Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder.

It's Thursday the 26th of February.

Heathrow Airport, the busiest hub in Europe at Leicesterton, to Istanbul,

overtakes it probably at the end of the year, has published its financial results for the past year

and says that it is on course for a 1% growth in passenger numbers. Not very much, of course

Heathrow wants to expand with a third runway which is opposed by all manner of people, environmental groups, residents who be

affected, and the airlines say that the plans are too expensive and, in particular, today's

passengers should not be paying for tomorrow's improvements. Well, to talk about that and much

more, I'm lucky enough to have been speaking to Thomas Woldby.

He's the chief executive of Heathrow Airport.

I think when we look back at 2025, that was quite an amazing year for Heathrow.

What I'm most proud of is really the operational delivery, how we have delivered for our passengers and for our airlines.

Heathrow is today the most punctual large hop in Europe with a really strong operational performance. Our passengers waited, or 98% of our passengers waited less than five minutes in security,

and we halved the amount of bags that didn't reach the intended flight.

These are excellent results for passengers.

These are some of the key parameters that passengers look at.

And, of course, all of these provides great savings for the airlines.

Now, just looking ahead, you're predicting growth, which I calculate, is actually under 1% in the current year to 85 million. Why is it so small, Thomas?

We are reaching the upper level of our capacity. We want to grow more. We are growing less than the

market, which I think is a real problem for the economy and for the UK. And you can say,

hence why we are so focused on moving

ahead with the third runway at pace, because we really need it and the country really needs it.

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