British Airways suspends ticket sales for short-haul flights from Heathrow Airport

Ticket sales for short-haul flights from Heathrow Airport have been suspended by British Airways.

Customers will not be able to book onto domestic or European services flying from the airport until Monday, August 8.

The decision was taken by the airline after Heathrow’s decision to place a cap on passengers numbers.

In a statement 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.”

Heathrow announced last month that no more than 100,000 daily departing passengers are permitted until September 11.

BA earlier responded to Heathrow’s cap on passenger numbers by announcing it would cancel 10,300 flights until October, with one million passengers affected.

The airline accused the airport of showing “blatant disregard for consumers” by attempting to force it to “deny seats to tens of thousands of travellers” through the cap.

A Heathrow spokeswoman said at the time it would be “disappointing” if “any airline would want to put profit ahead of a safe and reliable passenger journey”.

Virgin Atlantic also criticised the airport’s actions and claimed it was responsible for failures which are contributing to the chaos.