British Airways drops Bangkok and other Asia routes for the Winter

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

• jackie says:

  9 Apr9 April 08:35

  I am a silver card member i have been waiting for a reply to a complaint about a business flight i took in january for 2 months !! BAis a mess

• Phillip says:

  9 Apr9 April 08:47

  The official cancellation for BA flights to Tokyo for S22 have only just come through despite the flights being zeroed out and unavailable to book for a number of months!

• Red says:

  9 Apr9 April 08:56

  Disappointing news re BKK being binned off, following MCT, ICN and AUH, which are all destinations DW and I visited regularly. Can’t see us taking up this double Avios offer as BA no longer serves destinations we want to fly to.

• Alex says:

  9 Apr9 April 09:19

  Eek.. I was hoping for news of them restarting KUL and instead getting news of them pulling Asian routes!

• E says:

  9 Apr9 April 09:36

  The double avios offer won’t entice that many people when flights go back to pre-pandemic inflexibility I think. AF/KLM are still offering vouchers for any flights you don’t want to take. Of course they could stop that policy at any time but the benefit for us is that it covers any flights booked from 1st March and the flights don’t have to be taken by a particular date unlike BA’s policy. So I could book flights for early next year and still have the option of taking a voucher. I think BA ought to extend their book with confidence policy, even if it’s just to offer vouchers and not refunds.

• Kat says:

  9 Apr9 April 09:41

  Eurgh… we have a Christmas break to bkk booked with BA. Do you think it’s likely BA will let us change our return flight dates when rebooking with QR? Not looking forward to long flight times albeit it being a better airline overall, so would prefer to extend our stay to ease the pain

  • yorkieflyer says:

    9 Apr9 April 10:18

    BA rules say upto 3 days before or 14 days after original date of travel

  • Lady London says:

    9 Apr9 April 16:41

    And EU & UK261 rules, which override BA rules, say you can change all the flights on the booking to a date convenient to you (not the airline that cancelled your flight)

    • Kat says:

      10 Apr10 April 10:46

      Thank you, will definitely stand strong when I get the email from BA!

• Liz says:

  9 Apr9 April 09:44

  I had high hopes for BA to bring back their KUL flight for the Summer, especially as they brought back their Sydney flight when the restrictions ended. What does everyone think the chances of BA bringing back their KUL flight?

  • numpty says:

    9 Apr9 April 10:05

    I think the demand is there; MAS are going back to 2 flights per day in the summer and foreigners are allowed in again. Over next 2 weeks on my flights in and out of KL the biz class cabins (on QR) look near enough full (one is on A380). QR are doing 2 flights per day DOH to KUL and a lot of the other airlines are back (e.g. EK and Turkish).

    A lot of people in Malaysia think BA is better than MAS and prefer to book with BA, whereas if I were booking a cash ticket I would rather use MAS!

    The BA KL flight became very popular and always seemed near to fully booked. In part, I think the main issue is BA are short of crew. Apart from SIN where else in SE Asia are BA flying to.

  • Peter says:

    9 Apr9 April 10:12

    BA doesn’t seem to be able to make its mind up about serving KUL. I suspect they will settle for a code share with MAS. I get the feeling BA’s yields to east Asia have been badly impacted by competition from the ME3 and they are trying to redeploy aircraft to more profitable routes.

    • Londonsteve says:

      13 Apr13 April 11:37

      Quite. BA are rapidly turning into London to USA airways. There are many factors at play here, not just the ME3 competition. If Heathrow had more slots, BA could deploy some of these to serve lower yielding routes in Asia that are nevertheless important for the UK’s economic prospects. All manner of destinations are served direct from continental European airports, some from cities many magnitudes smaller than London. Decades of short-sighted and incompetent government have perversely led to circumstances where a national carrier seeks to connect London with North America and that’s about it. If other carriers were able to augment the lack of connections it wouldn’t be so bad, but they cannot at an airport that is as slot constrained as LHR. They are effectively slot blocked by BA who run far less economically important flights to Paris that merely serve as feeder flights for North American routes for lower yielding passengers than those flying direct from London. I wouldn’t be surprised if London was the most important city in the world for the ME3, a direct outcome of a nation’s inability to build a third runway at the only international hub airport. An embarrassing outcome for the world’s 5th largest economy (not for long….).

  • Alex says:

    9 Apr9 April 10:36

    As above I’m hopeful for this too. Was my main consumer of 2 4 1. Pre pandemic the flight was always popular. I concur with the posters above that in my experience many Malaysians want to fly direct to the uk, but for whatever reason are not fans of MAS (I’ve never flown with Malaysian myself). I don’t want an MAS code share unless one of them is on BA metal because need my 241 (or upgrade voucher!)

    • Jon says:

      9 Apr9 April 11:42

      Malaysia Airlines is infinitely better than BA in my view, but you’re right, a lot of Malaysians for some reason prefer BA. Possibly that has to do with historical or political reasons, but my observation would just be that MH is terrible at marketing its strengths while BA is very good at resting on its laurels. Misplaced brand perceptions in both cases, perhaps 😉

      • Londonsteve says:

        13 Apr13 April 11:42

        It must be something regional. Singaporeans also exhibit this form of self loathing, idolising the foreign beyond its true merits and looking down upon their own people and culture.

• Dave says:

  9 Apr9 April 10:05

  Good luck to those trying to rebook to Asia via Doha with QR, between October and Jan.
  Qatar is hosting the football World Cup in November…

  • yorkieflyer says:

    9 Apr9 April 10:20

    21 November to 18 December

  • Numpty says:

    9 Apr9 April 15:09

    Other oneworld airlines are available.

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