British Airways just axed four popular short-haul routes from the UK

It’s the season of scaling back, with British Airways becoming the latest airline to axe four popular flights from the UK.

Only a few weeks ago, Ryanair announced it would be cutting 24 European routes amid a row with airport operators over ‘exorbitant’ fees, including taxes and air traffic control charges.

Now, there’s about to be even less choice for Brits booking a quick weekend getaway.

As of March 2026, when BA and most other airlines switch to their summer schedules, passengers will no longer be able to book flights from London Heathrow to Cologne or Stuttgart, in Germany, or Riga, the Latvian capital.

They also won’t be able to fly from London City Airport to Frankfurt, which is served by BA CityFlyer.

Metro spoke to a British Airways spokesperson who confirmed that the London to Frankfurt route will still be available — but it’s moving to Heathrow.

They said: ‘We’re focused on making sure we’re flying to where our customers want to travel to next summer, and we’ve apologised to affected customers and offered rebooking options on an alternative flight or a full refund.’

They described the changes as more of a shakeup than a reduction. New routes are also being added: you’ll soon be able to fly from London City to Madrid, for instance.

Aviation blogger and analyst Sean Moulton was the first to report the schedule changes on X.

There are many reasons for airlines to change or scrap routes, and it happens pretty regularly.

What new routes would you love to see from the UK? Have your say in the commentsComment Now

It’s mostly because of something known as ‘load factor’ in the aviation world.

A poor load factor simply means not enough seats are being booked.

Looking at UK airport data, we can see that from January 2025 to August 2025, British Airways flew approximately 46,000 round-trip passengers to Riga.

That might sound like a lot, but out of the 64,800 seats that BA had available for booking, they only filled 70%. That percentage, and anything less than that, is where airlines tend to start looking at scrapping routes.

In this case, however, the decision is also likely to be linked to seasonality.

Seasonal routes are in place for a reason. In winter, demand for flights to German destinations spikes due to Christmas markets. These places tend to be less popular in the summer.

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