JetBlue's Boston-London service launch still on track as Heathrow asks airlines to stop selling summer tickets
BOSTON - JetBlue is still committed to starting daily flights between Boston and London in the coming weeks, despite the recent chaos for passengers at European airports.
"We remain on track to launch daily service between Boston and London Gatwick on August 4th, and between Boston and London Heathrow on September 20th," a JetBlue spokesperson told WBZ-TV.
Heathrow Airport is asking airlines to stop selling any more tickets for travel this summer, as it announces a cap on passengers allowed to fly from the airport.
The London airport will limit passengers to 100,000 a day until September 11, as it struggles to cope with high demand and a lack of resources.
The Boston-Heathrow flights were supposed to start on August 22nd, and the first flight to Gatwick was scheduled for July 19th, but both had to be pushed back a few weeks because the planes JetBlue ordered for the new routes were not ready in time.
JetBlue says once service from Boston to London does get off the ground, it will be the only airline flying between New England and London's two busiest airports.
Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye announced the "difficult decision" on capping flyers in an open letter to passengers, saying "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... 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."
Many airlines have been working to reduce the number of passengers going in and out of Heathrow. But Holland-Kaye said Heathrow's latest forecast showed an excess number of seats had already been sold and therefore airlines needed to stop selling tickets now.
"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"
In 2018, the daily number of passengers going through Heathrow was nearly 220,000, split between arrivals and departures.
Lufthansa, which has already canceled thousands of departures from Frankfurt and Munich for the summer season, said it might make further adjustments to its schedule "for traffic peaks in August."
"Lufthansa has thus made a noticeable contribution to relieving the airports, including London Heathrow," a spokesperson told CNN Business.