Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 14:40:07 on Thu, 28 Jun
2018, Graeme Wall remarked:

With 231 gates, that's over 300 employees per gate or over 150
employees per gate per shift assuming an average of 2 shifts.

More likely three shifts.

Working time directive (yes, I know, people voted to rid ourselves of
such Brussels imposed Curly Banana Republic red tape) converges on
approximately a 37hr week for 52 minus 6 weeks of the year.

That's 37*46=1700hrs a year, from which one has to subtract an allowance
for sick days and training. Let's say 1500/yr

If Heathrow operates 20hrs a day (allowing for after-midnight finish and
4am start), 365 days a year that's 7300.

Which if every job function was on duty the whole time gives 4.8 sets of
employees. Let's call it 4x for the purposes of the debate.

One other thought: Heathrow handles a lot of freight, as well as
passengers. Freight doesn't use passenger gates, so calculations of
staff/gate are essentially meaningless.