kilo mike
we were not given a blanket dispensation for every flight. We had to fight tooth and nail to get some dispensed because the Dft were very unspympathetic and initially said no. We were only allowed to let enough go that would relieve the congestion and hardship in the terminals for those airlines that have non quota.
If the answer had been no i hate to think about the scenes in the terminals.
IT would be very difficult to let everything go under those circumstances so it was decide to extend the 23:29 Local cut off time to 23:59L. some airlines are well known for taking their time and this was a way of putting pressure on them. I think we managed to get 11 non quota aircraft away in that 30 mins so we and ATC did a grand job. The El al was simply refused because it is a QC 8 and we could not extend the cut off point for this aircraft.
A further point a couple of non quota aircraft were refused landing after 23:29.
last night the only aircraft refused was the Helios , fortunatly the 10 non quota aircraft that we had taxing after 23;00 got off otherwise last night would have been a nightmare.hope this answers the question