British Airways suspends short-haul ticket sales at Heathrow

British Airways has suspended ticket sales on short-haul flights from Heathrow until August 8 after London Airport's decision to limit capacity and fight against widespread disruption and cancellations.

The airline said the suspension of sales to domestic and European destinations was designed to allow existing customers to rebook flights flights when needed.

Airlines and airports across Britain and Europe have struggled to cope with the post-lockdown travel rebound, many have failed to recruit enough staff to handle check-ins and baggage.

Heathrow, as a Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, has told airlines to limit the number of tickets they sell over the summer, after capping the number of passengers from the hub at 100,000 a day to limit queues waiting, baggage delays and cancellations.

Heathrow said last week that the cap had led to a marked improvement in on-time performance and baggage handling.

"Following Heathrow's request to limit new bookings, we have decided to take responsible action and limit the fares available on certain Heathrow services in order to maximize the rebooking options for existing customers, given the restrictions imposed. about us and the current challenges facing the entire aviation industry,” BA said in a statement. the airline to ensure people who had confirmed reservations would still be able to fly on time.

Julia Lo Bue-Said - the CEO of the he industry body Advantage Travel Partnership – told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “This is good news for consumers. In some ways, it seems quite counter-intuitive for an airline to reduce seats at peak times, but it's absolutely about building resilience, making sure there's less disruption," and less risk for those who have booked.

The company earlier responded to Heathrow's cap on passenger numbers by announcing it would cancel 10,300 flights until October, with one million passengers affected.

While the move halts BA's access to the lucrative last-minute flight market during peak season, Lo Bue-Said argued that this was a short-term solution to meet consumer demand while minimizing disruption.

“It somehow allows them to evolve,” said Lo Bue-Said.

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Responding to x news on Twitter, one user asked, "Shouldn't short-haul flights be banned anyway for environmental reasons and to reduce pressure on airports?"

Emirates last month rejected an order from Heathrow to cancel cap flights. The airline accused the airport of showing "blatant disregard for consumers" by trying to force it to "deny seats to tens of thousands of travellers".

A Heathrow spokesperson said at the It would then be "disappointing" if an airline "wanted to put profit before safe and reliable passenger travel".

Virgin Atlantic also criticized the airport's actions and claimed it was responsible for the failures that contributed to the chaos.

The airlines were accused on July 21 of "harmful practices" in their treatment of passengers affected by the disruptions.

< p class="dcr-xry7m2">The Competition and Markets Authority and the Aviation Authority civil issued a joint letter to carriers, expressing concern that "consumers could suffer significant harm if airlines do not meet their obligations".

The letter stated: "We are concerned that some airlines are not doing everything possible to avoid committing to one or more harmful practices."

This includes selling more tickets for flights "than they can reasonably expect to supply", not always "satisfying fully to the obligations" to offer flights on alternative airlines to passengers affected by the cancellations and not giving consumers "enough...