You should try reading the article. When you have done that, you should think about which pieces of actual information you are actually being given. Separate that from the comment made by other airlines, by ill-informed passengers and by the newspaper and then you will see that there is nothing in the story. Classic journalism.

What you can be absolutely sure about (and as Pucci and bealine and all the other BA workers will testify from first hand experience) is that not a single plane will have left LHR with seats deliberately empty. As Pucci has already said, some seats may have gone empty because of last minute crew-moving reasons, but the article suggests that heartless BA is refusing to U/G economy passengers. It simply won't be true. And if you had flown more with BA, you would know that BA upgrades economy passengers day-in-day-out on busy routes precisely because it doesn't want to planes to go with empty seats when there is passenger demand. Do you really think that at a time like this, it is suddenly going to change its whole business model?

This is another example of the press (during the August silly season) taking a story and flogging it (sadly at BA's expense).