The Emirates-Heathrow disagreement over the airport's reduced capacity is showing signs of mending, with alternate arrangements being made by the carrier. Heathrow has been in the news lately after announcing capacity cuts, taking several airlines by surprise, with Emirates voicing its disagreement in strong words.

Finding a way

Emirates' relationship with London Heathrow has seen better days. With the airport being one of the carrier's top destinations, Emirates did not take Heathrow's sudden capacity cut well.

Soon after Heathrow announced the new measures, Emirates responded sharply, saying that it had no intention to abide by the airport's rule, as doing so would cause severe disruption to its schedule and booked passengers. The airline called the move "highly regrettable," "unreasonable," and "unacceptable."

The airline reminded Heathrow of handling a daily average of 219,000 passengers in 2019 and said that its management team was "cavalier about travelers and their airline customers" and had failed to rehire enough staff in advance of the predictable surge in summer travel.

But soon after, Emirates' president Sir Tim Clark and Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye held a meeting willing to work together to remediate the situation to keep demand and capacity in balance.

Emirates said that it had capped further sales on its flights out of Heathrow until mid-August to assist the airport in its resource ramp-up but will operate as scheduled and allow already ticketed passengers to travel as booked.

Additional Gatwick service

On July 22nd, Emirates announced that it will increase the frequency of its services to/from London Gatwick Airport by adding a third daily flight, effective July 27th until August 3rd.

The flight has been announced to serve high demand from customers traveling to and from London this summer and provide additional seats to accommodate Emirates passengers affected by capacity adjustments on flights from London Heathrow.

Emirates will deploy its Boeing 777 aircraft for the additional flight offering a three-class configuration. Flight EK011 and EK012 will operate to and out of London Gatwick in the morning.

Emirates will also go ahead with its planned re-start of the daily service to London Stansted on August 1st, apart from maintaining its daily schedule of six flights to London Heathrow.

Heathrow under the microscope

While airports across Europe are dealing with staff shortages and traveling chaos, London Heathrow, in particular, has come under fire lately. At this year's Farnborough Airshow, both Tim Clark and IATA Director General Willie Walsh said that Heathrow should have been better prepared.

Walsh called Heathrow "a bunch of idiots" for handling the present situation and said that when it comes to running airports, "they just don't know how to do it."

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Clark, too, questioned Heathrow's management, asking what they were doing all through 2021 about plans for a future return of air travel. He even cited Emirates as an example, saying how the carrier had planned its fleet re-introduction and rehiring of crew according to the evolving COVID situation.

Hopefully, the additional flight to Gatwick will help ease the airline's operational challenges and also the traveling plans of passengers booked to London.

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