Heathrow Airport Loses 1st Place in Europe to Paris's Roissy-Charles de Gaulle

Heathrow Airport, located near the British capital, London, announced today, Wednesday, that it has lost, for the first time, its position as the first airport in Europe in the number of passengers, in favor of Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France.

A statement issued by the airport said that Amsterdam Schiphol in the Netherlands and Frankfurt in Germany airports came in the next order behind Heathrow.

The airport was affected by the quarantine measurements imposed by the United Kingdom (UK) on travelers from several countries, as well as by imposing health checks by its competitors.

The airport sustained losses of £1.5 billion before tax in the first nine months of this year, with the turnover of businesses declining by sixty percent to 951 billion pounds.

In total, 19 million passengers passed through the airport during this period, compared to 61 million in the first nine months of this year.

For the whole year 2020, 22.6 million travelers, and 37 million in 2021, are expected to pass in numbers far from pre-health crisis estimates.

"The UK backed down because we were too slow in imposing checks on travelers," said Heathrow Airport Director John Holland Kay.

He  noted  that "European officials have moved more quickly and their economies are taking advantage of that."

Nevertheless, the airport is hoping to take advantage of the British government’s promise to impose checks on international arrivals by December 1.

It is assumed that these measures, which did not convince the airlines, would allow reducing the quarantine period that Britain imposes on many countries, from 14 days to one week.

Before the Corona crisis, the airport, which is located in the west of the British capital, was the undisputed first airport in Europe and one of the main centers for air transport in the world, with a large number of customers in the tourism and business sectors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a very severe blow to the aviation sector, which suffers from reduced transport movement and the elimination of a large number of jobs, especially in Britain.