STAFFING SHORTAGES AND LOGISTICAL ISSUES FORCE BRITISH AIRWAYS TO CUT THOUSANDS OF FLIGHTS

Tue 23 August 2022:

Thousands of flights at Heathrow Airport will be canceled, British Airways announced on Monday, due to ongoing staffing issues and logistical challenges, Anadolu Agency reported

The airline will axe up to 10,000 flights to and from the UK’s largest and busiest airport until the end of March next year as it grapples with staff shortages that hit the aviation industry following the coronavirus pandemic.

“While the vast majority of our customers will travel as planned and we’re protecting key holiday destinations over half-term, we will need to make some further cancellations up to the end of October,” said a statement from British Airways.

“In addition, we’re giving customers travelling with us this winter notice of some adjustments to our schedule, which will include consolidating some of our short-haul flights to destinations with multiple services,” the statement added.

More than 600 return flights from the summer schedule will be cancelled up until Oct. 29, while the winter schedule, which will run until the end of March next year, will be cut by 8%.

The notification of the cancellations came after Heathrow Airport requested that the airline sell fewer tickets to customers in order to clear a passenger backlog at the terminal and extended the daily quota of 100,000 passengers by an additional six weeks.

Due to the near-collapse of the aviation industry during the coronavirus epidemic and subsequent lockdowns, hundreds of employees at airports throughout the UK were laid off.

However, since flights resumed last year, Heathrow and a number of other international airports have failed to maintain sufficient staff levels to handle growing passenger flows, resulting in long lines and chaos.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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