How will British Airways’ 10,000 flight cancellations affect its Spain passengers?

British Airways (BA) announced on Monday August 22nd that it will slash more than 10,000 flights from its upcoming autumn and winter schedules to and from its main hub in London: Heathrow.

BA will also cancel an additional 600 scheduled Heathrow flights scheduled before the end of October.

The reasons for this are the ongoing problems the aviation sector is facing with the spike in demand after the coronavirus pandemic as well as the limit of 100,000 passengers a day Heathrow authorities have introduced, recently extended until at least October 29th. 

“Following Heathrow’s decision to extend its passenger cap, we’re making adjustments to our short-haul schedule for the next two months,” British Airways said in a statement. 

“While the vast majority of our customers will travel as planned and we’re protecting key holiday destinations over half-term, we will need to make some further cancellations up to the end of October. 

“In addition, we’re giving customers travelling with us this winter notice of some adjustments to our schedule, which will include consolidating some of our short-haul flights to destinations with multiple services.” 

In other words, the majority of the flight cancellations will occur on routes where there are other services scheduled on the same day, which should ensure the “minimal impact” for most passengers the airline claims.

“We’ll be offering customers affected by any of these changes an alternative flight with British Airways or another airline or the option of a refund.”

According to the BA website, the airline has flights to a number of Spanish destinations including Alicante, Almería, Lanzarote, Barcelona, Bilbao, Granada, Ibiza, Jerez De La Frontera, La Coruña, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Madrid, Málaga, Melilla, Menorca, Oviedo, Palma de Mallorca, Pamplona, San Sebastián, Santander, Santiago De Compostela, Seville, Tenerife, Valencia and Vigo. 

Some of these routes are partly operated by BA’s Spanish IAG partners Iberia, Vueling and Iberia Express.

According to the airline, the majority of flights will remain in the schedule and customers booked for winter will be able to travel as planned as well as being given several months’ notice if there are any changes to their flights. 

BA will reportedly operate on average around 290 round-trips per day from London Heathrow in winter, many of these to Spain. 

Overall, BA’s total capacity for the winter schedule will be reduced by 8 percent.

Heathrow authorities argue that their passenger cap has meant there have been fewer last-minute flights cancellations, more flights leaving and landing on time and shorter baggage waits, during what’s proven to be a chaotic summer for air travel.

British Airways already cut 30,000 flights from its schedule between April and October of this year, meaning that over a 12-month period they will have operated 40,000 fewer flights.

There is no indication of how many of this total encompass cancelled flights to and from Spain, but if the airline’s statement is anything to go on, most people who had booked tickets between Heathrow and Spain in the upcoming months will suffer none or very few changes to their travel plans.