years - in pictures

Willie Walsh, the head of International Air Transport Association, said the management of Heathrow was "a bunch of idiots" for failing to foresee the recovery post-pandemic and the opening up of global business and tourism. "All you had to do was count up the tickets," he said.

Today, Lord Deighton maintained the fault lay with airlines' failure to recruit and defended the airport's chief executive John Holland-Kaye, who has come under fire for his handling of the situation. He denied the problem was down to a lack of planning or investment by the airport.

Writing in The Telegraph, Lord Deighton, a former Treasury official, said: “Ground handling is a highly competitive, labour intensive, low margin business, characterised by short term contracts. Airlines have driven down costs over the years, and this was one of the first costs they slashed during the pandemic.

Passengers run the gauntlet at Heathrow

“For months ground handling companies have been trying to recruit and train skilled workers, but if their airline customers aren’t willing to pay market rates, then they aren’t able to fill the posts.”

He said bosses at British Airways, which Mr Walsh formerly ran, had overseen a "decade of slashing".

He said: “For months we have been asking airlines to keep their ground handling resource in balance with demand. In the last few weeks, we have seen a shocking increase in planes departing without bags and passengers having their flights cancelled after they were already onboard."

Passenger caps have been introduced at many airports, including Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Gatwick.

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Iraq Hussein 28’

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Takreem Awards winners 2021

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Excellence in Education: World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) (Qatar)

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Who is Allegra Stratton?

 

  • Previously worked at The Guardian, BBC’s Newsnight programme and ITV News
  • Took up a public relations role for Chancellor Rishi Sunak in April 2020
  • In October 2020 she was hired to lead No 10’s planned daily televised press briefings
  • The idea was later scrapped and she was appointed spokeswoman for Cop26
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  • She has strong connections to the Conservative establishment
  • Mr Sunak served as best man at her 2011 wedding to Mr Forsyth
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Soldier F

“I was in complete disgust at the fact that only one person was to be charged for Bloody Sunday.

“Somebody later said to me, 'you just watch - they'll drop the charge against him'. And sure enough, the charges against Soldier F would go on to be dropped.

“It's pretty hard to think that 50 years on, the State is still covering up for what happened on Bloody Sunday.”

Jimmy Duddy, nephew of John Johnson

Libya's Gold

UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves. 

The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.

Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.

Australia tour of Pakistan

March 4-8: First Test, Rawalpindi

March 12-16: Second Test, Karachi

March 21-25: Third Test, Lahore

March 29: First ODI, Rawalpindi

March 31: Second ODI, Rawalpindi

April 2: Third ODI, Rawalpindi

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Unresolved crisis

Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east.

Fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed more than 14,000 people. In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal, known as the Minsk agreements, that ended large-scale hostilities but failed to bring a political settlement of the conflict.

The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Kiev of sabotaging the deal, and Ukrainian officials in recent weeks said that implementing it in full would hurt Ukraine.

'The Sky is Everywhere'

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Stars:Grace Kaufman, Pico Alexander, Jacques Colimon

Rating:2/5

T20 WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS

Qualifier A, Muscat

(All matches to be streamed live on icc.tv) 

Fixtures

Friday, February 18: 10am Oman v Nepal, Canada v Philippines; 2pm Ireland v UAE, Germany v Bahrain 

Saturday, February 19: 10am Oman v Canada, Nepal v Philippines; 2pm UAE v Germany, Ireland v Bahrain 

Monday, February 21: 10am Ireland v Germany, UAE v Bahrain; 2pm Nepal v Canada, Oman v Philippines 

Tuesday, February 22: 2pm Semi-finals 

Thursday, February 24: 2pm Final 

UAE squad:Ahmed Raza(captain), Muhammad Waseem, Chirag Suri, Vriitya Aravind, Rohan Mustafa, Kashif Daud, Zahoor Khan, Alishan Sharafu, Raja Akifullah, Karthik Meiyappan, Junaid Siddique, Basil Hameed, Zafar Farid, Mohammed Boota, Mohammed Usman, Rahul Bhatia

PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE

1 Man City    26   20   3   3   63   17   63 

2 Liverpool   25   17   6   2   64   20    57 

3 Chelsea      25   14   8  3   49   18    50 

4 Man Utd    26   13   7  6   44   34    46 

----------------------------------------

5 West Ham   26   12   6   8   45   34    42 

----------------------------------------

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7 Wolves       24  12   4   8   23   18   40 

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Profile Idealz

Company: Idealz

Founded: January 2018

Based: Dubai

Sector: E-commerce

Size: (employees): 22

Investors: Co-founders and Venture Partners (9 per cent)

Cricket World Cup League 2

UAE results
Lost to Oman by eight runs
Beat Namibia by three wickets
Lost to Oman by 12 runs
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UAE fixtures
Free admission. All fixtures broadcast live on icc.tv

Tuesday March 15, v PNG at Sharjah Cricket Stadium
Friday March 18, v Nepal at Dubai International Stadium
Saturday March 19, v PNG at Dubai International Stadium
Monday March 21, v Nepal at Dubai International Stadium

THE NEW BATCH'S FOCUS SECTORS

AiFlux – renewables, oil and gas

DevisionX – manufacturing

Event Gates – security and manufacturing

Farmdar – agriculture

Farmin – smart cities

Greener Crop – agriculture

Ipera.ai – space digitisation

Lune Technologies – fibre-optics

Monak – delivery

NutzenTech – environment

Nybl – machine learning

Occicor – shelf management

Olymon Solutions – smart automation

Pivony – user-generated data

PowerDev – energy big data

Sav – finance

Searover – renewables

Swftbox – delivery

Trade Capital Partners – FinTech

Valorafutbol – sports and entertainment

Workfam – employee engagement

The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo

The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
Price, base / as tested: Dh182,178
Engine: 3.7-litre V6
Power: 350hp @ 7,400rpm
Torque: 374Nm @ 5,200rpm
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
​​​​​​​Fuel consumption, combined: 10.5L / 100km

The team

Videographer: Jear Velasquez 

Photography: Romeo Perez 

Fashion director: Sarah Maisey 

Make-up: Gulum Erzincan at Art Factory 

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Updated: July 19, 2022, 8:01 AM