British Airways has cancelled more than a third of its transatlantic flights on 11 September as passengers choose not to fly on the anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington.

BA said 24 of its 78 flights between the US and the UK had been scrapped on that day due to a lack of bookings.

Other airlines said they were reviewing the situation after seeing a fall-off in bookings, but still planned to run full services.

The BA Concorde London to New York flight, as well as four normal subsonic flights between the two cities on 11 September will run as normal, but some flights to San Francisco, Washington and Miami have been cancelled.

Virgin is to review the situation

A spokeswoman for BA said passengers already booked on the scrapped flights would be moved onto other services.

She said: "It's difficult to know the exact reason for the lack of bookings, but, understandably, people are choosing not to fly on the anniversary date."

The airline has also cancelled a Heathrow-Washington flight on 10 September and a Washington-Heathrow flight on 12 September.

Bookings down

American Airlines, who had two planes involved in the 11 September hijackings, said it had yet to decide if services would be affected on the anniversary.

A spokesman said: "We have noticed some fall off in bookings, which is to be expected, especially among Americans.

"We have made some reductions to US domestic flights but we have not made any decision about international services."

Virgin Atlantic said it planned to operate a full service on 11 September.

A spokeswoman said: "Bookings on September 11 are slightly down on what we would normally expect but flights both immediately before and immediately after are fairly full.

"We will continue to review the situation."