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Heathrow has warned of a more “challenging” market for transatlantic flights triggered by economic uncertainty in the US, as the UK’s biggest airport said it was seeing “early signs of softness” on business routes.
The airport, Europe’s busiest by passenger numbers, said on Friday there was an “overhanging uncertainty” over transatlantic demand, even as it forecast a 0.5 per cent increase in passenger numbers this year to 84.2mn.
The investor update is the latest sign of fallout from US President Donald Trump’s trade war and rising consumer nervousness about the economic outlook in the country. It follows warnings from several major airlines this year about slowing demand from US travellers, many of which have started delaying holiday bookings and paring back plans.
Heathrow said early weakness on US routes used by business travellers appeared to be linked more to “economic uncertainty than geopolitical reasons”, while leisure routes were holding up better.
It added that while passenger and cargo volumes on North American routes had risen for the first five months of the year compared with 2024, the impact of “economic uncertainty across North America” had made this market “more challenging”. “We are maintaining a close watching brief on traffic trends,” the airport said.
Passenger growth in the first five months of the year had been driven by growth in routes to and from Latin America, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific, it said.
That growth was in a spite of Heathrow’s near-total closure on March 21 after a fire at a nearby electricity substation cut off supplies to the airport.
The statement said the airport was implementing the 28 recommendations of a report into the incident by Ruth Kelly, a former secretary of state for transport.