London Heathrow airport will reopen its Terminal 4 by July on the expectation of higher demand for air travel this summer.
"Demand is now starting to recover and we are working closely with airlines to scale-up our operations and reopen Terminal 4 for the summer travel peak", the airport's chief executive John Holland-Kaye said today.
Heathrow reported its lowest passenger footfall for 50 years in 2021, and the number of passengers dropped in January and February this year because of travel restrictions.
Passenger traffic fell by 12pc year-on-year to 19.4mn, and numbers are currently 23pc behind the airport's 2022 forecast for 45.5mn. Heathrow expects to hit that target because of a summer demand rally as travel restrictions ease, and flight bookings for later in the year have risen.
Several European airports reported higher passenger traffic in 2021, but Heathrow has trailed the recovery. Eurocontrol data show UK flight numbers lagged the rest of Europe last year, trailing 2019 levels by an average of 50-60pc , compared with around 30pc for all European flights.
Heathrow made a loss of £1.61bn ($2.19bn) in 2021, taking losses during the two years of the pandemic to more than £3.4bn. In 2019, the pre-pandemic year, Heathrow made a profit of £413mn, and carried nearly 81mn passengers.
