A further 650 flights from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports planned for July will be cancelled by British Airways, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The purpose of the cancellations will be to come up with a flight schedule that can actually be implemented and thus avoid last-minute cancellations, a phenomenon that inconvenienced thousands of passengers last month.
In total, 7% of the airline's flights from Heathrow and 14% from Gatwick will be cancelled. Up to 70 destinations will be affected, including Athens and other tourist resorts popular with Britons, such as Ibiza, Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and Faro.
This of course means that up to 105,000 passengers (76,000 from Heathrow and 29,400 from Gatwick) who wanted to travel on holiday on the affected flights will have to look for another available flight.
British Airways' plan has reportedly been submitted to airport scheduling authorities and comes under the government's "amnesty" for airlines to reconfigure their summer schedules without incurring financial penalties.
Airlines must submit their new flight schedules by Friday. The aim of the government's move is to ensure that passengers on flights that will take place can be properly served and that there are no last-minute cancellations or continued chaos at British airports.
Note that in June British Airlines cancelled 295 flights, while many other airlines cancelled flights at the last minute.
[BR][BR]easyJet, whose Chief Operating Officer resigned on Monday, cancelled 742 flights last month.
A British Airways spokesman said: "As the entire airline industry continues to face the most challenging period in its history, it has unfortunately become necessary to make some further reductions. We are in contact with our customers to apologise and offer new bookings or issue them a full refund."
Similar announcements are expected from other airlines ahead of Friday.
Meanwhile, the inconvenience for the travelling public continued on Monday. At Manchester Airport, the queue for security checks reportedly stretched all the way to the terminal car park. Queues at Heathrow's Terminal 2 also stretched outside the building.
The problems are being caused by severe shortages of airport and airline staff.
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