British Airways forced to cancel short-haul flights, what does this mean for you?

People’s holidays have been hectic this summer due to the number of flights cancelled by various airlines. British Airways has announced that due to Heathrow Airport’s cap on passenger numbers, it has to cancel a number of short-haul flights. Here are the destinations affected.

Short-haul flights cancelled

As reported by Sky News, British Airways has been forced to withhold sales of short-haul flights, which includes both domestic and European services for a week. This means these flights will not take place until Tuesday next week (August 9).

In a statement British Airways said:

As a result of Heathrow's request to limit new bookings, we've decided to take responsible action and limit the available fares on some Heathrow services to help maximise rebooking options for existing customers, given the restrictions imposed on us and the ongoing challenges facing the entire aviation industry.

As reported by The Independent, no flights with British Airways are destined to the French city of Nice from London, which is only roughly a 2h05 flight.

Passenger cap

Heathrow Airport decided last month (July 2022), that it would be limiting the number of passengers that leave the airport daily. Their cap sits at 100,000 departing passengers a day. This cap is set to last until September 11, 2022.

As a result, British Airways was forced to cancel 10,300 flights until October as reported by Sky News.

Customers suffer the most

Despite the cap, some airlines have decided to ignore it as it affects their customers. One of the airlines is Emirates, which refuses to comply with Heathrow’s cap as it is a ‘blatant disregard for consumers.’

The Competition and Markets Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority issued a joint letter to carriers, to point out that ‘consumers could experience significant harm unless airlines meet their obligations.’

The letter stated:

We are concerned that some airlines may not be doing everything they could to avoid engaging in one or more harmful practices.

Read more:

⋙ Flight cancelled or delayed? Here’s what you can do

⋙ EasyJet forced to cancel a bunch of summer flights

⋙ Your next summer holidays could be chaos for this reason