British Airways, American Among Carriers Making Significant Schedule Cuts | Business Travel News

British Airways is further
reducing its short-haul schedule through the end of October because of London
Heathrow’s decision last week to extend its capacity cap of 100,000
departing passengers per day through Oct. 29, the carrier confirmed to BTN. The
cap initially was to end Sept. 11.

“While the vast majority of our customers will travel as
planned, and we’re protecting key holiday destinations over [the] half-term, we
will need to make some further cancellations up to the end of October,” a
British Airways spokesperson wrote in an email. 

The changes will affect about 12 short-haul round-trip
flights per day from Heathrow until Oct. 29, for a total of 629 round trips,
according to multiple reports. Total capacity reduction from May to October
with the new cancellations is about 13 percent.

In addition, the carrier is adjusting its winter schedule—from
November through March—with about another 10,000 flights cut in and out of
Heathrow, or an 8 percent reduction, Sky
News reported Monday.

“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,” the
carrier said in a statement. “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.”

The British Airways news comes nearly a week after reports
noted that American Airlines had reduced its November schedule by about 31,000
domestic and international flights, according to data from Cirium. 

American wouldn’t confirm specific numbers but said in a
statement that “these adjustments are in line with our approach to our network
and schedule planning throughout the year. We are now loading schedule
adjustments approximately 100 days in advance, which is in line with how we
adjusted our schedule in 2019 prior to the pandemic.”

Other carriers have trimmed
their schedules the past few months after a chaotic start to the summer
season, when staffing shortages coupled with weather and operational issues
caused thousands
of flights to be canceled. United Airlines removed about 12 percent of its
Newark Liberty International Airport schedule beginning July 1. Delta Air Lines
cut about 100 daily departures between July 1 and Aug. 7 in the U.S. and Latin
America.

Further, after JetBlue in April announced it would cut about
10 percent of its summer schedule compared with its initial plan, this past
weekend the carrier removed 37 routes, mostly affecting Newark and Fort
Lauderdale, The Points
Guy reported. JetBlue’s route reduction follows its
successful bid for Spirit Airlines. 

The carriers mainly have made the capacity cuts to improve
operations. The moves seem to be working as eight of the 10 North American carriers
included in Cirium’s
July on-time performance report posted better averages than they did in
June.