Qatar Airways CEO slams Heathrow upheaval
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LONDON’S Heathrow Airport should have better anticipated the disruption to flights this summer and given airlines more notice of the need to trim schedules, one of its own directors has said.
Qatar Airways chief executive officer Akbar Al Baker, who represents the Mideast state’s sovereign wealth fund on the Heathrow board, told Bloomberg Television he understood staffing issues facing the hub but was “disappointed” by its lack of foresight.
“Heathrow has the right to restrict your flight because they cannot overload their facilities,” he said in an interview at the Farnborough Airshow on Monday (Jul 18). “But my question to the management would be, they should have seen this coming, and they should have taken mitigating actions.”
Heathrow took the decision last week to impose a 2-month cap on daily passenger traffic to contain travel chaos caused by staffing shortages in key areas like ground handling. The move angered airlines forced to scrap flights in the peak summer season, with Emirates President Tim Clark suggesting that he would refuse to abide by the restrictions before ultimately reaching an agreement.
Akbar said airlines ideally need to be told of curbs 3 months in advance as passengers typically book in March for July, so that halting flights just weeks in advance “has cost implications”.
Of an ongoing legal dispute with Airbus over surface degradation on A350 wide-body jets, Akbar said he remains open to a settlement but hasn’t seen a proposal to fix the issue that would be acceptable both to his airline and the Qatari air-safety regulator.
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The CEO reiterated that Airbus “illegally” walked away from a separate contract to supply A321neos and said he’s awaiting the court’s final verdict, with which Qatar Airways will comply. BLOOMBERG
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