Heathrow airport has said it experienced a 90,000 decline in passenger numbers on routes included in a £10 a person government scheme.
It described the electronic travel authorisation (ETA) system as “devastating for our hub competitiveness”.
The Conservative government introduced ETAs in November 2023 for people entering or transiting through the UK without legal residence or a visa.
ETAs, which cost £10, are required for nationals of Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
The programme is scheduled to be extended to the rest of the world this autumn, although for travellers from the EU, the European Economic Area and Swiss nationals it will be introduced early next year.
The airport said: “While Heathrow continues to attract new routes and record passenger numbers, the latest data following the introduction of the ETA shows that Heathrow has lost 90,000 transfer passengers on routes operating to and from the seven countries included in the scheme, since its introduction in 2023. This is devastating for our hub competitiveness.
“We urge the government to review the inclusion of airside transit passengers. Every little bit of extra competitiveness that the government can deliver for aviation will help deliver vital growth for the whole of the UK economy.”
The ETA is largely based on the US electronic system for travel authorisation (Esta) system, and requires travellers to apply to enter the UK before departing and pay the £10 fee.
This applies not only to direct flights from the country but also for those who are using UK airports for more than two hours to connect to other flights.
Heathrow has previously voiced concerns about the charge. It said that, while it supported the overall rationale, those transiting through the airport needed to be exempt as it was hitting passenger numbers.
The government first introduced the ETA for Qatari nationals in November 2023 before rolling it out. In April, Heathrow said that, in the first four months of ETA applying, there had been 19,000 fewer transit passengers from Qatar coming through the airport as more travellers opted to use other hubs.
Heathrow has said the fall represents a “huge blow to UK competitiveness” because many lengthy routes rely on long-haul transit passengers.
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Heathrow said it was used by nearly 8 million passengers in July, making it Europe’s busiest airport in the first half of the year, beating rivals such as Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt, Madrid and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
The west London hub surpassed a weekly passenger total of 1.8 million for the first time last month, doing so for three consecutive weeks from 8 July. Venice in Italy and Larnaca in Cyprus were among the most popular destinations.
Heathrow said it “performed well with no material impacts on flights” from problems such as the global IT outage or Just Stop Oil protests.
Heathrow said Doha, Dubai, Dublin and New York’s JFK were the latest routes to record 1 million passengers travelling to and from Heathrow this year. There were also big boosts for Orlando in Florida and other US destinations such as Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Dallas.
Heathrow posted an 8% increase in cargo tonnage in July 2024 compared with July 2023.
The airport said last month that, despite a fall in half-year revenues of 2.9%, it swung to an underlying profit of £178m, from a £139m loss a year earlier.
