Coronavirus: British Airways, Ryanair cancel hundreds of flights as demand sinks

Two of the UK’s leading airlines are cutting flights from their London hubs as coronavirus fears have led to a demand slump.

British Airways will cancel more than 400 flights, while budget carrier Ryanair is cutting capacity to and from Italy.

BA’s affected flights are between 16 and 28 March from Heathrow airport to cities in Europe, although one daily British Airways flight to New York’s JFK airport will be cut.

Around 26 British Airways Cityflyer flights between London City Airport and airports in Germany and Italy across the same time period are also cancelled due to coronavirus fears.

BA said today: “We will be contacting customers on cancelled flights so we can discuss their travel options, including rebooking onto other carriers where possible, full refunds or booking with BA for a later date of travel”.

The UK’s flag carrier airline is trying to shore up demand by scrapping all change fees on flights booked in the next two weeks, so “customer can book with confidence.”

Rival carrier Ryanair will cut around 25 per cent of flights between UK and Italy – the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe.

Flights booked for travel between 17 March and 8 April may be affected.

Ryanair said it had seen a “significant” decrease in bookings for the pre-Easter travel period, although it was too early to predict the impact on the airline’s bottom line for the full year.

The budget carrier’s boss Michael O’Leary said: “It makes sense to selectively prune our schedule to and from those airports where travel has been most affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.”

Airline shares have taken a battering in the last two weeks as fears of a global coronavirus pandemic mount.

Rory Boland, editor of Which Travel, said: ““BA and Ryanair must ensure they are keeping passengers informed and quickly rerouting them to their destinations on the next available flight, with other carriers if necessary.” (CityA.M)