Many airlines have already announced cuts to their respective fall flight schedules in the hopes of minimizing the travel chaos and congestion that has permeated the industry this spring and summer.
But in a possible sign that the mayhem could extend beyond autumn and even into next year, British Airways has announced it is eliminating almost 10,000 of its short-haul flights out of Heathrow International Airport in London for the winter season.
The cuts will be spread from late October of this year until March of 2023, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Leading up to those cuts, British Airways also said it will begin eliminating a dozen roundtrip flights a day out of Heathrow from now until the end of October. The airline might not have had any choice as Heathrow recently put a cap on the number of passengers it will process daily, as staffing shortages have led to staggering and overwhelming numbers of passengers. The airport now allows just 100,000 passengers per day.
Like most carriers around the world, British Airways laid off workers during the pandemic between 2020 and early this year. But then the airline found itself in a veritable no man's land as a surge in air travel resumed this spring and caught aviation by surprise.
British Airways said it was being careful to only eliminate flights that had other daily service options to the same destinations. "Customers booked for winter will be able to travel as planned and are being given several months' notice of any changes," the airline said in a statement.
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