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British Airways cancels hundreds of flights after new restrictions
Sadly the travel industry has been dealt another blow by the latest restrictions, even though it was nowhere near to recovering after the last couple of years of Covid turmoil. The restrictions have caused a lack of consumer confidence in the UK and many have started to cancel or rearrange plans. Unless you are visiting Southern Africa imminently or for some reason, absolutely can’t comply with the tests required, I would not be cancelling anything right now. I would be looking at what the change and cancellation policies are for your bookings and leaving it as late as possible to decide. Things can change very quickly both in imposing regulations and in reversing them. Japan and Switzerland reversed their decisions to increase regulations within a couple of days.
It is possible that Omicron will turn out to be a storm in a teacup and either way it will soon become dominant here anyway. Hopefully, this will then lead to certain travel restrictions being reversed. Prior to the new variant, there had even been talk of removing testing for fully-vaccinated people early next year.
British Airways has cancelled 667 flights in the last week for flights as far ahead as March according to flight data experts Cirium. Reports on other websites that they cancelled 2000+ flights do not seem to be substantiated by the data. It is not known if some of these may have been cancelled anyway, since January is traditionally a quiet month for travel.
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10 comments
I have BA flights to Bangkok booked for March, looking at the online booking system there are no seats available to Bangkok through until the end of April. No way are all flights fully booked so obviously they’ve all been cancelled. Clearly they won’t admit it and I won’t be told of the cancellation for another couple of months. Any excuse to keep my cash longer. To hell with the customer
What does manage my booking show?
The booking is still there, but the same thing happened last year, no availability, they said all flights were full but I knew they’d already been pulled. I challenged them at the time knowing I would eventually get the dreaded email but they wouldn’t come out and admit I was right. Surely it’s good business sense to tell the passenger immediately that the flights are cancelled. The sooner I’m told, the more likely I am to rebook with them. The longer they leave it, then I’ll take the cash and go elsewhere.
I suspect what has actually happened is that they haven’t made the decision yet but are considering cancelling it. They often do this by blocking any further seat sales and then decide at a later date whether to cancel the flight.
I agree with Grumpy, similar thing happened with flights I had booked to Thessaloniki for next July, no information from BA for nearly 2 weeks even though no flights were showing as available to book. Michele, just as a matter of interest, do you know if there is a definitive list of the 667 you mentioned? I’ve tried to Google but no luck – meant to be heading to Miami on 16th but I’m getting worried!!
No there isn’t a list. If it’s been cancelled you would know by now.
Yep, my flight/ hotel and transfers cancelled to Krakow Jan 20th (for the second time!) two weeks ago.The deposit was refunded within three days, but bizarrely flights ok a few weeks into February are still available. Unless your lucky enough to be retired and flexible with leave, I’m not bothering to reschedule with all the hassle of testing etc. It took one hour to get through to BA ( I am only Bronze now!) My Boston trip in March next, let’s see what’s the score then.
We are booked to BKK using a 241 on the 23rd January. I just looked and it is zeroed out on Expertflyer and the BA site saying no direct flight that day when I try to do a dummy booking. Just awaiting the cancellation email now.
I had exactly the same issue at the beginning of this year. LGW to SJO. I ended up rebooking my flight 3 times. Each time I spotted that the flights were beginning to disappear on the run up to the dates I had booked, you could see it clear as day. I stupidly kept moving the flights back (along with changes to 5 hotels along the way) hoping that BA would eventually stop cancelling the flights. After the 3rd time I thought this is just not meant to happen, gave up and managed to get a refund.
I have a flight from BKK on 13/01/22. No direct flights showing in the app when you try to book. Same for dates in March. I’m assuming that it will be cancelled. I just wish BA would come out and say that, the flights were available to book last week. Can totally understand cancellations but they just need to be quicker at notifying people.
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