Euro falls to brink of parity with dollar; Heathrow caps passenger numbers amid travel disruption – business live | Business

Newsflash: Heathrow Airport is imposing a capacity cap of 100,000 departing passengers each day until 11 September, in an attempt to limit disruption over the summer holiday season.

Heathrow says the move will provide “better, more reliable summer journeys”, following the travel chaos that has hit UK airports, and others across Europe, since travel restrictions were lifted.

But, it also admits that some trips will either be moved to another day, another airport or be cancelled.

Heathrow asking airlines to stop selling summer tickets now. But at least 1,500 passengers who have booked flights will be affected each day, on average.

Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye says it is a ‘difficult decision’, but necessary as the airport has been struggling since passenger numbers increased.

In an open letter, he says:

“We started recruiting back in November last year in anticipation of capacity recovering this summer, and by the end of July, we will have as many people working in security as we had pre-pandemic. We have also reopened and moved 25 airlines into Terminal 4 to provide more space for passengers and grown our passenger service team.

“New colleagues are learning fast but are not yet up to full speed. However, there are some critical functions in the airport which are still significantly under resourced, in particular ground handlers, who are contracted by airlines to provide check-in staff, load and unload bags and turnaround aircraft. They are doing the very best they can with the resources available and we are giving them as much support possible, but this is a significant constraint to the airport’s overall capacity.

“However, over the past few weeks, as departing passenger numbers have regularly exceeded 100,000 a day, we have started to see periods when service drops to a level that is not acceptable: long queue times, delays for passengers requiring assistance, bags not travelling with passengers or arriving late, low punctuality and last-minute cancellations. This is due to a combination of reduced arrivals punctuality (as a result of delays at other airports and in European airspace) and increased passenger numbers starting to exceed the combined capacity of airlines, airline ground handlers and the airport.

Our colleagues are going above and beyond to get as many passengers away as possible, but we cannot put them at risk for their own safety and wellbeing.

The UK government gave airlines until last Friday to remove flights from their schedules under a ‘slot amnesty’.

Holland-Kaye says some airlines have not gone far enough, so a 100,000/day passenger cap is needed to keep Heathrow running, and limit disruption and lost luggage.

Holland-Kaye explains:

“Our assessment is that the maximum number of daily departing passengers that airlines, airline ground handlers and the airport can collectively serve over the summer is no more than 100,000. The latest forecasts indicate that even despite the amnesty, daily departing seats over the summer will average 104,000 – giving a daily excess of 4,000 seats. On average only about 1,500 of these 4,000 daily seats have currently been sold to passengers, and so we are asking our airline partners to stop selling summer tickets to limit the impact on passengers.

And he apologises to those whose trips will be affected:

“By making this intervention now, our objective is to protect flights for the vast majority of passengers at Heathrow this summer and to give confidence that everyone who does travel through the airport will have a safe and reliable journey and arrive at their destination with their bags.

We recognise that this will mean some summer journeys will either be moved to another day, another airport or be cancelled and we apologise to those whose travel plans are affected.

That slump in German investor confidence has driven the euro even close to parity with the US dollar.

In choppy trading, the single currency has now dropped back to just $1.0002 — a fresh 20-year low.

The weak ZEW survey is adding to fears of a recession, with traders already anxious that Russia might not turn on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline again once it has completed its summer maintenance work.

Ouch. Economic confidence in Germany has tumbled this month, as fears of energy disruption rise.

The ZEW Institute’s index of German investor morale has fallen to -53.8 this month, sharply down on June’s -28.

That shows that analysts are increasingly pessimism about the economic outlook, and bracing for a recession.

ZEW President Achim Wambach says analysts are more concerned about energy supplies, looming interest rate rises, and new Covid-19 lockdowns in China.

“Expectations for energy-intensive and export-oriented sectors of the economy have fallen particularly sharply.”

ZEW’s gauge of current economic conditions also weakened, to -45.8 from-27.6.

Both readings are weaker than expected.

In other Russia-related news, debt-laden gold miner Petropavlovsk plans to file for administration after sanctions on Gazprombank, its main lender and the sole buyer of its gold, left it struggling to repay loans.

Petropavlovsk’s London-listed shares have been suspended at its request and it said it will seek a hearing on the administration application at a London court in the coming days.

On the Moscow Exchange, Petropavlovsk shares hit a record low, falling by 39%, Reuters reports.

Back in March, Petropavlovsk has said it is unable to offload its gold or repay a loan because of the inclusion of Gazprombank on the UK’s sanctions list after the invasion of Ukraine.

In April, Gazprombank demanded immediate repayment of a $200m loan.

And today, Petropavlovsk warns that it is unable to repay the Term Loan at the present time and considers it “very unlikely that it will be able to refinance the Term Loan in the short term and has to date been unable to do”.