London’s Heathrow airport is urging the UK government to spare transit travellers from the recently introduced Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme after witnessing a drop in transient travellers during the year’s first quarter.
The ETA was first introduced in November 2023, initially for Qatari travellers, and since 1 February 2024 has been extended to travellers from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
The UK’s largest air hub on Thursday (11 April) said it is “already seeing an impact” after reporting 19,000 fewer transit passengers from Qatar in the first four months since the ETA rollout.
Heathrow said the transfer route recorded its lowest monthly proportions "for over ten years" each month since the implementation of ETAs.
“This is a huge blow to UK competitiveness as many long-haul routes, which are highly important to the UK’s economy, exports and wider connectivity, rely on transit passengers,” the airport said in a statement.
“With more connecting passengers expected to choose other hubs as the scheme expands, minsters need to take action to remove this measure.”
The airport insisted that applying a £10 fee to enter or transit through the UK will “put UK airports at a competitive disadvantage compared to EU hubs”.
The ETA scheme, which is similar to the US ESTA system, is part of the transformation and digitisation of the UK border. According to the government website, ETA will offer “a more efficient customer experience and cement the UK as a world leader in border security.”
Heathrow has reported a ‘strong’ start to 2024, with March marking the second month this year where the airport served a ‘record’ number of passengers after close to 7 million people travelled through its doors last month.
However, Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye said to keep up the momentum "the government needs to exempt airside transit passengers from the ETA scheme to avoid encouraging passengers to spend and do business elsewhere".
“We need to level the playing field, so the UK aviation industry continues to be world-class,” he added.