British Airways cuts close to 2 million seats this winter

‘We’ll be offering customers affected by any of these changes an alternative flight or the option of a refund,’ says BA

En route: British Airways passenger celebrates the imminent departure of a delayed flight to London Heathrow (Simon Calder)

After cancelling tens of thousands of Heathrow flights during the summer season – mainly due to a lack of resources – British Airways is cancelling thousands more during the winter.

BA is culling around 10,000 short-haul (domestic and European) departures from late October 2022 to late March 2023, as well as hundreds of intercontinental flights.

In total, nearly two million seats will be taken out of the market, leading to higher fares for the remaining capacity.

Most of the cancelled flights will be on routes with multiple daily services.

In addition, British Airways plans to cut a dozen round trips a day to and from London Heathrow up to late October in order to comply with the cap of 100,000 departing passengers a day imposed by the airport.

The decision will remove a further 4,000 seats per day from overall capacity, amounting to more than 200,000 in total over the next nine weeks.

“Following Heathrow’s decision to extend its passenger cap, we’re making adjustments to our short-haul schedule for the next two months,” a BA spokesperson said.

“While the vast majority of our customers will travel as planned and we’re protecting key holiday destinations over half-term, we will need to make some further cancellations up to the end of October.

“We’ll be offering customers affected by any of these changes an alternative flight with British Airways or another airline or the option of a refund.

“In addition, we’re giving customers travelling with us this winter notice of some adjustments to our schedule, which will include consolidating some of our short-haul flights to destinations with multiple services.”

The total winter reduction is likely to represent 8 per cent of the previously published schedule. It is not clear whether British Airways’ holding of slots will be affected.

BA and other airlines have been granted a “slot amnesty” by the government for summer operations, meaning British Airways will keep its portfolio of arrival and departure permits for next summer despite reducing capacity by around 13 per cent.

The airline will continue to operate around 290 round trips daily from London Heathrow through the winter.