Flights from London to Ireland are rising in price due to British Airways stopping the sale of tickets for short hauls from Heathrow until August 8, after the airport requested airlines to limit new bookings.

Tens of thousands of flights have already been cancelled so far this summer because the airline industry has been struggling to cope with the surge in post-pandemic travel and staff shortages.

The average price of the cheapest return flights this week, from Heathrow to Dublin with Aer Lingus, are now in the region €387 and €322 with Ryanair.

The cheapest price of next week's return BA flights, which are operated by Aer Lingus, range from €251 to €578.

Travel expert Eoghan Corry said that the cancellations of sale for the four daily BA flights will cause chaos at Dublin Airport this weekend and next week.

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He said: "It has been disproportionately disruptive on the Heathrow route compared with other routes. The 12 existing daily Aer Lingus flights are now under more pressure for price and further availability.

"It does impact as Heathrow is our biggest hub and is bigger than Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, or Amsterdam.

"The British Airways cancellations at the beginning of May already impacted the Irish airports but now the Heathrow cap is really putting on extra pressure," he added.

Heathrow capped the number of passengers flying with them at 100,000 a day. The airport also told airlines this summer to limit the number of tickets that they sell to passengers, in an attempt to reduce the long airport queues and confusion over lost baggage.

In a statement, British Airways said: "On some occasions or dates, we need to stop sales to ensure that we don't exceed the Heathrow Airport cap.

"The benefit of this approach is that we can protect existing bookings and should there be any on the-day operational disruption such as weather disruption, air traffic control restrictions, we have more seats available to rebook customers who don't make their connections." Mr Corry explained that such cancellations end up causing "a big drama" as "the price goes up and the availability comes down".

Some passengers are warned of cancellations 48 hours before their flight and others have arrived at the gate only to find that they are not getting on the plane.

Mr Corry said that most of the recent baggage-handling problems at Dublin Airport were caused by Heathrow. "At one stage, we had 30 bags being brought over for passengers who had already landed in Ireland. Their flight had taken off without their luggage which hadn't been sorted in time at Heathrow.

"We've also had delays with the captain waiting for the baggage to be loaded onto the plane."

With less flights taking off from Heathrow over the next week, prices and demand for other airlines have increased.

When contacted, Aer Lingus said it plans to operate all Heathrow flights as scheduled this week.