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Excerpt below from DT portal. Will other airlines comply with the suggested cap? What will Heathrow do?
'Emirates is refusing to comply with an order from Heathrow to cancel flights to comply with a cap on passenger numbers.
Emirates said it would not cut services from the UK’s busiest airport in a row that risks rebellions by rival airlines serving Heathrow.
The Dubai carrier said demands to cap passenger numbers – and therefore force flight cancellations – “were entirely unreasonable and unacceptable, and we reject these demands”.
Heathrow announced on Tuesday that it would limit the number of passengers it welcomes to 100,000 a day over the summer to avoid worsening travel chaos.
The move would effectively force airlines to cancel more than 1,000 flights over the crucial summer holiday period.
But Emirates, run by British executive Sir Tim Clark, this morning hit back in a statement: “[London Heathrow] last evening gave us 36 hours to comply with capacity cuts, of a figure that appears to be plucked from thin air.
“Their communications not only dictated the specific flights on which we should throw out paying passengers, but also threatened legal action for non-compliance.
“Until further notice, Emirates plans to operate as scheduled to and from Heathrow.”
Heathrow has been contacted for comment.'

Gallego and Sean Doyle, the former Aer Lingus chief he appointed as head of British Airways, have been criticised for cutting too many staff during the pandemic; BA shed 10,000 workers. Unions such as Unite have declared that this poor treatment has made it harder for the airline to recruit workers again now demand from customers has returned.
However, Gallego stood by the decision: “Did we go too far? To be honest, no. When you are in a situation where you cannot fly, all your aircraft are grounded, you have huge fixed costs and you are losing a lot of money every day, you need to find a way to survive.
The main shortage now is in ground handlers. BA directly employs a larger proportion of the teams that load and unload baggage than other airlines, and recently agreed with Unite to offer those at Gatwick a 10 per cent pay rise. Unite is currently balloting BA check-in staff at Heathrow over pay.
Gallego said inflation in wages is making hiring tough, but he primarily blamed Britain’s exit from the EU for BA’s difficulties in recruitment. “Whether you like Brexit or not, the fact is that people who could work here before cannot work any more, so we are competing for a reduced pool of people.”
EasyJet has been careful not to blame Brexit, but aviation sources say it is suffering similarly.
Britain’s departure from the EU has also made it far more complicated for UK airlines to lease aircraft complete with crew, maintenance and insurance (ACMI). Known as “wet leases”, these ACMI deals are commonly used to help ramp up capacity quickly.
Gallego and his fellow UK airline bosses want the government to allow EU aviation workers onto the UK visa list and relax the 100-day process that it takes to carry out security vetting on potential employees. At present, airport staff must obtain five years of continuous employment history, which is particularly difficult given that many of these people lost jobs or moved between multiple roles during the pandemic.
The IAG chief also wants the government to ease regulations on the use by airlines of their slots at airports. Under UK rules, if they do not operate 70 per cent of their slots, they can be stripped of them. This in effect forces airlines to run at that capacity even if they do not have the staff to operate the flights, or the passengers to fill them. In Europe, the minimum is 64 per cent.
On Tuesday, airline executives will be hauled in front of MPs on the business, energy and industrial strategy select committee for a likely mauling over the flights chaos. Airlines will doubtless be chastised for the misery suffered by so many families.
MPs will want to know whether the summer holiday season will be better for passengers than the May half-term.
Heathrow’s chief executive John Holland-Kaye has warned that the industry could take 18 months to recover. Gallego is looking shorter term. Of the summer holidays, he said: “We want to improve for sure, and BA is putting in a lot of effort.

Gallego recalls how the famous “traffic light” system that dictated which countries Britain would accept travellers from “changed, like, ten or 11 times in a few months ... Then, before Easter, we left all restrictions suddenly, without any co-ordination.”
Airlines — and the ecosystem of tens of thousands of airport staff, air traffic controllers and ground handlers — cannot be turned on and off at the flick of a switch, he said. All areas have staff shortages.
With regard to Shapps’s attacks on the industry, he added: “We were surprised and we want to explain what is happening, because it is not fair to tell the public that this is all caused by the airlines.
“Can we do it better? For sure. Do we have our own problems? For sure. But everybody needs to understand they can do things better.”
That includes the British government, in Gallego’s reckoning.
IAG, which also owns Aer Lingus in Ireland and Iberia and Vueling in Spain, can be seen as something of a litmus test for how various governments have enabled their airline industries to get back on their feet. The evidence does not reflect well on Boris Johnson.
The most recent monthly data — for April — at IAG’s operations shows that in Spain, Vueling had nearly 97 per cent of 2019 capacity up and running, with punctuality at 89 per cent. Meanwhile, Iberia was at 88 per cent capacity and 90 per cent punctuality.
In Ireland, Aer Lingus was operating at 84 per cent capacity, with punctuality at nearly 80 per cent. In the UK, British Airways was operating at 67 per cent capacity and 68 per cent punctuality.
It could, of course, be that BA is uniquely badly run within the IAG group. It does have a reputation for poor IT systems hobbled by underinvestment. But Gallego puts his UK operation’s poor performance down largely to the unique way in which the British government dealt with the pandemic.
Britain, he said, did less to support airlines than most other countries. “In Spain, the furlough scheme offered more money for employees and lasted right through until March. The British scheme ended in September 2021, even before Omicron hit.”
He added: “The Irish government put on more restrictions than others, so we needed to cut employment there, but now the recovery is going smoother than it is in the UK.”
The American government covered airlines’ payrolls so fewer staff were fired, while Lufthansa, Air France and others got big state handouts. “In Britain, the vaccination programme was very good, but all the changes in [Covid] policies — traffic lights, the various other restrictions — were a nightmare.” It is not just Gallego and the airline industry saying that. The transport select committee of MPs found that the government’s travel rules had been inconsistent, leaving the industry and customers confused.

The jubilee holiday may be receding into the country’s memory, but the chaos at Britain’s airports that marked that fateful week will be here for a long time yet.
Last Wednesday — days after the half-term vacation rush — Heathrow’s Terminal 3 was plunged once more into turmoil. Queues snaked from the departure gates on the top floor, down the escalators (which had to be switched off), into the check-in hall below and out through the doors to the concourse.
Said one airport worker on a quieter morning a couple of days later: “It was just crazy. It’s fine now, but the afternoon shift might be a nightmare — there are so many cancellations, you just can’t tell.”
Over at Terminal 5, Neil and Valerie Sharp, both 62, were waiting for their flight to Vancouver with British Airways for their 25th wedding anniversary. “We’ve had a few sleepless nights after seeing on the telly what was happening last week,” said Valerie. “BA cancelled our return flights but they transferred us to another pretty smoothly, and they told us about it a month ago.”
They are far from alone. Realising it did not have enough staff to cope with scheduled bookings, BA decided two months ago to cancel about 10 per cent of its flights for the summer, moving customers to other slots where possible.
EasyJet, some insiders at the airline now quietly admit, took too long to make a similar decision, and its customers suffered more chaos than those of most other airlines during the jubilee holiday.
Now transport secretary Grant Shapps has rounded on the industry, suggesting its incompetence led to it “overbooking” — selling tickets and holidays that it knew it could never provide.
The industry hit back, with Willie Walsh, former chief executive of the IAG group, owner of BA, last week condemning “idiot” politicians telling airlines they should have ramped up their operations sooner. Walsh, now director-general of the International Air Transport Association, said airlines would have gone bust had they followed Shapps’s advice, because the government kept restricting travel due to Covid.
As it was, IAG lost €3 billion (£2.5 billion) last year, and in the first quarter of this year alone lost a further €731 million.
Walsh’s replacement, Real Madrid fanatic Luis Gallego, is not as hot-headed as his former mentor — but, sitting in his open-plan office near Terminal 5, he is clearly not happy with the transport secretary’s noisy posturing.
“The government has to take some accountability for all this and work with us in a constructive way,” he said.
“They have said the problem was that we overbooked and didn’t forecast demand, but forecasting demand is one thing we as airlines know how to do ... The more difficult thing has been to forecast what the government is going to do.”

Extract below translated via Google, article link here
https://www.finanzas.com/ibex-35/iag-la-liquidez-y-el-optimismo-con-iberia-compensan-las-carencias-de-british-airways.html

The current image given by the emblem of IAG , British Airways , is not experiencing its best moment and the airline holding company is clinging to the liquidity and prospects of its second brand, Iberia, to solve the situation.
The British airline's contribution to the group's accounts is essential for IAG to return to profitability, but delays, cancellations and computer failures are making it difficult for it to put enough planes in the sky for current demand.
British Airways is struggling to cope with pent-up demand and according to aviation data provider Cirium , the company has canceled 1,244 flights this year. That is, 1 out of every 20 of those scheduled.
The published report reflects that the shortcomings are greater for its competitors and the group's main shareholder, Qatar Airways , is pressuring the parent company to recover the good brand image of the flagship, according to the Financial Times .
The wake-up call comes after an investment of billions of dollars to improve British Airways' business flight offer, from which the airline achieves large margins for the group and which are now stressed by operational failures.
The problem could have crudely dragged IAG shares, which are trading practically flat on the IBEX 35 so far this year, to 1.7 euros, although they have lost nearly 30 percent in the last 12 months.
Given the situation, IAG clings to its ability to generate liquidity at the group level despite the continuous burning of cash due to the restrictions derived from the coronavirus
The latest accounts offered by IAG, those of the accumulated 2021, reflect that the cash increased by 2,026 million euros compared to a year ago, to 7,943 million euros, and the general and committed aircraft financing lines and not used rose by 4,043 million , to a total liquidity of 11,986 million. Despite this, the debt grew 19.5 percent, to 11,667 million.
Iberia is positioning itself as another bastion to face the uncertainties of IAG and it was already demonstrated in the accounts. While British Airways revenue fell 6 percent, Iberia grew 23 percent.
The same happened with the low-cost companies associated with both brands with a drop in turnover of 20 percent for Air Lingus and a rise of 77 percent for Vueling .
In addition, Iberia has recovered 90 percent of its capacity for this Easter week compared to the same period in 2019, before the pandemic, and maintains the perspective of 85 percent for the summer .
Thanks to the known data for Easter, the IAG titles move this week in their best promotion records since mid-February with an accumulated rise that is close to 10 percent.
This week, the CEO of Iberia, Javier Sánchez-Prieto , commented at an event organized by IATA , the international airline employer, that they plan to reach 100 perc

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