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EXTENDED: BA stops selling tickets for ALL Heathrow short-haul flights until 15th August

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British Airways has just circulated a note to the travel trade to state that the ban on OUTBOUND short haul ticket sales from London Heathrow has been extended.

There are now no tickets available for travel up to 15th August.

As we wrote in our article yesterday, this appears to have been done to both meet Heathrow’s capacity caps and to give BA flexibility to move passengers whose flights are cancelled at short notice.

BA has stopped selling tickets for short-haul flights from Heathrow for today and tomorrow

To clarify what this means:

  • you cannot buy any short haul flight, to any destination, on British Airways from London Heathrow for travel up to 15th August
  • you CAN buy inbound flights, if you choose to travel out on another airline
  • existing ticketed flights are not impacted

For a route such as Oslo that is only served by British Airways from Heathrow, here is what you see for 12th August:

If you thinking of booking a British Airways flight for travel from 15th August, you may want to lock it in now. If you don’t, you may find that you can’t book at all …..

(If you didn’t take my advice to do this when I wrote it in the article yesterday, you would have lost out if you needed to travel between the 9th and 15th.)

Here is the note sent to travel agents today:

“Last week we wrote to you advising of actions we were taking in response to capacity capping at Heathrow Airport.

We communicated that we would review our actions this week and would like to provide you with an update.

To help maximise rebooking options for existing customers, we’ve decided to take further responsible action and limit the available fares on some Heathrow services.

Short-haul flights departing from Heathrow will now be closed for sale until 15 August 2022 in all channels. These flights will not be available to book via ba.com or via our partners.

We apologise for the inconvenience this will cause and would like to thank you for your continued patience and understanding.”

British Airways issued a statement yesterday to say:

“As a result of Heathrow’s request to limit new bookings, we’ve decided to take responsible action and limit the available fares on some Heathrow services to help maximise rebooking options for existing customers, given the restrictions imposed on us and the ongoing challenges facing the entire aviation industry.”

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Comments (72)

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

  • ChrisBCN says:
    2 Aug2 August 13:18

    What a mess!

  • Gordon says:
    2 Aug2 August 13:25

    @Rob What has happened to the 48 comments, Is it another IT Fart!!!!

    • Nick Burch says:
      2 Aug2 August 13:41

      On the other story – https://www.headforpoints.com/2022/08/02/british-airways-stops-ticket-sales-august/

      • Gordon says:
        2 Aug2 August 13:44

        👍

      • megoi says:
        2 Aug2 August 14:02

        This link and the original article are both bringing up the extension article and can’t see the original comments

        • Gordon says:
          2 Aug2 August 14:05

          Yes I see that as well….

        • Rob says:
          2 Aug2 August 15:12

          I’ll remove the divert but put a big notice on the old one getting people to click through to the new one.

    • Steve in Croydon says:
      2 Aug2 August 13:42

      The original comments are under the original article dated 1st August, this is a “new” article to reflect the extension until 15th August. Tomorrow there will probably be another article to extend it to 22nd August – but in which year?!?!
      I’m sure BA could possibly temporarily shift some flights to Gatwick, but that it probably beyond their blinkered “Heathrow is the centre of the world” mentality!

      • Gordon says:
        2 Aug2 August 13:48

        Oh dear…. Not good.

      • Catalan says:
        2 Aug2 August 14:49

        But Heathrow is the ‘center of the world’ in UK aviation. That’s why most airlines given the chance seek Heathrow slots over Gatwick.

      • JDB says:
        2 Aug2 August 15:21

        Gatwick currently has a slot cap.

  • Andrew. says:
    2 Aug2 August 13:26

    Each local authority area is different, but the majority of Scottish school teachers go back on the 15th August and children go back on the 17th.

    That should help ease demand for domestic connections.

  • H says:
    2 Aug2 August 13:43

    I just booked a flight on the 18th following the article from yesterday. It’s incredible what’s happening…

  • HH says:
    2 Aug2 August 13:55

    I can’t believe airlines haven’t kicked up more of a fuss. Is Heathrow compensating them somehow for the lost revenue if it can’t fulfil their specified number of airport slots?

    • Thegasman says:
      2 Aug2 August 15:25

      It’s done BA a huge favour as they couldn’t run their full schedule anyway. They’ve now got the perfect combo of someone else to blame & an exemption from paying compensation for cancellations they would have been forced into anyway.

      • Londonsteve says:
        3 Aug3 August 14:58

        Absolutely. While it has also tied the hands of the competition to pick up passengers that BA are unable to carry this summer. Combined with the suspension on slot rules, this is coming as a manna from heaven for BA who have been able to charge eye watering prices in the run up to summer due to the immense demand. Despite being unable to fly something like 30% of their planned capacity, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if 2022 is a decidedly profitable year for BA on metrics such as margin per passenger carried. They might even have money left over to replace the stained carpets in the Galleries lounges….

  • will says:
    2 Aug2 August 14:37

    There’s a reasonably valid argument to call for the extension of e-vouchers given it’s become much harder to redeem them that many would have expected.

    • marcw says:
      2 Aug2 August 16:11

      Why has it been hard to redeem vouchers?

      • Will says:
        2 Aug2 August 20:19

        Because as the article highlights, if you were planning on booking a short haul flight from Heathrow using an E voucher departing between now and august 15th, then you cannot do it, and quite possibly this will not only be ongoing but further reaching than short haul.

      • Brian W says:
        2 Aug2 August 22:39

        Didn’t think that comment through before posting I’d did you @marcw.

  • Catalan says:
    2 Aug2 August 14:44

    Heathrow should be made to compensate all airlines that have been affected by this capacity cap. How on earth they can be allowed to negatively affect airlines’ revenue seemingly without any push back (except from Emirates) is beyond comprehension.
    No doubt they’ll turn to the CAA to demand they allow them to raise passenger service fees. Unbelievable!

  • Catalan says:
    2 Aug2 August 15:05

    Oh dear. Just seen this headline:

    “Schiphol extends capacity cap into September and October”

    • Will says:
      2 Aug2 August 20:22

      That’ll teach Holland for leaving the EU
      😉

      • John says:
        3 Aug3 August 07:18

        Maybe Canada should join the EU and that will solve all its airport problems too

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

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