BA Cuts 10,300 More Flights

British Airways is cutting a further 10,300 short-haul flights until the end of October.

The airline has been among the worst hit by staff shortages that have caused widespread disruption for passengers across the aviation industry.

BA has announced further cuts to its flight schedule in an effort to make its services more robust.

The airline says it takes the total 'schedule intervention' for this summer to 13%.

Short-haul routes will be affected,  but British Airways would not confirmed to us whether that would include its Channel Islands routes. 

The cancellations are part of focus to protect 'holiday flights', and an industry source has suggested the airline categories Jersey and Guernsey in those terms.

Destinations with weak bookings would be most likely to have flight frequency consolidated.

"The whole aviation industry continues to face into significant challenges and we're completely focussed on building resilience into our operation to give customers the certainty they deserve.

The (UK) Government recently decided to give the whole industry slot alleviation to minimise potential disruption this summer. While taking further action is not where we wanted to be, it's the right thing to do for our customers and our colleagues. This new flexibility means that we can further reduce our schedule and consolidate some of our quieter services so that we can protect as many of our holiday flights as possible.

While most of our flights are unaffected and the majority of customers will get away as planned, we don't underestimate the impact this will have and we're doing everything we can to get their travel plans back on track. We're in touch to apologise and offer rebooking options for new flights with us or another airline as soon as possible or issue a full refund." - BA statement.

However, there could be worse problems ahead for BA customers using Heathrow.

BA revealed the latest cuts less than 24 hours before unions representing 700 of its check-in and ground-handling staff at the airport - almost half its customer-facing team there - were expected to reveal strike dates in a dispute over pay.

The walkouts were widely expected to coincide with the start of the summer holiday rush.