Operational Update - 2 Feb 2021

02 Feb 2021

The following is an update on the number of flight movements we expect to see at Heathrow in February along with our plans for runway operations.

Flight movements

At the beginning of January we outlined how we expected to see between 250-460 flight movements during January due to the current national lockdown, travel bans imposed as a result of the new COVID-19 variant, potential changes to the testing regime and the impact of Brexit. The lowest daily number of flights in the month was 252 (26 January) and the highest was 432 (3 January), closely in line with our estimates.

We are expecting flight and passenger numbers to be lower in February with a range of 200-395 flight movements a day. The range is large due to the uncertainty over when travel restrictions and lockdown will be lifted, as well as the usual daily variation that we’ve seen exacerbated through the pandemic. However, these numbers could vary as airline schedules are continuously being revised.

Runway operations

As mentioned in our previous update, on 1 January 2021 we consolidated our operations and returned to single runway operations due to the significant reduction in passenger numbers at Heathrow in addition to resourcing constraints.

At present we are not able to predict how long we will need to operate in this way, but we will continue to review this situation and will look to revert to our usual operation when the number of daily aircraft movements significantly increases. We will keep you updated to confirm when we expect to operate from both runways again.