What British Airways long-haul flights are scheduled for April?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

• Simon says:

  29 Mar29 March 09:23

  While the 30 days global ” do not travel” advise was issued onApril 17 and is valid until for 30 days (ie ends April 15, for now) many individual countries have more recently issued /updated advise and i thought that any such notices had a 30 day effect and therefore many countries have a later than April 15 date.
  This is very important for cancellation / curtailment and insurance issues.

• Glynis SMITH says:

  29 Mar29 March 09:23

  How much is a flight to Manchester

  • @mkcol says:

    29 Mar29 March 10:57

    Depends where from.

  • Peter K says:

    29 Mar29 March 16:18

    I’m not sure if it’s what you need but I’ve had a look on google flights for a random day in August (14th) and a one way flight from Manchester (Man) to Manchester (MHT) starts at £568.

• TGLoyalty says:

  29 Mar29 March 09:45

  If you book now there’s a risk you won’t be covered as most insurance T&C’s state cover is void if you book with FCO advise against all but essential travel. In reality it might be ok as this is temporary advice for COVID19.

  It’s guaranteed not to be covered if the cancellation in the future is to do with COVID19

  • TGLoyalty says:

    29 Mar29 March 11:03

    Which is why it’s important to read the T&C’s of your own insurance.

    Lots of insurance companies already have clauses saying that if you book a trip to destination that the FCO have advised against all but essential travel (at the time you book) you are not insured for the trip.

    This would probably be ruled unfair if the advice was lifted and you needed cover for any reason apart from COVID19 but if the reason for a claim was anything to do with COVID19 I would say your chances of making a successful claim would be slim.

    • Lady London says:

      29 Mar29 March 11:30

      As you say @TGLoyalty if your policy had nothing to exclude vivid or pandemic or epidemic losses, then as soon as the FCO rescinds their advice you are covered if your policy does not have those exclusions as of the date it was purchased or renewed.

      Covid exclusion cannot have come into the contract meanwhile if it wasn’t there in the first place.

    • Lady London says:

      29 Mar29 March 11:36

      so you would be covered for any travel loss vivid or not if the terms of your policy did not exclude it. Obviously read all the terms.

    • Lady London says:

      29 Mar29 March 11:37

      Vivid=vivid. D*** text editor overwriting even when it’s been corrected

    • Lady London says:

      29 Mar29 March 11:38

      And still overwriting even on the correction to the correction!!!!
      Vivid= c o v I d

    • TGLoyalty says:

      29 Mar29 March 13:53

      That’s not quite true

      See below for Nationwide Travel polices

      If you opened a new FlexPlus account or booked a trip after 18 March 2020, you will not be covered for Coronavirus related travel claims. This is because it is a known and anticipated risk.

      If your trip was booked before 18 March 2020, you may be covered if you held a FlexPlus or FlexAccount.

    • Mr(s) Entitled says:

      29 Mar29 March 14:15

      The key is “new” flex plus account. That does not sound like a retrospective variation to existing policies.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      29 Mar29 March 14:53

      Why I always say it’s really important to read things carefully.

      “ or booked a trip after 18 March 2020,”

    • Lady London says:

      29 Mar29 March 15:29

      We covered this elsewhere some days ago. It depends who your contract of insurance is with, how long you are deemed to have purchased coverage for, and dependent on the answers to the above if you have signed a contract for repeated trips over a given time period, who in the chain is able to change what when. I don’t have a nationwide account so I’m not aware of contract structure and contents. I wouldn’t assume the structure they have allowed them to change this without checking.

• J says:

  29 Mar29 March 09:50

  I believe most insurance policies will be in line with what ever the current FCO advice is; so at the moment advice is against all non essential travel (a holiday is not essential) and this is effectively until further notice and things get back to normal.

  • Lady London says:

    29 Mar29 March 10:34

    that’s true unless you travelled before that advice came into force.

• J says:

  29 Mar29 March 09:54

  Also worth adding there are thousands of British tourists stranded all over the world, and the FCO is struggling to get many back. I’d think that’s part of the reason for their advice to avoid essential travel as their ability to help if something goes wrong is somewhat limited with them being very stretched. Although the FCO often do not seem to be especially helpful to British citizens even in normal times!

• Nick says:

  29 Mar29 March 10:26

  ‘The key global publisher of route movements’? Really?! It’s one man in his garage and is notorious for being wrong.

  The REAL key global publisher of airline routes – and the one airline staff use themselves – is OAG, but you need a subscription to use it.

  • Rob says:

    29 Mar29 March 10:42

    You’re trying to tell me that a bloke in his garage is running five major global conferences each year?

    We double-checked quite a few of these on Thursday and the list was correct. There will clearly have been a few changes in the last 72 hours.

    • marcw says:

      29 Mar29 March 22:40

      Yes. Airlineroute is a blog that has the honour to be published in Routesonline. I suspect he now gets paid by them, but it’s still a 1 person job. Whenever he’s on holidays, there are no updates (well, only Twitter updates).

  • Craig Anderson says:

    29 Mar29 March 23:07

    The AR blog is not a reliable source of anything other than what an airline has entered into the GDS, and this does not always reflect reality, but AR doesn’t check anything, just copies the data. Now airlines make dummy listings for all sorts of reasons, they make mistakes, they change things shortly after the initial GDS entry has been made, but AR reports it all with no differentiation or qualification. This is why AR is full of mistakes and cannot be relied upon, and why no-one and certainly no blogger or media outlet should treat AR seriously.

    • Rob says:

      30 Mar30 March 08:47

      Except that all the BA flights listed ARE bookable.

• Alan says:

  29 Mar29 March 10:41

  Seems very likely travel restriction will be extended, we need a longer lockdown to properly flatten the curve.

  • ChrisBCN says:

    29 Mar29 March 11:52

    Yes I’m not sure why people would make new bookings for April, laughable really! (Exception being if you are stuck away from home of course, although surely everyone will be back by then)

• C says:

  29 Mar29 March 10:43

  Hello – I have flights LHR-HND leaving next weekend for Easter. Hoping that BA will cancel prior so we can have cash refund rather than vouchers. How close to departure might they cancel the flight or is it likely to definitely operate?
  There seems to be various “rumours” about BA suspending passenger service but probably only rumours. BA seems to be operating far more flights than other similar European airlines??

  • meta says:

    29 Mar29 March 10:53

    It was 5 days before for my flight to HND on Thursday. I cancelled before then when FCO advisory came out as I couldn’t sleep at night. I still got an email that the flight is cancelled despite avios and surcharges returned within 48 hours. In any case, you won’t be allowed into Japan now unless you have a place to stay for 14 days to self-isolate. BA might not cancel your flight either, so you’ll have to claim on insurance.

  • Lady London says:

    29 Mar29 March 10:53

    I would watch carefully up to 12 hours before or even about 9 ! Appreciate that might be nerve-wracking.

    You could get a clue by trying on and off to book the same flight you’re on as though you were a normal customer directly on the airlines system. If you can’t then you can be fairly sure your flight is not running they just haven’t got around to telling you.

    If you would lose a lot if you cancel then consider taking the voucher. But not otherwise.

    If hey do cancel or make some other change then you can request to be rebooked on a much later date if you wish. You have that right, as well as to a refund in cash if you wish instead.

    • C says:

      29 Mar29 March 11:13

      Thanks both (meta & Lady London). A look on BA website and it seems that all other asian routes (BKK, KUL, SIN, ICN and HKG) all have cancellations fore most/all of April…not HND yet!! Very much a ‘waiting game’ it would seem.

      • Lady London says:

        29 Mar29 March 11:33

        It’s ‘who blinks first’. As @meta said, if you can’t sleep at night and wouldn’t lose much, then maybe you would take the loss and cancel yourself just to have clarity.

        • meta says:

          29 Mar29 March 14:51

          Yes. I managed to minimise the cancellation costs for the whole trip to £70. Still undecided whether to bother claiming on Amex Plat insurance as excess is £50.

        • Lady London says:

          29 Mar29 March 15:31

          In that case I would wait. IIRC Japan has been slower on imposing restrictions than others.

  • AJA says:

    29 Mar29 March 18:18

    I read on FlyerTalk (searched again but can’t remember which thread it was on) that there is a possibility that Japan may be used as a route to fly LHR-SYD now that SIN is temporarily closing ie LHR-HND-SYD So there is a slim possibility that the flight may not be cancelled.

    That said Japan has suspended its visa waiver system for anyone travelling on a British passport until at least the end of April 2020. This means that you will not be able to enter Japan as a visitor without a visa. Single and multiple entry visas have also been suspended. 

    If you don’t have a visa then best to cancel in exchange for a voucher. If you’re brave then wait until t-24 And see if BA cancel the flight before applying for a voucher.

    • Thomas Howard says:

      29 Mar29 March 22:19

      Can’t they use Darwin, as QF1/2 did?

      • Nick says:

        29 Mar29 March 23:51

        How would they get the crew there to operate the onward sector?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.