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Exclusive: British Airways cancels flights to Beijing

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British Airways appears to be dropping its flights to Beijing.

The flight has been removed from the schedule from 27th October, which is the last day of the summer flying season. The last outbound flight is on the 24th.

British Airways previously operated four weekly flights to the new Beijing Daxing Airport (pronounced ‘dashing’), on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The route only restarted in June 2023, following a 3-year covid hiatus.

British Airways pulls out of Beijing

Later on Thursday, British Airways told us in a statement:

“We will be pausing our route to Beijing from 26 October 2024, and we’re contacting any affected customers with rebooking options or to offer them a full refund. We continue to operate daily flights to Shanghai and Hong Kong.”

More info on your rebooking options are below.

At the time, British Airways called it “one of our most important routes”. British Airways was the first international airline to move operations across into the Zaha Hadid-designed Daxing Airport (pictured above) in 2019.

BA is far from alone in scaling down its Chinese operations. A month ago, Virgin Atlantic announced it was pulling out of Shanghai – its only flight to East Asia – whilst Australian airline Qantas has also pulled out of mainland China after suggesting flights were “half full”. When I flew back from Beijing last year, the Club World cabin was sparsely populated.

One of the issues faced by Western airlines is the diversion around Russian airspace, which can add hours to the flight time. This obviously increases costs in terms of fuel but also means crewing and aircraft utilisation also increases. Why bother when you can send the same plane to the US instead, where demand for premium cabins remains sky-high?

It is also well publicised that Chinese tourism has not yet returned en masse post-pandemic. Chinese tourism to the UK has also been disproportionately hit by the removal of VAT reclamation on luxury goods (indeed, all goods) for tourists. Indeed, BA owner IAG had already flagged “weakness in demand from China” in its Q1 2024 earnings call, blaming it for lower unit revenue in Asia Pacific.

China Southern, which continues to fly through Russian airspace, still flies daily to London Heathrow and it appears British Airways will continue to sell these flights on ba.com under the existing joint business agreement. You can earn British Airways Avios and tier points on China Southern services.

BA also continues to fly daily to Shanghai and Hong Kong. According to BA’s own guidance, anyone with a booking on British Airways metal from 28th October can be rebooked onto China Southern or Qatar Airways services for free. BA is also letting you rebook +- 14 days from your original travel dates.

Note that China Southern flights only earn Avios, not tier points, so either choose Qatar or try to retroclaim from BA if that is important. Remember that Qatar Airways would be 560 tier points return in Business.

Although you’d have to accept a stopover, rebooking onto Qatar Airways would likely see you on a Qsuite aircraft for at least one or two sectors. Neither Qatar Airways nor China Southern offer premium economy cabins.


How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (November 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

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

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You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

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There is also a British Airways American Express card for small businesses:

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There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Comments (195)

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

  • Graeme says:

    Totally off topic but combined wisdom please. BA LGW TPA premium for our dates in March is £893pp. GLA-LGW-TPA is £1,471pp. One way GLA LGW is £45 while LGW GLA on our dates is £273. We use this service alot and know it’s the only BA LGW Scotland domestic, but why the large £571 discrepancy on both app and web???

    • TGLoyalty says:

      Could be the actual ticketing classes available for the married segments rather than two individual tickets. is GLA-LGW HBO rather than with luggage etc as the connection would be to a PE flight

    • tony says:

      Would have been better in the forum on the daily chat thread. When BA sells you a WT+ ticket on that route, the domestic leg books into K class which on its own is quite an expensive fare bucket at £477 round trip. I don’t know enough about the faring to understand why the quote is quite that high, but BA don’t just give you the cheapest option on every leg and add it all together,

  • Qrfan says:

    Do you think Shanghai is next? There was a tonne of reward availability when I booked for later this year. Most of the rationale in the article also applies to Shanghai?

    • executiveclubber says:

      Probably. Our flight was quiet & F availability is strong.

  • Kim says:

    My premium economy flight from beijing to Heathrow next March has been cancelled and I phoned BA who have only given me the option to downgrade my flight to economy as there are no alternative premium economy options with only a refund for the price difference. Can insist on compensation or a discount for a business upgrade for that leg of the journey?

    • Rhys says:

      I would try asking if they can rebook you via Shanghai, where BA still fly. Unfortunately neither Qatar nor China Southern have premium economy.

      • Kim says:

        Thank you. I’ll give that a go

      • KK says:

        there’s always CX via HKG or JL via HND.

      • Jonathan says:

        @Rhys if you’re travelling under the visa free transit program (assuming you’d otherwise need a visa to enter China), you cannot leave Shanghai area and travel freely to Beijing (or anywhere else in the country), if one had be to needing and or wanting to travel to Beijing.

        If you intend to travel to PVG then onto Beijing via domestic options, you must have a visa arranged in advance (assuming you’re say British and not a Chinese or any other national who can visit the whole country without needing to arrange a visa in advance.

        • Rhys says:

          Can you not air-side transit in Shanghai?

          • Jonathan says:

            Not if you intend to travel onwards to Beijing without leaving the country.

            The transit visa policy is heavily restrictive

    • Lady London says:

      Woulsn’t Cathay fly this via HKG? They do have PY and it’s rumoured to be decent.

    • Kim says:

      So I’ve had a nightmare time trying to contact BA customer service. Initially they insited the flight via quatar would be premium economy for the full route. After a lot of probing they finally admitted quatar don’t have premium economy and if we want to be compensated we would have to launch a complaint. They refused to give us another option of another airline or flight and state we can only apply for compensation after our flights.
      I never thought I would have such problems with BA. A refund at this point would not be financially viable as the prices for china southern have doubled it seems.
      My family live in mainland china and it’s getting harder and harder to visit 🙁

      • Jonathan says:

        You’ll either need to accept the downgrade to regular economy or pay for an upgrade to business class, and deal with compensation presumably after the flights

        It’s frustrating when BA behave like this, but they’ll do whatever they can to keep their costs down, and ignore legal obligations that any airline who can fly you to your destination is an option, even their agents aren’t allowed to do this themselves

      • Jen says:

        Just a data point, I managed to get rebooked to CZ8881 PKX-PVG and then BA168 PVG-LHR in premium economy. CZ8881 premium economy seems identical to economy but at least the long leg is fine. I find telling them you have found the flights you’d like to get rebooked for is more likely to get approved. Hope this helps 🙂

  • Paul says:

    My flight with virgin in march 2025 from Shanghai has been cancelled and they have put me on the ba flight now free of charge. Hope ba don’t pull out of Shanghai now!

  • Dan says:

    Does CZ flight sold on BA website LHR-PKX earn tier points? Can’t see a ba flight number anywhere…

  • jsg31 says:

    I booked to Beijing on a 2-4-1 voucher; if I accept a re-route via China Southern, do my cancellation rights still remain as per the original avios booking (i.e. can cancel up to 24hrs before flight fore £35pp and refund of avios) ?

    • Bob says:

      I believe so yes , i had to rebook onto QR when they cancelled HKG and asked the same Qs

  • KK says:

    very nice. peking is not a good place to fly to. brings no benefit to oneworld connections. especailly the new airport

  • Greenpen says:

    Fewer Chinese students coming to study in UK as well. They fly here, most fly home in the holidays and they are doing this for potentially many years.

    Also, although longer term, changes in political policy moving away from a European and North American focus.

    VAT reclaim is widely abused and also not as important as many people think. You don’t get all the VAT back and the base price of the goods is much more important.

    • Chabuddy Geezy says:

      If you are after luxury goods Paris is generally cheaper than London without taking into account VAT reclaim. The fact that France has VAT reclaim makes it a no brainer for tourists to shop there instead of London.

    • Danny says:

      There are still a huge number of Chinese students coming to the UK for study…I don’t think that is slackening.

      Go back 20 years and Indians were the largest single international group I think.

      • Sam says:

        Might be a huge number but it’s not as much as before. Some unis are struggling without the additional funds

        • Danny says:

          I think there are still big numbers drawn to the UK since they can study a Masters in just a year.

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