Travel chaos continues
(Picture: PA Archive)British Airways revealed their plans to axe a further 10,300 short-haul flights until the end of October.
It will cause more chaos for holidaymakers this summer after sun-seekers have already faced weeks of travel misery at airports across the UK with flight cancellations, long queues and delays.
Long haul British Airways flights remain unaffected by the latest culling.
The company said: “The whole aviation industry continues to face into significant challenges and we’re completely focussed on building resilience into our operation to give customers the certainty they deserve.
“The Government recently decided to give the whole industry slot alleviation to minimise potential disruption this summer. While taking further action is not where we wanted to be, it’s the right thing to do for our customers and our colleagues.
“This new flexibility means that we can further reduce our schedule and consolidate some of our quieter services so that we can protect as many of our holiday flights as possible.
“While most of our flights are unaffected and the majority of customers will get away as planned, we don’t underestimate the impact this will have and we’re doing everything we can to get their travel plans back on track. We’re in touch to apologise and offer rebooking options for new flights with us or another airline as soon as possible or issue a full refund.”
The airline has been battling post-pandemic staff shortages while trying to keep up with the increase in demand for flights abroad.
Its latest bad news follows British Airways cancelling almost 1,000 flights due to take off in July.
The airline said in a statement it has “regrettably” become necessary to further reduce its operations by cancelling flights 785 flights from Heathrow and 186 flights from Gatwick.
It said: “We took pre-emptive action earlier this year to reduce our summer schedule to provide customers with as much notice as possible about any changes to their travel plans.
“As the entire aviation industry continues to face into the most challenging period in its history, regrettably it has become necessary to make some further reductions.
“We’re in touch with customers to apologise and offer to rebook them or issue a full refund.”
Airlines have until Friday to take advantage of a Government scheme allowing them to cancel summer flights without losing future rights to valuable take-off and landing slots at airports.
However, British Airways has hired a new operations chief as flight cancellations continue to rumble on.
Rene de Groot, who currently leads operations at Dutch airline KLM, will move to British Airways as chief operating officer (COO) on October 1.
He joined KLM in 1990 as a pilot and continues to fly for the carrier.
