British Airways has stopped all ticket sales on short-haul flights from Heathrow Airport for at least a week. 

It comes after airport bosses urged airlines to limit new bookings after a summer of travel turmoil. 

Customers will not be able to book domestic or European flights flying from the London airport until at least August 8. 

However, short-haul BA flight tickets into Heathrow are still purchasable. 

In a statement on Monday, BA said: “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.”

READ MORE: Thousands warned of disruption to holidays as flights cancelled

Heathrow announced last month a maximum of 100,000 daily departing passengers were allowed until September 11. 

The aviation industry has struggled to keep up with increased demand amid severe staff shortages coming out of the pandemic. 

Heathrow has been particularly hit with travellers seeing long security queues and baggage system breakdowns.

BA previously responded to the passenger cap by announcing it would cancel 10,3000 flights until October, affecting one million passengers.

Meanwhile, Emirates rejected the airport's order to cancel flights claiming it showed a “blatant disregard for consumers” by attempting to force the airline to “deny seats to tens of thousands of travellers” through the cap.

A Heathrow spokeswoman said at the time it would be “disappointing” if “any airline would want to put profit ahead of a safe and reliable passenger journey”.

Virgin Atlantic also criticised the airport’s actions and claimed it was responsible for failures which are contributing to the chaos.

Airlines on July 21 were accused of “harmful practices” in their treatment of passengers affected by disruption.

The Competition and Markets Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority issued a joint letter to carriers, expressing concern that “consumers could experience significant harm unless airlines meet their obligations”.

The letter stated: “We are concerned that some airlines may not be doing everything they could to avoid engaging in one or more harmful practices.”

These include selling more tickets for flights “than they can reasonably expect to supply”, not always “fully satisfying obligations” to offer flights on alternative airlines to passengers affected by cancellations, and failing to give consumers “sufficiently clear and upfront information about their rights”.