(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) London's Heathrow will not allow private jets landing during busy Olympic days to make sure the best punctuality of schedule commercial flights, according to Simon Baugh, director of media relations at BAA Airports.
There are very limited private jet flights at the Heathrow Airport and most of them are from the Middle East, Baugh said, adding: "Usually we have small number of private jet charter flights to fill in between the schedule flights and all of those won't be allowed at London Heathrow during the Olympics period. They have to go to other London airports."
He mentioned that there are 480,000 aircraft movements at Heathrow annually and out of that 476,000 are scheduled for commercial flights. So private jet slots are very small, he added.
"Headline numbers are that there are 3,500-4,000 private aircraft movements per year at Heathrow - which include everything from heads of state visits, medical emergency transits, and private aircraft. Not all movements represent flights carrying passengers-as a number are deemed as repositioning flights - i.e. passenger dropped off - flight departs empty," he said. "There is a restriction on ad hoc slots during the Olympics and we expect Stansted to manage the majority of this traffic," he added.
There are around 75 weekly scheduled commercial flights from Heathrow to Middle Eastern countries and majority of flights go to Gulf countries.
"We have 1.8 million passengers who are travelling to Dubai and another 500,000 to Abu Dhabi," Baugh said, adding that there are comparatively small numbers to Bahrain, Oman, Jeddah, Muscat and Kuwait. "We want Heathrow the European hub airport of choice people coming from Gulf countries," he added.
The Middle East is the second biggest market after North America, he said. Through schedule flights during summer season this year, Heathrow is expected to witness more than 500,000 passengers per month on average two-way Middle East travellers. It is estimated to receive 565,965 passengers in July, 563,396 in August and 462,096 in September, according to Baugh.
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