August 2nd - British Airways removes short-haul flights until August 16th
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 2 August 2022
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
British Airways has announced that there will be no chance to book short-haul flights until August 16th at the very least, in a bid to keep themselves under the passenger cap at Heathrow airport and to try and stop the chaos that has befallen those of us looking to get away this summer. The removal of bookings doesn't mean that the flights pre-booked won't be happening, thankfully, but I take a look at what British Airways announcement means and what your options are when trying to book your trip abroad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast and the reason I'm sniggering is because it's actually the second one I've done. |
| 0:10.1 | The first one became out of date about five seconds after I finished it. So I'm talking today about the British Airways decision to stop selling short-haul domestic and |
| 0:22.4 | European flights over the summer. Now, about 10 minutes ago, that was up to and including |
| 0:31.5 | the 8th of August. So a week today, that's now been extended, I understand, by another week. |
| 0:39.1 | So to the 15th of August, you cannot buy a British Airways short hauled domestic or European flight at any price. |
| 0:48.1 | So important to understand what that means and why it is happening. |
| 0:53.7 | So first of all, absolutely critical to say that anybody with an |
| 0:59.2 | existing booking can assume that that flight is going ahead on bridge jeweis from Heathrow. |
| 1:05.2 | Yes, they have had a million cancellations. That's a slight exaggeration. 30,000 is kind of nearer the mark but they |
| 1:13.8 | finished canceling flights effectively so there shouldn't be anymore there'll be the |
| 1:19.3 | old one which kind of always happens in summer anyway business as usual but there |
| 1:24.2 | will not be any mass cancellation so if you've got got a booking, as I have from Heathrow, |
| 1:30.3 | sorry, somebody with an ankle grinder there. |
| 1:33.4 | Angle grinder, not an ankle grinder, |
| 1:35.3 | that would be something else entirely. |
| 1:38.2 | So if you've got a flight, that's fine. |
| 1:40.4 | And if you're flying to Heathrow, |
| 1:42.8 | you're able to do that without too much trouble. |
| 1:46.0 | So for example, Glasgow to Heathrow today I saw fares as low as £117 on British Airways, |
| 1:54.0 | nothing at all going the opposite direction. |
| 1:57.0 | So why are they doing this? |
| 1:59.0 | Well, a couple of reasons of which the main one seems to be |
... |
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