Managers say it will be a “huge logistical challenge” to recruit and train 25,000 people to return the airport to pre-COVID capacity.
The UK’s busiest airport is still less busy than it was before the pandemic, but it is planning measures to avoid Christmas travel chaos.
Demand for air travel is still below 2019 pre-pandemic levels, Heathrow Airport said, with numbers expected to be down a quarter on 2019 for the whole of 2022 at between 60 and 62 million people.
The numbers won’t return to 2019 levels for a number of years, the airport said in its financial results for the nine months ending 30 September.
Heathrow served 18 million passengers over the summer, more than any other European hub.
Airport bosses blamed the headwinds of a global economic crisis, the war in Ukraine, and the impact of COVID-19 for the lower passenger numbers.
But there was some good news for the airport as it managed to turn a £1.4bn loss in the first three quarters of last year into a £643m profit this year.
In order to bring up passenger numbers and cope with peak demand, the “huge logistical challenge” of recruiting and training 25,000 security-cleared staff needs to be done by businesses across the airport.