British Airways has become the latest airline to suspend its flight schedule to and from Gatwick Airport.

In a statement, British Airways said: “Due to the considerable restrictions and challenging market environment, like many other airlines, we will temporarily suspend our flying schedule at Gatwick.

“We are contacting affected customers to discuss their options.”

Essential functions of the airline will continue, including maintenance, towing and cleaning, to enable BA to support the airfield and be ready for an efficient start-up.

A limited BA schedule is still continuing at Heathrow Airport.

The news comes a day after EasyJet announced that it had grounded its entire fleet of 330-plus aircraft “as a result of the unprecedented travel restrictions imposed by governments in response to the coronavirus pandemic”.

This news comes a week after British Airways announced it was suspending its operations from London City Airport. The flights, operated by subsidiary BA CityFlyer, will not restart until 4 April at the earliest.

International Airlines Group (IAG) announced yesterday (30 March) that British Airways had extended its US dollar secured Revolving Credit Facility for one year from 23 June 2020 to 23 June 2021.

The amount available under the extended facility is $1.38 billion. Including the extended facility and some smaller additional facilities recently arranged, IAG has total undrawn general and committed aircraft financing facilities equivalent to €2.1 billion currently, compared to €1.9 billion at the end of 2019.

In a statement, IAG said that it has not drawn down on any of its facilities and the company continues to have strong liquidity with cash, cash equivalents and interest-bearing deposits of €7.2 billion as at 27 March. Total cash and undrawn facilities for IAG are currently €9.3 billion.

In addition, the group said that is “exploring a number of operational and treasury initiatives to improve further its cash flow and liquidity and will update the market in due course”.