British Airways suspends short-haul flight tickets from Heathrow

LONDON — British Airways has suspended the sale of short-haul air tickets from London Heathrow after the airport asked airlines to limit new bookings.

In a statement on Tuesday, the airline said the decision – which will run until August 8 – was made in response to Heathrow’s request.

“We have decided to take responsible action and limit the fares available on certain Heathrow services to maximize rebooking options for existing customers, given the restrictions placed on us and the ongoing challenges facing the entire aviation industry,” the statement said.

Heathrow Airport said it was happy its biggest airline had followed up on the request: “We are delighted to see action from British Airways, acting responsibly and also putting passengers first.”

Europe’s biggest airport by passenger numbers has announced it will impose a cap of 100,000 daily departing passengers on July 12, as the airline industry continues to face a host of challenges.

Luggage hasn’t arrived at the right destinations, masses of employees have staged walkouts and pilots are in an “utter mess” as they try to cover crew shortages, according to industry insiders.

Heathrow said its decision to restrict the number of travelers was taken “in the best interest of passengers” to provide “better, more reliable journeys this summer”.

The capacity cap will be in place until September 11.

There were between 110,000 and 125,000 daily passenger departures from Heathrow in July and August 2019.

The UK’s second-largest airport, Gatwick, told CNBC it would be up to ‘the airlines to cancel or suspend flights’, but it was currently ‘not aware of any airlines. planes planning similar movements”.

The rest of Europe

Europe’s third-largest airport, Schiphol in Amsterdam, has also announced a number of passenger caps throughout the summer.

“The purpose of setting a maximum is to keep passengers and employees safe and to create a reliable process at the airport,” the airport said in a statement.

“All efforts are focused on keeping the impact on travelers to a minimum.”

Currently, a maximum of 73,000 passengers can take off from the Dutch airport, but this number will drop to 67,500 in September. This will then rise to 69,500 in October.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Germany’s largest airport, Frankfurt am Main, told CNBC that “there are no plans to limit the number of passengers or flights,” but that there are “constant and intensive exchanges with [its] partners at Frankfurt Airport to be better prepared for the ongoing summer traffic.”