British Airways burdened by its hub, London Heathrow

While summer is in full swing, season with higher prices than the others In the field of hospitality, especially in 2022, British Airways made a very surprising announcement at the beginning of the week: it is suspending all sales for its short-haul flights from London Heathrow until August 15. Why such a decision?

A look back at this unlikely announcement.

Traffic recovery faster than expected

While the prophets of doom were counting on a very slow recovery in traffic following the COVID-19 pandemic that has been raging around the world since the beginning of 2020, this has not been the case.

Very promising forecasts for the year 2022

Thus, while knowing that a large part of Asia is still closed to leisure and/or business traffic (including China totally and Japan partially), traffic forecasts for 2022 are more than double the year 2020, and almost normal in Europe and America which drive a large part of the EBIT of traditional airlines.

European connection hubs are totally overwhelmed

Since this recovery is strong and sudden, and the short-time working mechanisms in Europe have worked too well, leaving airport and airline employees time to build up another activity, which is undoubtedly less demanding and more remunerative.

Also, a large number of European airports serving as hubs for airlines are totally overwhelmed by the summer traffic peak, having been unable to recruit and/or train new employees.

Amsterdam Schiphol opened the ball of indignity, with its monstrous queues and its limitation of the number of passengers now extended until October. This extension shows thatit is not a problem of a temporary peak in activity but a fundamental problem of the attractiveness of airport jobs.

Frankfurt and Paris Charles de Gaulle are also affected by the phenomenon, but to a lesser extent.

The usual queues at Paris Charles-de-Gaulle

Heathrow accumulates capacity already at the limits and staffing problems

Long before the pandemic, Heathrow was always the most stressed European hub: lack of runways, overcrowded terminals, slotsthat are in high demand and therefore very expensive.

And of course, the pandemic has not helpedwith the fleeing of personnel to other jobs, personnel who will not return to the airline industry, having sometimes been treated with little regard by their employers.

Like Schiphol, Heathrow has therefore implemented a limiton the number of passengers to 100,000 per day during the summer, without, however, indicating how they will proceed in order to cream off the passengers above this limit, estimated at 4,000 per day, of which 1,500 have already been sold.

However, Heathrow’s request to the airlines to stop selling these extra seats is not very well received, given the price of the slots.

Emirates was the first to react, indicating that it would change absolutely nothing to its program (I advise you to read the press release, a happiness of spikes to the Heathrow management). The two have since reached an agreement.

The other airlines have not reacted publicly.

British Airways hands and feet tied at Heathrow

Even though the British airline also operates from the very distant Gatwick, Heathrow remains its natural hub, operating in terminal 5 and partially in terminal 3 of the London airport.

Heathrow Terminal 5, “home” of British Airways

To cope with Heathrow’s passenger cap and its own staffing problems, the airline has already cancelled more than 10,000 flights in early July.

But faced with its own operational problems, British Airways had to make a terrible decision for a mainline airline to partially suspend the sale of its medium-haul flights until August 15, 2022, in the middle of the summer period, which is conducive to high fares, and depriving themselves of last-minute customers who are willing to pay a lot of money to leave quickly.

Is there a way around it?

If you want to leave quickly and with British Airways, there is no simple solution. It is possible that the reservation centers can find a ticket, but the availability is set to zero on the site, even for an already issued ticket that one would like to modify.

However, ExpertFlyer shows availability, proof that the systems have been blocked.