Heathrow loses title of Europe’s busiest airport

Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport overtakes London Heathrow as the most active airport in Europe.

The British airport registered an average loss of £5.5 million per day in the first nine months of 2020. Yet for decades it was the busiest airport in the old continent. As the Independent reports, the revelation was made by Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye, who announced heavy losses for the third quarter of 2020. This was largely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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The number of passengers in the third quarter fell by 84%. "Paris has overtaken Heathrow as Europe's largest airport for the first time ever, and Frankfurt and Amsterdam are rapidly gaining ground. Britain is lagging behind because we have been too slow to accept passenger testing, while European leaders have acted faster and now their economies are reaping the rewards of this timeliness," said Holland-Kaye. 

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Meanwhile, London-New York flights could resume by November in the hope that the rapid tests to intercept the contagion will provide an alternative to quarantine. Passenger fares at Heathrow are among the highest in the world, but Heathrow has presented a plan "to recover excess losses incurred over the 2020-2021 period for an extended period of time" by increasing fares. 

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