Flight disruption over the last weekend of July and so far this week has been limited, with the Airport Operators Association reporting “no problems”.
It followed a relatively trouble-free start to the peak summer season at UK airports despite the mayhem at the Port of Dover at the start of the school holidays.
An Airport Operators Association spokesman said: “It has been relatively calm. The capacity cap at Heathrow is having an impact and we’re seeing the benefits of having time to recruit staff.”
British Airways triggered fresh negative headlines in the media by suspending short-haul bookings from Heathrow this week. But BA insisted: “This isn’t about cancellations. Our flights are operating as planned and customers already booked are unaffected.”
The carrier initially confirmed the suspension of sales was limited to short-haul flights until Monday August 8, but extended this yesterday to August 15.
In a statement, BA said: “We’ve decided to limit the available fares on some Heathrow services to help maximise rebooking options for existing customers.”
This was “as a result of Heathrow’s request to limit new bookings”, it said.
Heathrow imposed a cap on departing passenger numbers in July through to September 11. BA has to date cancelled 18% of its summer schedule or some 30,000 flights, the vast majority of these in advance of Heathrow announcing its cap.
A BA spokesperson explained: “We took pre-emptive action to reduce our schedule this summer to give customers certainty about their travel plans and to build more resilience into our operation given the ongoing challenges facing the entire aviation industry.
“When Heathrow introduced its passenger cap, we took a small number of additional flights from our schedule.
“To continue to comply with the cap, we’ve been limiting sales or all the available fares on some of our Heathrow services to ensure more seats are available to rebook customers.
“We’ll continue to manage bookings to be within the Heathrow imposed cap so we can get customers away as planned this summer.”
Travel Weekly understands BA is reviewing the number of passengers departing Heathrow daily and managing the numbers across its schedule by limiting the seats for sale or, on occasions, stopping sales to ensure it does not breach Heathrow’s cap.
It is not the first major carrier to cap sales during this summer’s disruption – Lufthansa at Frankfurt and KLM at Amsterdam Schiphol have done the same to relieve congestion and prevent further disruption.
Despite the negative publicity around BA’s latest action, Heathrow’s capacity cap appears to be working.
An airline source told Travel Weekly: “The cap is basically turning away new bookings but not pushing people off flights. BA is handling the cap in the way least damaging to its long-haul business.”
The source added: “There has been frantic work to get the system as good as it could be. In most cases it has been better than the headlines suggest.
“The industry desperately needs some stability. As soon as we get through the peak the focus will be on schedule planning. We’ve been fire fighting for too long.”
However, a second aviation source warned: “The pinch now could come in mid-August when people are coming back into the UK as well as going out in substantial numbers.”
Which? Travel editor Guy Hobbs said: “With further ticket sale suspensions possible, people should consider booking as early as possible to avoid last-minute disappointment and inflated fares. They should also consider alternative airports and airlines where possible.”