The carrier’s decision to shrink its short-haul schedule by 8% comes after the London airport extended its summer passenger daily cap of 100,000 by another six weeks until the end of October and asked airlines to sell fewer flights. Heathrow’s appeal came amid a strained post-Covid recovery in which it has struggled to find the staff to meet demand from business travelers and tourists, leading to chaos and long queues for Easter, spring and early summer. . BA, the airport’s biggest operator, has already cut tens of thousands of flights over the summer in a bid to ease pressure caused by staffing problems facing airports and the airline itself. It also suspended ticket sales on short-haul flights from Heathrow earlier this month as it reassessed its expectations of the number of planes needed in light of Heathrow’s capacity cap. Subscribe to Business Today Get ready for the business day – we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The carrier, which is owned by International Airlines Group, said on Monday it had to add more cancellations to its roster, continuing a trend that began in May and is accelerating as airlines and airports struggle with staff shortages, causing chaos at check-in Check-in and baggage services. BA said more than 600 return flights to and from Heathrow would be canceled until October 29, while the winter schedule, which runs until the end of March, would be reduced by 8%. He said the impact would be “minimal” because same-day alternative flights would be available on most of the affected routes, but some cancellations would be unavoidable. “While the vast majority of our customers will be traveling as planned and we are protecting key holiday destinations in the half term, we will need to deal with some further cancellations until the end of October,” a BA spokesman said. “In addition, we are informing customers traveling with us this winter of some adjustments to our schedule, which will include consolidating some of our short-haul flights to multi-service destinations. We will offer customers affected by any of these changes an alternative flight with British Airways or another airline or the option of a refund.” The government made it easier for airlines to reduce capacity by introducing a “slot amnesty”, announced last month. This has allowed BA and others to scale back operations this year without losing valuable landing slots at Heathrow and other busy airports, which typically have a “use it or lose it” rule.
