BA passengers face third day of flights misery

Passengers on British Airways endured a third successive day of travel disruption today as the airline cancelled seven round-trip flights.

BA warned that over the next few days it could merge some services as the effects of staff shortages from earlier in the week continued to reverberate.

Round-trip flights cancelled at Heathrow airport today were two to Glasgow, two to Aberdeen, one to Newcastle upon Tyne, one to Manchester and one to Frankfurt.

BA said it had cancelled the flights “due to ongoing operational difficulties at Heathrow airport”.

It added: “Our flying programme will be under continuous review over the next few days. We may merge some services to safeguard our operational reliability and robustness.

“If we need to do this the changes will be made well in advance of the departure time to minimise the disruption to our customers.”

BA’s problems started on Monday when it scrapped 50 flights from Heathrow due to technical problems with some transatlantic aircraft and staff shortages.

The knock-on effect – with planes and crews in the wrong place – meant a further 31 Heathrow cancellations on Tuesday.

The three days of cancellations have resulted in frustration and delays for thousands of BA passengers.

The airline began the week knowing that a potentially devastating staff strike planned for this Friday had been called off after long management-union talks last week.