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Travel Desk
Flights taking off and landing at Heathrow will be cut by up to a fifth during the Olympic Games, to avoid standstill at the world's busiest airport. Every airport in the South East of London will be regulated as London will have to face the arrival of an extra 500,000 international visitors on scheduled flights. First impressions are essential London's image around the world, and especially during the Olympic Games. Controlling the traffic of passengers at Heathrow airport is a necessary task as delays, loss of suitcases or congestion will have damaging effect on London’s image.
“We will be the first and last impression people have of the Olympics and the UK, and we don’t want them sitting in a stack for an hour before landing”, a spokesman for BAA, Heathrow’s airline operator, said.
A group of experts have been planning a strategy for more than a year, with several rules that the airports across the South East will have to follow from July 21 to August 15 in order to avoid disruption. Especially related to Heathrow, the world’s busiest airport, the number of take-offs and landings per hour will be reduced to 36, compared with an average of 43 or 44 during peak hours in summer, the Times has reported.
The second measure is to control the number of extra private jet flights (3,000), the extra charter flights (700) and the flights carrying heads of states (240) expected during the 17-day event. There will be a temporary ban when unscheduled “state flights”, even the US President "Air Force 1"!, will not be allowed to land at Heathrow.
Private jets and charter flights previously expected to land at the airport, will instead be sent to Stansted, Farnborough or one of the airports outside London.
In addition, tiny aerodromes have been included in the plan. All commercial flights will need a landing permit in advance if they want to land. “We cannot ignore the fact that sponsors and high-profile people will come in on their own private jets so we took the decision to co-ordinate everything as a single block of aerospace”, Chris Bosworth, the managing director of Airport Coordination Limited (ACL), the company responsible for the plan, told The Times.
The emergency measures emphasize the need to solve the problem of capacity that Heathrow is facing, as it operates at more than 99 per cent of its capacity. A small problem could cause long delays, which would mean “ a national embarrassment”, Chris Tarry, an aviation consultant said. “If there are problems, it will not create the sort of ambiance we would hope Olympic visitors take away from their trip”, he added.
Everything needs to be ready for the Olympics, a massive sport event which can bring glory or, by contrast, failure to the UK.
Reporting by Paula Planelles photo credit: Antonis Christodoulou
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