It comes as staff at two airlines go on strike this weekend
Holidaymakers could struggle to make it to their destinations, as airlines are due to announce announce yet more cancellations next week.
The Daily Telegraph reports that by Friday, Heathrow Airport has to tell officials which flights won’t be running. And it isn’t exactly great timing, given that some schools will begin breaking up for school holidays.
British Airways is expected to bear the brunt of the cancellations. It had planned to take 1.8 million passengers across more than 9,000 flights from Heathrow during July alone.
A Heathrow Airport spokesperson said: “We encourage airlines to take this opportunity to reconsider their summer schedules without penalty and inform passengers as early as possible of any changes.”
if anyone needs a Heathrow Terminal 3 check in queue update: it’s packed pic.twitter.com/eLnwcctwrE
— k ❁ 🍉 (@honey_ricc) July 2, 2022
Travellers have faced chaos for months – with hours of queueing, baggage going missing, and flights being cancelled while passengers are queueing to board.
More disruption is also expected this weekend as both easyJet and Ryanair strike in Spain.
Staff shortages across the aviation industry have created huge hurdles post-Covid, leading to thousands of flights being cancelled. While Ireland has put the army on standby to assist at its airports, a UK government source told The Telegraph there were “no plans” for a request under the military aid to the civil authorities (MACA) scheme.
Rules around airport slots have been temporarily relaxed by the Department for Transport in a bid to reduce last-minute cancellations, meaning airlines will be given a short window, described as an “amnesty”, to give back take-off and landing slots they are not confident they will be able to operate for the rest of the summer season.
A spokesperson for the DfT said this will “help passengers find alternative arrangements ahead of time, rather than face the kind of last-minute cancellations seen over the Easter and half-term holidays.”
Responding to the news, a BA spokesperson said the slots amnesty would “help us to provide the certainty our customers deserve by making it easier to consolidate some of our quieter daily flights to multi-frequency destinations well in advance, and to protect more of our holiday flights.”
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