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British Airways drops Bangkok and other Asia routes for the winter

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British Airways has, it seems, lost confidence in the Asian market and its ability to open up post pandemic.

A range of service cuts have been made this week.

Most importantly for the leisure market, Bangkok has been dropped for the entire Winter season, from late October to late March. If you are holding a ticket to Bangkok for late October onwards, BA will be in touch to discuss rebooking, most likely on Qatar Airways.

British Airways drops Bangkok

Other changes:

  • Beijing Daxing – service withdrawn for the Winter season
  • Hong Kong – one of the two daily flights has been withdrawn for the Winter season
  • Shanghai – service withdrawn for the Winter season
  • Tokyo Haneda – one of the two daily flights has been withdrawn for the Winter season

It is obviously possible that flights could be reinstated if demand picks up, but with British Airways still short of long haul aircraft following the Boeing 747 retirement – a situation which will take longer to fix than hiring new cabin crew – I wouldn’t expect much.

Bangkok in particular is regarded as a low yielding route, with relatively little business traffic, meaning that aircraft can be more profitably used elsewhere.

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How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (126)

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

  • Patrick says:
    9 Apr9 April 10:08

    Upon registering for the double Avios, I repeatedly get the message “there was a problem with your request, please try again later”. Anyone else?

  • Peter Taysum says:
    9 Apr9 April 10:14

    Same as above; takes me to page but can’t register…

    • MattB says:
      9 Apr9 April 10:16

      In the article above :

      “To be clear – this offer is NOT YET LIVE at the time of writing, and it is very possible that it is killed off if the newspaper headlines get too bad over the next few days”

      • Patrick says:
        9 Apr9 April 10:17

        Assumed that referred to booking rather than registering, but perhaps we have to wait for both!

        • David says:
          9 Apr9 April 12:51

          Perhaps? Er, yes you do, as the article clearly says 🙄

    • Gordon says:
      10 Apr10 April 09:05

      Same

  • jamesh57@icloud.com says:
    9 Apr9 April 10:49

    On the BA double Avios deal, I understand that BA wants new business but why does BA always provide these deals only for new bookings? What about loyal BA customers (yes, there are some!) who book multiple trips months ahead. How about rewarding loyalty?

    • Deb20 says:
      9 Apr9 April 12:26

      They are aiming to shore up future bookings and take cash up front. One of the very few business sectors that has this advantage for liquidity and working capital management.

    • Bluekjp says:
      9 Apr9 April 13:48

      BA do very much reward loyal customers with extra avios on every booking all the time: Bronze +25%, Silver +50% and gold +100% on the base avios.

  • Garth says:
    9 Apr9 April 10:58

    I’ve booked London to Bangkok on avios with companion voucher for February 2023. I guess ba will simply cancel my flights rather than offering an alternative carrier?

    • Rob says:
      9 Apr9 April 12:05

      No, you get rebooked. Rhys got Qatar to BKK on a rebooked 241.

  • BJ says:
    9 Apr9 April 11:04

    If BA have a problem with yields then the fault must be with them. From UK and Europe Thai, EVA, Air France, Lufty and Swiss all operate F cabins. All 3ME also operate (or did I think) F directly from ME and from many connecting routes. So if BA cannot make J work…

    So depressing, probably time for me to rethink amex and Barclays in favour of @Andrew J school of thought.

    • David says:
      9 Apr9 April 13:30

      It’s not that you can’t make money on it, its that you can make more money using the aircraft elsewhere.

  • Martin says:
    9 Apr9 April 11:25

    Does anyone know if this is in parallel to the double tier points offer?

    • Rob says:
      9 Apr9 April 12:04

      Not clear if BA Hols would give double Avios.

      • Lady London says:
        9 Apr9 April 16:21

        The test page did indeed remind passengers B A Hols would earn 2 avios per £

  • timajackson says:
    9 Apr9 April 11:33

    BA happily took £7000 for 4 premium economy returns over xmas holidays to Bangkok. Would happily go on Qatar but only if direct because we only have an 11 day school holiday this year.
    Having just had out flights to Prague today and cancelled and moved to a new flight 7 hours later I think this may be the last straw.

    • Benilyn says:
      9 Apr9 April 17:45

      Is that £7k with hotels?
      Qatar doesn’t fly direct from London

      • Tim says:
        9 Apr9 April 17:50

        No just flights. I know they don’t fly direct. It limits our options now.

  • Debbie says:
    9 Apr9 April 11:40

    Thought I’d hit the jackpot when managed to book BKK for March next year using companion ticket . Thanks though for early heads up as I’ve rebooked HK ,although had to pay the change fee as flight is not showing as cancelled. Worth it though as I expect once the cancellations come through BKK passengers will want to go via HK and no reward seats left !

    • slidey says:
      9 Apr9 April 11:58

      If the flight is cancelled there doesnt need to be avios seats available.

    • Numpty says:
      9 Apr9 April 12:53

      If u waited on the cancellation email then BA would have booked u onto QR to BKK for no fees. And likely have booked ur seat on a revenue class ticket, with the chance to earn tier points and Avios. Also the weather in HKG in March ain’t too great, especially compared to BKK.

    • VerdantBacon says:
      9 Apr9 April 15:41

      If you know a flight will be cancelled by BA, wait for the cancellation, you end up with either a ticket that can be used at any time on any flight regardless of award availability or booked onto a vastly superior J product, such as QR

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

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