School holiday chaos alert as BA axes flights

Staff shortages cause cutbacks

FAMILIES are facing a summer of chaos after British Airways axed hundreds of flights over the school holidays.

Popular routes to America and the Far East have been hit, along with flights to European cities.

The UK’s flagship airline will halve the number of flights from Heathrow to Miami from two a day to just one from June until September.

The current suspension of flights to Hong Kong and Tokyo because of Covid will also continue until after schools go back in September.

BA – which has already scrapped 1,000 flights in the past three weeks – also announced it will be cancelling flights to European hotspots such as Paris, Berlin and Prague.

The airline apologised as it broke the news to passengers in an email and said: “We’ll do everything we can to get you where you need to be.”

It also said its partner American Airlines would be doubling its number of flights to the US from one to two a day over the summer.

Travel experts said recruitment difficulties and staff shortages caused by a rise in Covid cases were to blame.

Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said: “The airline’s planners obviously believe there is a maximum number of people they feel they will recruit, therefore it has to cut back.

“It is readjusting in order to give as much notice as it can.” Yesterday, BA said: “While the vast majority of our flights continue to operate as planned, as a precaution we’ve slightly reduced our schedule.” The news comes hot on the heels of transport chaos over the Easter. Hundreds of flights to Europe and the US were cancelled by both BA and easyJet after they were hit by Covid absences and a surge in demand after travel restrictions lifted.