British Airways cancels all Gatwick short-haul flights for July and August

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• ChrisC says:

  1 Jul1 July 04:29

  I bought LGW – AMS for the end of August on the 6th June. They were cancelled on Monday. I wasn’t auto rebooked but could make changes in MMB but only to/ from LHR because no LCY flights either

  I decided to get a refund instead so I called Monday evening and after an 18 minute wait and a 3 minute call the refund was set in hand (no pressure to take a voucher either).

  But it is clear to me that BA have no intention to operate any flights from LGW for quite some time so they simply shouldn’t be selling them. Just shut the LGW operation down for a specific period rather than what they are doing at the moment and give people some certainty.

  I’m simply not prepared to schlep for 2 1/2 hours on train. / tube to LHR from Brighton for a long weekend away but it looks like BA are expecting people to just switch with no complaint. The cancellation email made it clear they won’t pay the travel expenses between airports either. There are no direct national express coaches Between LGW and LHR either when I checked on. I say – all via London Victoria.

  I have two other LGW-AMS trips in October and December. If BA are going to cancel those then they can jolly well do it sooner rather than later. At least with my August trip it’s still a couple of months away so Eurostar and KLM (ex LCY) are still cheap.

  I appreciate the circumstances but BA are making a right botch job of it.

  • Marcw says:

    1 Jul1 July 08:19

    Fly easyJet from LGW?

  • Sunguy says:

    1 Jul1 July 10:08

    Direct bus from Brighton to LHR (okay – via LGW too):

    https://www.nationalexpress.com/en/airports/heathrow/brighton-to-heathrow

    Brighton to Heathrow route stops

    Popular stops are listed below. Please use the journey planner above to plan your trip:

    Brighton Coach Station Brighton (Preston Circus) Brighton (Patcham) Hickstead Gatwick Airport London (South Terminal) Gatwick Airport London (North Terminal) Heathrow Airport London (Terminal 5) Heathrow Airport London (Terminal 4) Heathrow Airport London (Terminals 2, 3)

    • ChrisC says:

      1 Jul1 July 13:00

      National express are simply not operating their LGW – LHR route at the moment.

      It’s all via London. I checked the actual trip planer and the only way to get from Brighton to Heathrow is via London for a trip of over 4 hours.

      I won’t fly easyJet.

      • Anna says:

        1 Jul1 July 14:03

        Have you flown Easyjet recently? I had a perfectly pleasant VIE-MAN flight in December and would choose them every time over schlepping my family and luggage through London!

• Richard says:

  1 Jul1 July 06:02

  I’m interested to know what others think about Gatwick shortfall re-starting and if mid-Sept is likely? We have flights book for mid – late September (Thessaloniki) and it’s good to see LHR seems to be offered as an alternative and hopefully not a full cancelation.

  My view – it would be strange to ramp up what is primarily holiday routes just as the northern hemisphere summer is ending.

  • Andrew says:

    1 Jul1 July 06:23

    BA already cancelled my LGW to Rome flight for the end of September.

  • pauldb says:

    1 Jul1 July 06:32

    It looks like, in the switch to LHR, Thessaloniki has been reduced from 9x to 5x per week. It seems likely most routes will be similarly pruned rather than cut completely, and yes perhaps more so into September.
    Whether the airport switch to LHR continues into September may not actually affect the pruning.

• Terry Semmence says:

  1 Jul1 July 06:31

  My Alicante 6th Sept switched to LHR, same time & flight No. Not much use if the return (booked separately) on the 11th Sept still goes to LGW……..

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    1 Jul1 July 09:04

    Well my return is cancelled so my outbound ain’t a lot of use at this stage!

• Anna says:

  1 Jul1 July 06:53

  My MAN-AGP at the end of July was cancelled and I was offered MAN-LHR LGW-AGP as an alternative. There was no chance of me putting the family through that but it looks as though it would have been cancelled anyway!

• EwanG says:

  1 Jul1 July 07:05

  @Rob – typo in the heading slipped through the proof-read: Norweigan

  • Rhys says:

    1 Jul1 July 09:07

    Corrected, thanks!

• yorkieflyer says:

  1 Jul1 July 07:36

  interesting that London folk are now experiencing the pain us Northerners are feeling at BA’s cancellation of the cityflyer summer services. I do recall on FT in particular, but not here, a certain London centric view shall we say and a sense of shock at those of us choosing the blue and yellow planes in preference to BA.
  Like others I had obvious sympathy in the earlier stage of this crisis, but the contrast between Ryanair in starting services and being pretty clear what would operate over the summer and BA’s shambolic response leaving us high and dry having to book expensive direct flights with other carriers or accept ridiculous impractical re routing due to their obvious inability to plan a schedule and communicate it is stark.
  I think we’ll keep our avios for long haul 241’s and forget BA for other trips.

  • Anna says:

    1 Jul1 July 07:50

    Agree with all this but I hope the regional flights run for at least the next couple of years while we need RFS in the eye-wateringly expensive school holidays!

  • Harry T says:

    1 Jul1 July 07:55

    I know, some people might have to drive a bit further to get to LHR… my heart bleeds.

• Matt says:

  1 Jul1 July 08:19

  Planning on using 1600 GC points towards a slap up meal in the shard later this year. As a sanity check, as a Jade I get 1.25 USD per 10 points so 200USD ≈ £160?

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    1 Jul1 July 10:26

    Yes that’s right

• Graeme2 says:

  1 Jul1 July 08:32

  My email from BA moving my flight from Gatwick to Heathrow said “Next Steps You need to confirm that you want to travel on the new flight. Please go onto Manage My Booking and select ‘accept’ if you wish to travel on your new flight.” but I couldn’t see anywhere in MMB to select ‘accept’ – has anyone else experienced the same, or found the ‘accept’ button?

  • AJA says:

    1 Jul1 July 09:45

    I’ve received a similar email moving my outbound flight to LHR, no mention yet of the return flight changing, but I have yet to log in and do anything. My OH doesn’t want to travel and would rather cancel. Although I am keener to travel I am also not sure if the hotel will be open which makes the trip problematic, so I am doing a bit more investigation of my options before simply accepting the change, if that’s even possible.

  • Genghis says:

    1 Jul1 July 10:07

    I can’t see anything to accept either. I’m just going to leave it as it is – free option to cancel at a later date FOC (i.e. I get the full avios and cash returned)?

    Interesting, my lounge has been moved to the CCR (it thinks I’m Premier). DBAKWIA? 🙂

  • Wally1976 says:

    1 Jul1 July 11:20

    If it’s the same as ours (Avios booking to DLM if that’s relevant), there’s a link in the email. This takes you to a page with 3 options “View and accept rebooked flight(s)”, “Choose alternative flight(s)” and “Cancel your booking”. Only thing is, I’ve tried the first two and they just throw an error!

    Personally I’m pretty sure at the moment that we want to accept the LHR flights but if I can retain the option of cancelling with full refund for the time being that would be useful. There’s nothing to say how long you have available to accept the LHR flights!?

    • RedHroogar says:

      1 Jul1 July 17:35

      Same here for our flight LGW-AGP 30th July return 13 August.
      Accepted alternative flight out since LHR is much more convenient for us (No LHR Avios available when I booked). Clicked on accept outbound and it threw up an error. Tried again and was able to specify an alternative return to LHR. However, on going to manage my booking it said that it was cancelled although I could have purchased seats if I’d wanted. Confused I tried calling BA 6 times and was cut off every time. If their Website wasn’t so screwed up they’d be taking many fewer calls today!!
      Also needed to sort out the Hire car that I booked through them for these dates on 15th June but cant find the Avis voucher (or booking on Avis although I gave them my Preferred number)

      • Emily says:

        2 Jul2 July 15:28

        I just called BA to confirm the LHR change. Heathrow is more convenient for me to get to so I thought I’d just confirm it while I can, although was tempted to leave it in case I just wanted my money back too. Feels like its all a bit of a lottery at the moment with BA flights!

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