Heathrow has said it regained its status as Europe’s busiest hub airport during the summer.
About 5.8 million passengers travelled through the London airport in September, more than rivals in cities such as Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Madrid.
The figure was 15 per cent lower than the total for the same month in 2019, before the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last year, Heathrow said it had gone from being Europe’s busiest airport in 2019 to number 10 on the list.
It blamed its fall in the rankings on the UK’s coronavirus travel restrictions.
Those curbs were lifted in March and Heathrow said it recorded more passengers than other European hub airport between July and September.
But the airport said the outlook for future demand “remains uncertain” because of “growing economic headwinds, a new wave of Covid and the escalating situation in Ukraine”.
“However, we expect peak days at Christmas to be very busy," it said.
The airport said last week that it was lifting a cap on passenger numbers put in place to limit disruption due to staff shortages, in a move that offered airlines the opportunity to meet market demand.
The cap will be lifted on October 29.
Decades of flight from at Heathrow - in pictures
The airport said the passenger cap helped to balance supply and demand, as numbers dipped in July when passengers began to exceed capacity, leading to long queues and lost baggage as the lack of staff took a toll.
The cap led to disagreement with airlines, including Emirates, over demands to reduce flights.
The number of people leaving Europe’s biggest airport has been capped at 100,000 a day since July.
The airport said today: "Resource levels across the airport, airlines and their ground handlers have been increasing and we have now removed the cap.
"We are working with our airline partners to develop a more targeted mechanism, which protects passenger service during peak periods."
Heathrow said its focus in the next 12 months was to get capacity, service levels and resilience back to pre-pandemic levels.
“Heathrow has grown more in the past 12 months than any airport in Europe and we’ve delivered a great passenger experience to the vast majority of travellers," said Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye.
"While we face many economic headwinds, as well as the legacy of Covid, our aim is to get back to full capacity and the world-class service people should expect from the UK’s hub airport as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, foreign travel from the UK nearly doubled after coronavirus restrictions were lifted, according to new research.
Travel trade organisation Abta said a survey indicates that 38 per cent of people travelled abroad between March and August, compared with 21 per cent during the previous six months.
Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer, speaking at the organisation’s annual convention in Marrakesh, Morocco, said: “The lifting of the UK’s travel rules this year unleashed a surge in overseas holidays.
“Given how much these restrictions had dampened demand, it’s quite remarkable to see foreign holiday taking already reaching 70 per cent of 2019 levels, which was in itself a bumper year for travel, in such a short space of time.
“We now face an uncertain year ahead given the cost-of-living challenges, but Abta’s research suggests that we should continue to see an increase in foreign holidays next year and, encouragingly, many of our members have also been reporting a high level of demand for bookings.”
Meatless Days
Sara Suleri, with an introduction by Kamila Shamsie
Penguin
THE BIO
Age: 30
Favourite book: The Power of Habit
Favourite quote: "The world is full of good people, if you cannot find one, be one"
Favourite exercise: The snatch
Favourite colour: Blue
It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Stars: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Rating: 4/5
Polarised public
31% in UK say BBC is biased to left-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is biased to right-wing views
19% in UK say BBC is not biased at all
Source: YouGov
The Pope's itinerary
Sunday, February 3, 2019 - Rome to Abu Dhabi
1pm: departure by plane from Rome / Fiumicino to Abu Dhabi
10pm: arrival at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
Monday, February 4
12pm: welcome ceremony at the main entrance of the Presidential Palace
12.20pm: visit Abu Dhabi Crown Prince at Presidential Palace
5pm: private meeting with Muslim Council of Elders at Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
6.10pm: Inter-religious in the Founder's Memorial
Tuesday, February 5 - Abu Dhabi to Rome
9.15am: private visit to undisclosed cathedral
10.30am: public mass at Zayed Sports City – with a homily by Pope Francis
12.40pm: farewell at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
1pm: departure by plane to Rome
5pm: arrival at the Rome / Ciampino International Airport
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Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
SPECS
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
