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British Airways cuts 15% of its Gatwick short-haul flights for July, and 7% at Heathrow

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The aeroroutes.com website published an interesting list yesterday of British Airways short haul service cuts for July 2022.

The numbers are huge – far bigger than we imagined.

Flights from Gatwick have been reduced by 14% from this week vs last week, whilst flights from Heathrow have been reduced by 7%.

British Airways European cancellations July 2022

Here is the full analysis from AeroRoutes:

British Airways departures from London Gatwick (last week vs this week and the rest of July):

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 30
Malaga 63 to 43
Malta 31 to 23
Nice 66 to 62
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 from London Heathrow (last week vs this week and the rest of July):

Aberdeen 136 to 122
Amsterdam 196 to 160
Athens 161 to 145
Barcelona 177 to 162
Basel/Mulhouse 69 to 64
Belfast City 98 to 89
Berlin 158 to 143
Bologna 91 to 84
Brussels 89 to 76
Budapest 96 to 91
Copenhagen 125 to 124
Dusseldorf 81 to 67
Edinburgh 284 to 271
Faro 80 to 77
Frankfurt 123 to 104
Geneva 182 to 161
Glasgow 251 to 245
Gothenburg 69 to 66
Hamburg 101 to 90
Hannover 48 to 45
Istanbul 84 to 81
Jersey 151 to 129
Larnaca 115 to 111
Lisbon 112 to 109
Lyon 75 to 72
Malaga 137 to 128
Manchester 163 to 150
Marseille 96 to 89
Milan Linate 103 to 98
Milan Malpensa 130 to 110
Munich 115 to 98
Naples 88 to 87
Newcastle 126 to 114
Nice 197 to 173
Palma de Mallorca 95 to 90
Paris CDG 190 to 167
Pisa 81 to 79
Prague 114 to 105
Rome 142 to 126
Stockholm Arlanda 110 to 96
Tirana 58 to 56
Toulouse 80 to 78
Valencia 59 to 57
Venice 115 to 109
Vienna 96 to 91
Warsaw 67 to 58
Zurich 104 to 91

The main driver behind these cuts is the lack of available ground staff to handle the aircraft, although the Gatwick changes may also be impacted by crew shortages at the new Euroflyer operation. The actual number of passengers handled will not change hugely, since passengers on cancelled flights will be rebooked.

It isn’t clear if British Airways has notified everyone whose flights have been cancelled. Announcements tend to be drip-fed into the system to manage the demands on call centres.

If you have a British Airways European flight in July you should check ba.com to see if seats are still being sold – if not, look out for a cancellation email. Note that BA will not rebook you until your flight has been officially cancelled, even if it has been pulled from sale.

(EDIT: as per the comments, double check at ba.com/schedules, just in case your flight is not showing because it is 100% full due to other cancellations and rebookings.)

The original analysis is on AeroRoutes here.

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Comments (117)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Gordon says:
    28 Jun28 June 09:01

    Off topic, Just seen this ion BBC news app, We will see….

    Heathrow has been told to cut passenger charges for airlines each year until 2026 by the Civil Aviation Authority.
    The regulator said the reduction in charges reflected the recent rebound in passenger numbers, but would still allow the airport to invest.

  • Ana says:
    28 Jun28 June 09:06

    On a side topic, my EasyJet flight got cancelled yesterday, I am desperately trying to figure out how to be refunded for the flight, the instructions direct me to “MyBookings” but I can’t see anywhere how to do it?

    • Lady London says:
      28 Jun28 June 12:27

      Look for a “Flight Disruption” button either as a section, or against your flight in your confirmed flights list in Manage My Booking.

      Remember as well as the refund option, you also have option to rebook including, under Easyjet’s own offerig, switching to a different route starting and ending in same countries. You are also entitled to compensstion of £220, possibly more in addition to your choice of refund or reroute.

  • Mark says:
    28 Jun28 June 09:10

    Are the numbers flight above per week? Circa 20 per day for Heathrow to Jersey doesn’t sound right….

    • Rob says:
      28 Jun28 June 09:13

      Week

      • Mark says:
        28 Jun28 June 09:24

        So 151 flights per week from Heathrow to Jersey down to 129? That sounds way off. Others look plausible though so maybe it’s just that one.

        • kiran_mk2 says:
          28 Jun28 June 09:51

          Agreed – LHR-AMS was 180: that would be >20 flights per day! Even if you need to divide by 2 to take into account outbound/inbound pairs that’s still >10 per day on average!

          I think the numbers are more likely per month (of 30 days) extrapolated out from last week/this week. Thus 180 flights to AMS would be 196/30 = 6-7 flights per day down 160/30 = 5-6 flights per day to which sounds more realistic

      • lcylocal says:
        28 Jun28 June 09:27

        Is each return cancelled counted as 1 or 2 flights? Is there any way to see a list of which flights have been cancelled? In ExpertFlyer maybe?

    • Phillip says:
      28 Jun28 June 09:42

      The way I read the aeroroutes article, I took them to be for the entire month of July. Looking at the likes of Larnaca for example, 3-4 flights a day sounds right, making up the 115>111 number.

      • lcylocal says:
        28 Jun28 June 10:02

        Looking at the routes that are basically daily from Gatwick (which are in the 30-40) range that looks about right too.

  • dougzz99 says:
    28 Jun28 June 10:01

    Sort of on this topic got an email from Lufthansa saying due to staff shortages, both their own and their supply chain, things were not going to improve through the summer.

    • Brian78 says:
      28 Jun28 June 10:48

      Airlines said they weren’t given enough notice of restrictions etc lifting but it’s unlikely things will improve until next year (obvs they weren’t going to get notice of a year that restrictions would ease)

      • Chrisasaurus says:
        28 Jun28 June 17:50

        But curiously were able to schedule, market and sell hundreds of flights…

  • Mark says:
    28 Jun28 June 10:03

    This actually paid off for us. Had just booked a flight last week to Stockholm with the tome of flight based on price – then BA cancelled it and we got a free transfer to the better timed flight that would have cost us £400 per seat more!
    Just hope it’s not hit by the strikes now.

  • Michael Jennings says:
    28 Jun28 June 10:17

    I’m in Ibiza right now. I was supposed to be flying a pleasant IBZ-LCY today. I got a cancellation e-mail yesterday and I am now going to Madrid on Iberia Express and changing for Heathrow. Grrr.

    • Rui N. says:
      28 Jun28 June 10:43

      Don’t forget to ask for compensation delay if you arrive 3hours after your original scheduled time.

      • meta says:
        28 Jun28 June 11:29

        He can get cancellation compensation straight away. 400 euros per person.

  • Andrew says:
    28 Jun28 June 10:38

    Are any wholesale cancellations likely from London City? I’ve heard nothing about staff shortages causing problems there so hopefully things are running relatively smoothly.

    • Rob says:
      28 Jun28 June 10:47

      City seems fine based on all the stories I’ve heard, inc from my wife, in the last couple of weeks.

      • Ben says:
        28 Jun28 June 10:55

        The post above this seems to disagree. Im flying out on Sat morning so really hoping your right.

        • ChrisC says:
          28 Jun28 June 12:00

          As far as I can tell there have been no wholesale LCY cancellations but that does not mean there aren’t any at all due to e.g. weather and last minute sickness.

      • AlexT says:
        28 Jun28 June 11:05

        My LCY to BER flight this Friday got cancelled 2 weeks ago only for me to rebook on an earlier flight (1:10 pm) from LHR. Now not sure whether that’s still on as there is ZERO availability on all flights on all carriers, not just BA, this Friday between the two cities…

        I guess all I can do it sit back and hope my outbound doesn’t get cancelled…

        • Rob says:
          28 Jun28 June 11:07

          I was talking about queues, not whether flights are actually going.

          She did tell me that the main restaurant in the terminal had virtually no food and virtually no staff on Sunday afternoon though!

    • John says:
      28 Jun28 June 18:05

      Flew from LCY yesterday and was delayed by 1.5 hours. Watched the plane arrive and the inbound passengers didn’t get off for 30 minutes (apparently nobody to open the doors downstairs). The same thing happened on the previous rotation and at the previous destination, hence accumulated to 90 mins

  • chrism20 says:
    28 Jun28 June 11:00

    I’ve for domestic flights in September that appear to have disappeared from the schedule over the last few days.

    I was always sceptical of the return one running as the seat selector was blanked out and the last few times that has happened I’ve had a cancellation email. Hopefully I’ll get an email soon.

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