August 3, 2022: British Airways has extended its ban on European and domestic short-haul ticket sales. On Monday (August 2), the airline had said it would extend a brief sales moratorium at the end of July until August 8. On Tuesday, British Airways confirmed that it would further extend the sales ban until August 15.
British Airways’ decision affects short-haul UK domestic and European flights from Heathrow. It has not cancelled those flights, and available seats back to Heathrow are still on sale. Instead, British Airways simply stopped selling all remaining seats on flights departing from Heathrow. In fact, most of the affected scheduled flights were almost full before ticket sales were suspended, so only a few seats on each flight were cancelled.
The move is also a clear signal from British Airways that they are heeding Heathrow’s call to put a cap on the number of passengers. “When Heathrow imposed passenger caps, we removed a small number of additional flights from our flight schedule. We have been acting responsibly to ensure more seats are available for customers to rebook.”
Both British Airways and Heathrow believe that reducing the number of passengers passing through the airport will help smooth operations and improve flight reliability. Crucially, the move is aimed at reducing temporary flight cancellations, severe delays, and long waits at security lanes and when picking up checked bags.