British Airways has stopped selling short-haul flights from Heathrow Airport until next week amid ongoing travel chaos across the country’s airports.
The UK flag carrier has halted the sale of tickets until August 8 due to a recent cap on flights the airport introduced.
Until at least October the airport has limited their flights to 100,000 passenger departures a day, down from 104,000.
British Airways initially stopped sales last weekend but since this has been extended to August 8 and could be pushed back once again.
This means that Brits will increasingly struggle to book flights in the immediate short term and some have claimed the cap could see ticket prices rise as demand does.
Originally Heathrow called on airlines to stop pushing summer tickets so hard to help its efforts to cut departure numbers.
The Telegraph even reported that the airport asked airlines to boot passengers off of flights in an effort to end travel chaos.
A source told the Telegraph : "In effect, passengers face being bumped off flights that do take off.”
However, it’s not just BA that has taken this step and Lufthansa has also reduced their flight sales last month.
Amid the ongoing travel chaos, thousands of flights have been cancelled and countless holidays scuppered for unfortunate Brits.
Alongside this, a large number of Brits have seen their luggage go astray or simply lost entirely as chaos throttles the nations terminals.
This comes as the cost-of-living crisis has pushed airport workers to strike, potentially worsening disruption.
BA pilots have potential strikes coming this summer as in Spain Ryanair crews threatened to walk out.
A spokesperson for BA said: "As a result of Heathrow’s request to limit new bookings, we’ve decided to take responsible action and limit the available fares on some Heathrow services to help maximise rebooking options for existing customers, given the restrictions imposed on us and the ongoing challenges facing the entire aviation industry."
One of the most recent examples of the airport chaos has been passengers who, instead of flying out to Rhodes, ended up being sent from Norwich to London and back in a crazy 30 hour delay.
The holidaymakers were scheduled to leave from Norwich on Wednesday when their Tui flight was delayed until 10.30pm, when it was cancelled altogether.
They were then told their plane was leaving from Gatwick and so boarded coaches for an overnight stay near Crawley, West Sussex, rather than the holiday isle.
The next morning the firm then told them their plane was ready - but was back in Norwich.
Passenger Mark Overton, who was travelling with his wife and two children, told Norwich Evening News: “As you can imagine, people are very upset and tired after a delay of more than 24 hours.
"There were some seriously distressing scenes at the airport on Wednesday night, particularly people going out for a honeymoon.
"The thing that shocked me is the lack of information coming from people at the airport and the lack of TUI reps.”
