It should have been Heathrow’s comeback summer, as the bleak months of travel bans gave way to the most carefree holiday season in three years.
But long queues, cancelled flights and scathing reviews from airlines have tarnished the image of Britain’s gateway to the world.
Travelling through Heathrow has been such a dire experience for some — although airlines and border police take a share of the blame as well — that the actor Hugh Grant felt compelled to apologise, in Britain’s name, for scenes at in Terminal 3 that he described as “a disgrace and inhumane”.
And in the departures hall, hospital consultant Ammar Al Midani was so frustrated by a cancelled booking that foiled a family reunion in Lebanon, leaving his daughters distressed and in tears, that he wrote a message to Heathrow’s chief executive John Holland-Kaye: “You have to be ashamed.”
"We had two weddings in the family," he told The National. "Cancelling a flight like that for people, and everyone has his own story after the pandemic, it seems to be very, very unfair."
Heathrow is by no means the only airport under pressure. Gatwick and Luton, which also serve London, had more flight delays than Heathrow in a recent set of rankings, and passengers at regional ports such as Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow have complained of long queues.
But Heathrow is different. It is the UK's most visible gateway and is drenched in British history and culture, from Queen Elizabeth’s first footsteps back home after the death of her father to the Beatles being mobbed by fans after their first American tour.
In a recent investor brochure, Heathrow went as far as to call itself an “iconic British institution”.
While some of Britain’s airports cater unashamedly to the low-cost market, Heathrow prides itself on showing a touch of class – with lounges, spas, high-end restaurants and an all-electric chauffeur service – that sits poorly with unseemly scenes of chaos at the border.
After long queues and baggage problems, Mr Holland-Kaye tried to limit the damage to Heathrow's reputation by announcing a cap of 100,000 passengers a day until September.
But the gambit embroiled his airport in a public power struggle with Emirates airline over whether to stop selling tickets.
John Grant, the chief analyst at data company Official Airline Guide, said announcing a cap only weeks before the peak of the summer holidays was “morally indefensible”.
Heathrow told The National its own security and infrastructure were fully operational but airline ground staff, who provide check-in, load and unload luggage and turn around aircraft, were still at only 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, despite passenger numbers surging back to 80 or 85 per cent.
“We have been warning airlines for months that this capacity constraint needed addressing but there has been no change in the number of airline ground handlers since January 2022,” a Heathrow spokeswoman said.
Decades of flight at Heathrow - in pictures
Planes have been taking off from Heathrow’s corner of west London for more than a century.
The world’s first scheduled international service, from London to Paris, departed from the former Hounslow Aerodrome in 1919 carrying one passenger, a shipment of leather and some clotted cream.
By 1944, the area around the village of Heath Row had been requisitioned by the wartime government as a base for military aircraft, but after the war it was handed to civilian authorities and became known as London Airport.
What was once a single terminal, the Europa Building, had grown to four by the time Diana, Princess of Wales unveiled an expansion in 1986, and it was Heathrow where the Concorde made its inaugural passenger flight to Bahrain.
By the time Terminal 5 opened in 2008, Heathrow was one of the biggest airports on the planet, and although the building’s opening was marred by baggage problems, it soon established itself as the new home for flag carrier British Airways.
The pandemic hit hard, as it did the whole industry. Heathrow’s passenger numbers crashed and the airport lost billions. Recovery was slow in 2021 as laborious travel restrictions led to long queues.
Speaking at an aviation festival in December, Mr Holland-Kaye said “travel as we know it” would not come back until testing swabs and passenger locator forms were a thing of the past.
But that future is now largely here, certainly for people travelling to Britain, and yet normality is yet to return, with Heathrow advising passengers to arrive three hours before their flight because of expected long queues.
Staff shortages
The problems have been highly publicised. There is a shortage of staff after many people were laid off during the pandemic, and they cannot be replaced at the snap of fingers because of required security checks.
Surging demand after the pandemic means the industry is dealing with the equivalent of four decades of growth in the space of a few months, Heathrow says, putting airport infrastructure under pressure.
The airport has struggled to cope with a volume of more than 100,000 departing passengers a day, with bags arriving late, queues snaking through terminals and flights being cancelled at the 11th hour.
The threat of strikes has also loomed over Heathrow, although refuelling staff called off a four-day walkout this week.
Blaming Heathrow's staff shortages for the chaos, Mr Al Midani makes an analogy: "When, let's say, there is a patient coming to my hospital and a couple of my colleagues were Covid-positive, I had to cover them.
"You don't allow one patient to come and the second not to come."
Mr Holland-Kaye wrote in a letter to passengers that there were times when “service drops to a level that is not acceptable” but staff were going “above and beyond” to help passengers.
With airlines and airports under fire, Mr Grant said the two sides were sometimes competing for the same staff but that the high demand at Heathrow was foreseeable months ago.
Changing face of Heathrow: 1950s to 2020s
“If you look at the data from around March onwards, it’s been pointing very strongly to the fact that the industry would be operating at about 85 per cent of capacity,” he said.
“The thing at Heathrow and for the airlines at Heathrow is the bookings came in quicker, everyone hoped really that they would be able to fill these positions quicker than they have. By not being able to fill them quickly, they’ve been caught cold.
“It’s either a failure of leadership to be strong and make those decisions earlier, or a naive belief that they would be able to do what others have not been able to do, and fill those gaps.”
Heathrow baked in 40ºC weather on Tuesday as tension simmered over the passenger cap.
Emirates called it “highly regrettable” and said the figure of 100,000 “appeared to have been plucked from thin air”. It eventually reached an agreement that it would maintain its schedule but curb ticket sales.
The potshots did not stop there. Willie Walsh, a former BA boss and now head of the International Air Transport Association, told the Farnborough Airshow that Heathrow had been a “bunch of idiots” for failing to foresee the problems.
And the head of Qatar Airways, also a board member at Heathrow, said he was disappointed by the airport’s performance and said it “should have seen this coming … they should have taken mitigating actions”.
Heathrow rejects the accusation of having failed to prepare, saying it started recruiting extra staff last November, is better placed than one of its main rivals, Amsterdam Schippol, and that others are also imposing caps.
Mr Grant said a low cancellation rate at Ryanair this summer showed that chaos was not inevitable — “that proves that it can be done” — but that problems should ease later in the year when peak demand eases off.
Ministers have said they will help to streamline recruitment and offered an amnesty in which carriers could cut their schedules without giving up precious slots at the airport.
But the main message from the government is that airlines and airports should come together and sort things out.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said there was “no excuse” for major disruption and he would not “pull the lever marked 'more immigration'” as some countries have done.
Heathrow has fought back, putting its case that circumstances and partners have weighed on its position.
“The aviation industry has faced 40 years of growth in just four months and that has put the entire sector under pressure," it said.
"The airport is only responsible for providing infrastructure and airport security, which are fully operational and this month we will have the same security capacity as we had back in summer 2019.
"The airlines and their contractors provide every other element of the journey.
“Without an increase in airline ground handlers, Heathrow had to put in place a limit on daily departing passengers based on the amount of passengers that airline ground handling teams could serve.
"The cap is something in place at many airports around the world – including Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Gatwick.
"The fact that the cap at Heathrow is over 50 per cent higher than that at Schiphol, our nearest rival, shows how much better we have planned than our competitors.”
Regardless of who is to blame, there is no denying the situation at Heathrow is damaging its reputation, with the prospect of turbulence for passengers still a reality.
Zayed Sustainability Prize
The biog
Simon Nadim has completed 7,000 dives.
The hardest dive in the UAE is the German U-boat 110m down off the Fujairah coast.
As a child, he loved the documentaries of Jacques Cousteau
He also led a team that discovered the long-lost portion of the Ines oil tanker.
If you are interested in diving, he runs the XR Hub Dive Centre in Fujairah
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
- Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
Brief scores:
QPR 0
Watford 1
Capoue 45' 1
HIJRA
Starring: Lamar Faden, Khairiah Nathmy, Nawaf Al-Dhufairy
Director: Shahad Ameen
Rating: 3/5
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The bio
Date of Birth: April 25, 1993
Place of Birth: Dubai, UAE
Marital Status: Single
School: Al Sufouh in Jumeirah, Dubai
University: Emirates Airline National Cadet Programme and Hamdan University
Job Title: Pilot, First Officer
Number of hours flying in a Boeing 777: 1,200
Number of flights: Approximately 300
Hobbies: Exercising
Nicest destination: Milan, New Zealand, Seattle for shopping
Least nice destination: Kabul, but someone has to do it. It’s not scary but at least you can tick the box that you’ve been
Favourite place to visit: Dubai, there’s no place like home
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
What is dialysis?
Dialysis is a way of cleaning your blood when your kidneys fail and can no longer do the job.
It gets rid of your body's wastes, extra salt and water, and helps to control your blood pressure. The main cause of kidney failure is diabetes and hypertension.
There are two kinds of dialysis — haemodialysis and peritoneal.
In haemodialysis, blood is pumped out of your body to an artificial kidney machine that filter your blood and returns it to your body by tubes.
In peritoneal dialysis, the inside lining of your own belly acts as a natural filter. Wastes are taken out by means of a cleansing fluid which is washed in and out of your belly in cycles.
It isn’t an option for everyone but if eligible, can be done at home by the patient or caregiver. This, as opposed to home haemodialysis, is covered by insurance in the UAE.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
How tumultuous protests grew
- A fuel tax protest by French drivers appealed to wider anti-government sentiment
- Unlike previous French demonstrations there was no trade union or organised movement involved
- Demonstrators responded to online petitions and flooded squares to block traffic
- At its height there were almost 300,000 on the streets in support
- Named after the high visibility jackets that drivers must keep in cars
- Clashes soon turned violent as thousands fought with police at cordons
- An estimated two dozen people lost eyes and many others were admitted to hospital
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The years Ramadan fell in May
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
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Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
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Read more from Aya Iskandarani
What to watch out for:
Algae, waste coffee grounds and orange peels will be used in the pavilion's walls and gangways
The hulls of three ships will be used for the roof
The hulls will painted to make the largest Italian tricolour in the country’s history
Several pillars more than 20 metres high will support the structure
Roughly 15 tonnes of steel will be used
Strait of Hormuz
Fujairah is a crucial hub for fuel storage and is just outside the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route linking Middle East oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond.
The strait is 33 km wide at its narrowest point, but the shipping lane is just three km wide in either direction. Almost a fifth of oil consumed across the world passes through the strait.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait, a move that would risk inviting geopolitical and economic turmoil.
Last month, Iran issued a new warning that it would block the strait, if it was prevented from using the waterway following a US decision to end exemptions from sanctions for major Iranian oil importers.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Infiniti QX80 specs
Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6
Power: 450hp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
Available: Now
Zayed Sustainability Prize
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
The five pillars of Islam
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The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
Greatest Royal Rumble results
John Cena pinned Triple H in a singles match
Cedric Alexander retained the WWE Cruiserweight title against Kalisto
Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt win the Raw Tag Team titles against Cesaro and Sheamus
Jeff Hardy retained the United States title against Jinder Mahal
Bludgeon Brothers retain the SmackDown Tag Team titles against the Usos
Seth Rollins retains the Intercontinental title against The Miz, Finn Balor and Samoa Joe
AJ Styles remains WWE World Heavyweight champion after he and Shinsuke Nakamura are both counted out
The Undertaker beats Rusev in a casket match
Brock Lesnar retains the WWE Universal title against Roman Reigns in a steel cage match
Braun Strowman won the 50-man Royal Rumble by eliminating Big Cass last
Day 1 results:
Open Men (bonus points in brackets)
New Zealand 125 (1) beat UAE 111 (3)
India 111 (4) beat Singapore 75 (0)
South Africa 66 (2) beat Sri Lanka 57 (2)
Australia 126 (4) beat Malaysia -16 (0)
Open Women
New Zealand 64 (2) beat South Africa 57 (2)
England 69 (3) beat UAE 63 (1)
Australia 124 (4) beat UAE 23 (0)
New Zealand 74 (2) beat England 55 (2)
Drivers’ championship standings after Singapore:
1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - 263
2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari - 235
3. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes - 212
4. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull - 162
5. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari - 138
6. Sergio Perez, Force India - 68
RESULTS
Welterweight
Tohir Zhuraev (TJK) beat Mostafa Radi (PAL)
(Unanimous points decision)
Catchweight 75kg
Anas Siraj Mounir (MAR) beat Leandro Martins (BRA)
(Second round knockout)
Flyweight (female)
Manon Fiorot (FRA) beat Corinne Laframboise (CAN)
(RSC in third round)
Featherweight
Bogdan Kirilenko (UZB) beat Ahmed Al Darmaki
(Disqualification)
Lightweight
Izzedine Al Derabani (JOR) beat Rey Nacionales (PHI)
(Unanimous points)
Featherweight
Yousef Al Housani (UAE) beat Mohamed Fargan (IND)
(TKO first round)
Catchweight 69kg
Jung Han-gook (KOR) beat Max Lima (BRA)
(First round submission by foot-lock)
Catchweight 71kg
Usman Nurmogamedov (RUS) beat Jerry Kvarnstrom (FIN)
(TKO round 1).
Featherweight title (5 rounds)
Lee Do-gyeom (KOR) v Alexandru Chitoran (ROU)
(TKO round 1).
Lightweight title (5 rounds)
Bruno Machado (BRA) beat Mike Santiago (USA)
(RSC round 2).
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
