Flying in Europe is a mess this summer. British Airways has cancelled more than 1,000 additional flights through October amid increasing flight delays and cancellations across the continent.
The Oneworld Alliance carrier is cancelling roughly 1 percent of its schedule from July though October, which equals a little over 1,000 flights according to Cirium schedules. The cuts are on top of the 10 percent reduction that British Airways made to the period in May. An airline spokesperson described this summer’s recovery as the “most challenging period” in the aviation industry’s history.
EasyJet, KLM, Lufthansa, and Swiss International Air Lines have all been forced to cut schedules in recent weeks due to operational difficulties with staffing, at airports, or with air traffic control. And that was before a pilot strike at Scandinavian airline SAS forced it to cancel as much as 76 percent of its schedule on Tuesday, FlightAware data show, and file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S.
British Airways is in a unique situation. Executives have placed the blame for operational issues on what they view as understaffing by the operator of London’s Heathrow airport, but politicians have cited both the airline and airport. In addition, a dispute with two of British Airways’ unions has raised the threat of a strike by check-in staff at Heathrow later this summer.
Tags: british airways