LONDON, England -- British Airways canceled more flights Wednesday, the seventh day of UK flight delays, as the airline struggled to reunite thousands of missing bags with their owners.
The airline said it would not be until Friday that its full service could be resumed following last week's discovery of an alleged threat to blow up planes in mid-Atlantic.
Many British airports were getting back to normal Wednesday but BA cancelled 46 flights -- 35 at Heathrow and 11 at Gatwick, the UK's Press Association reported.
This took the airline's total cancellations since the anti-terror measures were introduced last week to more than 1,100, PA said.
Three long-haul and 32 short-haul flights at Heathrow were axed by BA Wednesday as well as 11 domestic services at Gatwick.
BA added it would be canceling 19 short-haul flights out of Heathrow Thursday.
On Wednesday the head of British Airways threatened Tuesday to sue BAA, the country's largest airport operator, for financial compensation.
Analysts expect the disruptions could cost BA more than £40 million ($75.53 million). (Full story)
BAA -- which runs seven UK airports including London's Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick -- could face a compensation bill as high as £300 million ($570 million) if the airlines pursue a joint claim, according to analysts' estimates.
A spokeswoman for BA told PA Wednesday: "We are not planning on any Gatwick cancellations tomorrow and we hope that by Friday everything will be back to normal.
"We took the decision to cancel today's flights on Tuesday afternoon as we did not want to overload the system at Heathrow which is still a bit fragile."
BA said it understood that as many as 20,000 bags had gone astray at Heathrow during the last few days, and that the bulk of these would have been BA passengers' luggage.
The airline was still trying to get about 5,000 bags to their owners using a mixture of road and plane transport Wednesday, PA reported.
Budget airline Ryanair, which was hoping to run a cancellation-free programme today for the first time since last Thursday, has been extremely critical of the new security arrangements.
The no-frills Irish carrier said the new hand luggage regulations were "nonsensical."
Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said his airline had seen a 10 percent drop in group bookings over the last couple of days as a result of the travel disruption. "We're seriously considering taking legal action against the Government to force them to get the airports back to normal," he added.
The Federation of Tour Operators (FTO) told PA that travel companies had felt "let down by inconsistent airport policies and clearly inadequate staffing arrangements."
In a statement BAA said it "acutely regretted" the disruption the new security arrangements had caused to passengers and airlines.
The company said: "From the point at which the heightened security measures were imposed, we have been aware in great detail of the frustrations experienced by airlines operating from our airports.
"We continue to do everything we can to respond to the airlines' needs, but we will not compromise on our responsibility to apply the security regime the Government judges necessary to protect the public."
BAA said that "maintaining safety and security at our airports will always be our number one priority."
It hit back at criticism of its ability to deal with the situation, especially at Heathrow.
The statement continued: "Heathrow, in particular, has been singled out for criticism and the allegation has been made that BAA lacked adequate plans to deal with the emergency.
"We regret these comments, which are neither fair nor accurate."