an Airbus 1350 of British Airways (Photo: BA)
8000 flights: this is about the number of frequencies that British Airways decided to cancel between March and October. This reduction in the number of flights is linked to the fact that the company is understaffed, not having sufficiently anticipated the recovery of traffic since the beginning of the year.
With the Covid pandemic, British Airways
had to let go of some 10,000 employees while it was losing 20 million pounds a day (23 million euros) at that time.
But traffic has been increasing since the beginning of the year. According to figures provided by IAG, the holding company of BA, the British company has recorded an increase of 740.3% in the number of its passengers in the first quarter of 2022. That is 5.3 million passengers instead of 0.63 million in the first quarter of 2021.
Staff shortage
And obviously, the carrier has not been able to anticipate this recovery as its capacity since the end of 2021 has fallen from 30% to 80% of pre-Covid figures. The carrier has launched a recruitment campaign for 6,000 people. But the integration of this new staff will take time. The employee shortage is particularly acute among pilots and baggage handlers. As for the rest of the airline industry, British Airways is also facing a record number of absenteeism due to asymptomatic Covid cases
. Capture from British Airways Twitter page on 05/23/2022 All that
remained was to remove flights to ensure stability of supply and allow passengers to book without unpleasant surprises, according to the company. But there are still many failures, judging by the comments of Internet users on the carrier’s social networks. In fact, Twitter is full of messages from travelers complaining about last-minute flight cancellations, the impossibility of checking in online, or the inability to get an answer by phone, social networks or e-mail. And for which BA’s Twitter teams have no choice but to apologize.
As for passengers, it’s best to check several times if everything seems to be going as planned before a departure.

I’m Michelle, and I love to travel. As a former hotel expert for one of the world’s largest hotel chains, I’ve stayed in nearly every type of room imaginable (including many that were not so desirable!). Nowadays, I am fortunate enough to be able to explore the world on my own terms. From international flights to learning different languages, there is nothing too far out of reach!