British Airways-2

[p7lot]

I nearly choked on my tea lol
Arthur Scargil is in that pic somewhere surely?

[davidjohnson6]

Would anyone be able to advise how long it's taking BA to notify pax by email that a flight is cancelled, after a decision has been taken internally to cancel the flight ?

I have a booking for which the publicly available fare jumped overnight from (consistent over a week) 77 euros to 649 euros, which makes me suspicious. And yes, a similiar spike for the flight operating same day in the other direction.

I have too much experience of seat availability being zeroed out or fares spiking, phoning an airline and telesales staff insisting the flight is still going ahead... only to get a cancellation email a few days later. I no longer trust the affirmations by telesales about a flight not being cancelled !

[BA318]

Originally Posted by davidjohnson6

Would anyone be able to advise how long it's taking BA to notify pax by email that a flight is cancelled, after a decision has been taken internally to cancel the flight ?

I have a booking for which the publicly available fare jumped overnight from (consistent over a week) 77 euros to 649 euros, which makes me suspicious. And yes, a similiar spike for the flight operating same day in the other direction.

I have too much experience of seat availability being zeroed out or fares spiking, phoning an airline and telesales staff insisting the flight is still going ahead... only to get a cancellation email a few days later. I no longer trust the affirmations by telesales about a flight not being cancelled !

I don’t think there is a set time. Lots of reports seem to say that it depends on the call centres and they try to stagger the cancellations if they can to not swamp them.

[pabely]

I bet if you were booked on an EZY domestic or European flight this morning you are pleased you chose Luton (or Gatwick or Stansted) this morning rather the Heathrow with BA!

[Buster the Bear]

You get an email basically scaring you along the lines of, your flight might be cancelled, free to rebook. If you take the latter you lose you ability to get any compensation IF the flight is cancelled. Russian roulette! Probably BA then assess the take up and cancel flights that overall have the less compo? Lovely way to treat customers!

[Buster the Bear]

So BA have been operating outbound flights empty, and cancelled all the passengers booked, due lack of baggage handlers, but operating the inbound leg full with passengers.

[The96er]

Originally Posted by Buster the Bear

So BA have been operating outbound flights empty, and cancelled all the passengers booked, due lack of baggage handlers, but operating the inbound leg full with passengers.

Correct, although in the case of the LHR-MAN flight last night where they cancelled the flight and replaced it with a positioning sector, except they didn’t tell the crew and so the crew went home. That meant that they had to then cancel the positioning sector and subsequently cancel the first flight from MAN this morning as the aircraft was still in LHR !

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by Buster the Bear

So BA have been operating outbound flights empty, and cancelled all the passengers booked, due lack of baggage handlers, but operating the inbound leg full with passengers.

Does that include cancelling those with hand baggage only bookings ?

I don't quite get the "cancelling quieter flights due to shortage of baggage/immigration staff", because surely pax (especially those returning home) will just be rebooked on alternatives, and the overall numbers requiring baggage or immigration service remain the same.

[PC767]

I'm hearing that all BA LHR short haul flights are to be cancelled between the forthcoming August and October.

[DaveReidUK]

And not just hearsay.

BBC: BA LHR short haul flights are to be cancelled

[Downwind_Left]

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK

And not just hearsay.

BBC: BA LHR short haul flights are to be cancelled

But clearly completely inaccurate to say that all BA short haul flights are cancelled between August and October.

The statement you are replying to is very much hearsay.

I see no realistic scenario where that happens. The long haul and short haul operations feed each other.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Downwind_Left

But clearly completely inaccurate to say that all BA short haul flights are cancelled between August and October.

The statement you are replying to is very much hearsay.

I see no realistic scenario where that happens. The long haul and short haul operations feed each other.

I agree, you would have to be fairly ignorant about BA's operation to suppose that 100 or so cancelled flights per day represent the airline's entire shorthaul operation.

But while it's clearly nonsense to say that all short haul flights are cancelled, I'd put money on most, if not all, of the cancelled flights being shorthaul - regardless of any SH/LH synergy.

[PC767]

My apologies. The information I received was from a flight crew friend who had received an internal email. Between us we misconstrued that all cancellations will be short-haul to all short-haul will be cancelled. In my defence I have not seen the original document, in his, he is just fed up of the combination of inept BA management of staff and the ever shifting sands of government policy. Considering the chaos that is prevalent, for a split second the scenario seemed perfectly likely.

[DaveReidUK]

Many thanks for the clarification.

[WHBM]

The statement in the press today, "British Airways slashes 10,300 flights" is pretty meaningless. It must have come from BA PR department, because the media nowadays just cut/paste whatever the press release says, without editing (apart from silly superlatives like "slashes"), and they surely haven't added up a detailed list of cancellations. It also looks good for the media to have a big number, like 10,300, to stick in a headline, regardless of what it means.

But what is this number of flights ? Is it 1%, or 10%, or 50% of the previous flight schedule. And what percentage of currently booked pax are impacted ? I also suspect the old BA game of cancelling all the trunk domestics whenever there is any issue at Heathrow, while continuing to run the full daily schedule of half-filled JFK flights, may come into play as well.

One also wonders where the shortfall actually is. If a shortage of flight crews, qualified by type, it seems strange to cancel all the A320 flights while keeping all the 787 flights. If it's ATC, have the other Heathrow operators made just the same percentage reduction ? It it's immigration, how does consolidating pax from part-filled flights into full ones have any impact, as the same numbers will come through.

[SealinkBF]

From the excellent Head for Points. Full article here: British Airways cuts 14% of Heathrow short-haul flights for July (headforpoints.com)

British Airways departures in July from London City (current plan vs mid-June plan):

Amsterdam 118 to 84
Belfast City 65 to 57
Dublin 100 to 89
Dusseldorf 80 to 72
Edinburgh 170 to 162
Glasgow 127 to 122

British Airways departures in July from London Gatwick (current plan vs mid-June plan):

Alicante 54 to 45
Amsterdam 83 to 60
Antalya 31 to 26
Athens 19 to 17
Bari 27 to 24
Berlin 31 to 28
Bordeaux 58 to 49
Cagliari 31 to 29
Catania 30 to 27
Dalaman 41 to 34
Dubrovnik 31 to 29
Faro 56 to 36
Ibiza 46 to 38
Lanzarote 31 to 28
Madrid 31 to 27
Mahon 31 to 27
Malaga 63 to 43
Malta 31 to 23
Milan 26 to 25
Nice 66 to 52
Palma de Mallorca 41 to 28
Tenerife South 35 to 29
Thessaloniki 17 to 14
Venice 34 to 28
Verona 31 to 23

British Airways departures in July from London Heathrow (current plan vs mid-June plan):

Aberdeen 136 to 114
Amsterdam 196 to 158
Athens 161 to 141
Barcelona 177 to 157
Basel/Mulhouse 69 to 61
Belfast City 98 to 77
Berlin 158 to 134
Bologna 91 to 82
Brussels 89 to 72
Budapest 96 to 88
Corfu 74 to 73
Copenhagen 125 to 107
Dublin 132 to 112
Dusseldorf 81 to 64
Edinburgh 284 to 247
Faro 80 to 76
Frankfurt 123 to 98
Geneva 182 to 156
Gibraltar 62 to 61
Glasgow 251 to 228
Gothenburg 69 to 66
Hamburg 101 to 86
Hannover 48 to 42
Ibiza 86 to 83
Istanbul 84 to 81
Jersey 151 to 119
Larnaca 115 to 110
Lisbon 112 to 92
Lyon 75 to 70
Malaga 137 to 117
Manchester 163 to 136
Marseille 96 to 84
Milan Linate 103 to 97
Milan Malpensa 130 to 100
Munich 115 to 95
Naples 88 to 85
Newcastle 126 to 102
Nice 197 to 163
Palma de Mallorca 95 to 87
Paris CDG 190 to 158
Pisa 81 to 78
Prague 114 to 98
Rome 142 to 126
Stockholm Arlanda 110 to 93
Tirana 58 to 55
Toulouse 80 to 76
Valencia 59 to 54
Venice 115 to 105
Vienna 96 to 80
Warsaw 67 to 58
Zurich 104 to 89

[BA318]

Isn’t it a combination of things. BA are short of ground crew which is causing the baggage issues and the ground delays (nobody to operate jet bridges or pushbacks etc), they are short of cabin crew causing delayed/cancelled flights, there is an issue with some airports causing further delays (AMS, LHR) etc. By thinning these routes out there are fewer flights to need to service.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by SealinkBF

From the excellent Head for Points. Full article here: British Airways cuts 14% of Heathrow short-haul flights for July (headforpoints.com)

Those amount to a reduction of just over 2,000 flights over the month, so that total (for July) obviously doesn't include yesterday's announcement re the 10,000 August-October reductions.

[SealinkBF]

Originally Posted by DaveReidUK

Those amount to a reduction of just over 2,000 flights over the month, so that total (for July) obviously doesn't include yesterday's announcement re the 10,000 August-October reductions.

The article acknowledges that.

"We don’t have details of the August schedule yet. We do, however, thanks to the aeroroutes.com website have the updated list of British Airways short haul service cuts for July 2022."

[DaveReidUK]

It would be reasonable to assume that the July route cuts aren't going to be reinstated between August and October, so those listed above should account for about 60% of the 10,000 Aug-Oct reductions.

It will be interesting to see how much of the remaining 40% will consist of additional cuts of the listed routes and how much will be on routes so far unaffected.