British Airways has made preparations to begin restricting ticket sales to long-haul destinations as part of its strategy to comply with a 100,000-passenger limit on daily departures from Heathrow. The IAG-owned airline says its main focus is on reducing short-haul passenger numbers but warns that, because of the number of flights it operates, it may be required to axe services or ticket sales on some long-haul route and dates. Heathrow has imposed the cap on departing passenger numbers until 11 September as part effort to minimise disruption to travellers as it ramps up from the pandemic. BA had already cancelled a wave of services through the summer even before the cap, but is now also limiting the number of seats it sells on its flights. It recently announced that it would suspend short-haul ticket sales on services from Heathrow until 8 August, action that has now been extended by a week to the 15th. "We took pre-emptive action to reduce our schedule this summer to give customers certainty about their travel plans and to build more resilience into our operation given the ongoing challenges facing the entire aviation industry," says the airline. "When Heathrow introduced its passenger cap, we took a small number of additional flights from our schedule and to continue to comply with the cap, we've been taking responsible action by limiting sales or all the available fares on some of our Heathrow services to ensure more seats are available to rebook customers. We'll continue to manage bookings to be within the Heathrow imposed cap so we can get our customers away as planned this summer." BA adds that it is constantly reviewing the number of customers departing from Heathrow in order to match numbers with the cap. As well as staying within the limit, by restricting the number of seats for sale on certain dates and enacting wider ticket-sale suspensions, BA hopes to protect existing bookings and minimise operational disruption.

British Airways is suspending the sale of short haul-tickets from London Heathrow until 8 August, following the airport's decision to limit passenger numbers to 100,000 per day this summer. The move will limit passengers on domestic and European routes, and follows months of disruption as airport capacity struggled to cope with a recovery in demand. "As a result of Heathrow's request to limit new bookings, we've decided to take responsible action and limit the available fares on some Heathrow services to help maximise rebooking options for existing customers, given the restrictions imposed on us and the ongoing challenges facing the entire aviation industry," says BA. Up to now, the IAG-owned airline has been largely unaffected by the imposition of a daily passenger cap at Heathrow, having already pre-planned flight cancellations during the summer. In a results briefing on 29 July, IAG noted that BA had cancelled 16,000 flights over the period May to October, representing 10% of its scheduled services, of which 85% were short-haul and 15% long-haul. Amid a second "pre-emptive reduction" phase in June, 1,900 flights were cancelled – mainly in July – representing 1% of the total. As a result of these moves, when Heathrow introduced the 100,000-passenger daily cap on 12 July BA was required to cancel only 0.5% of flights to comply, the airline said.

India's SpiceJet has agreed a settlement with the Airports Authority of India and paid all outstanding principals due to the statutory board. The low-cost carrier says that under its "full and final settlement" with AAI it will revert to the advance-payment mechanism for daily flight operations at the authority's airports in India, having previously operated on a cash-and-carry basis. AAI will also release SpiceJet's Rs500 million ($6.4 million) bank guarantee. SpiceJet says its ability to clear the pending dues reflects improved cash flow, adding that the release of the bank guarantee will provide additional liquidity. On 27 July, India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DCGA) issued an interim order instructing SpiceJet to restrict flights to 50% of its approved departures for a period of eight weeks as part of "enhanced surveillance". Lifting of the restrictions during the monitoring period "shall be subject to the airline demonstrating to the satisfaction of the DGCA that it has sufficient technical support and financial resource to safely and efficiently undertake such enhanced capacity", said the regulator. In a 28 July response filed to the BSE stock exchange, SpiceJet said that it had received the DGCA notice and stressed that "there has been no impact on our schedule following the said DGCA order" as it "had already rescheduled its flight operations due to the current lean travel season". "SpiceJet is confident of scaling up its operations with the onset of the festive season and addressing any concern the regulator may have on priority," it added. The 50% capacity restriction relates to the DGCA's 5 July show-cause notice, issued to SpiceJet in connection with various operational incidents. The airline was given three weeks to respond. In issuing the show-cause notice, the DGCA accused SpiceJet of "degradation of safety margins", "poor internal safety oversight" and "inadequate maintenance actions", pointing to incidents of component or system-related failure. The regulator highlighted that in its financial assessment of SpiceJet in September 2021, it had found that suppliers and vendors were "not being paid on [a] regular basis... leading to shortage of spares and frequent invoking of an MEL [minimum equipment list]".