Exclusive: British Airways cancels flights to Beijing

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• Nico says:

  8 Aug8 August 17:12

  More flights to Bkk, Kl maybe?

  • TGLoyalty says:

    9 Aug9 August 08:47

    If it was all about avoiding Russian airspace are more flights easy likely?

• MGW says:

  8 Aug8 August 17:59

  This is really disappointing. But I guess as my last trip to mainland China was in 2019 I am in no position to complain.
  One query, the article seems to contradict itself “You can earn British Airways Avios and tier points on China Southern services.” … “Note that China Southern flights only earn Avios, not tier points, …”
  Anyone know which is correct? I suspect the latter but it would be good to have it confirmed.

  • daveinitalia says:

    8 Aug8 August 20:10

    The general rule is if it’s booked on a BA code then you get Avios and TP. If it’s booked on their own code (and they’re not oneworld as is the case here) you will get Avios for BA partner airlines but not tier points. Also with codeshares the operating carrier also matters so if you book something on a China Southern code (CZ I think) but it’s not operated by them then you’d likely get nothing.

    • MGW says:

      8 Aug8 August 20:33

      @daveinitalia, thanks. Thought it might be something like that which essentially leaves the poor old passenger with little certainty.

• jsg31 says:

  8 Aug8 August 18:21

  I’ve booked an open jaw trip (using avios) flying into Beijing, and out of Shanghai. The original BA flight would have landed around 9.30am and the alternative options now land at either 2.30pm or 3.30pm, so probably 5-6pm by the time we get to the hotel, depending on traffic.

  Would it be reasonable to ask BA if I could also move my return flight (from Shanghai) out by a day, since otherwise my holiday time has effectively been reduced (albeit by about half a day).

  My return flight is currently on an off-peak date and the following day would be a peak-date FWIW

• Misty says:

  8 Aug8 August 18:44

  Hmmm, maybe I will have Bicester to myself in December.

  • Mikeact says:

    9 Aug9 August 15:22

    No way, I shall also be Christmas shopping.

• Harrods says:

  8 Aug8 August 21:04

  Had a return flight in club world in November which was cancelled by BA today and they put me on a Qatar flight instead (used Barclays voucher on the original booking) but just found out the PKX – DOH flight is in the 2-2-2 OLD configuration and DOH – LHR in Q-Suite….

• Can2 says:

  8 Aug8 August 21:15

  Call me old (fashioned), I find it rather odd that the Great British flag carrier cannot afford to fly to the capital of the most populous country in the world.

  • Callum says:

    8 Aug8 August 22:05

    I don’t find it odd at all. The most populous country in the world has numerous enormous airlines (partially/wholly state owned) with huge capacities and lower operating costs selling flights at often ridiculously low fares (I flew from Australia to London earlier this year on Air China for £220…).

    It seems rather obvious why a profit focused capitalist airline based in London wouldn’t feel able to compete with that.

    • Londonsteve says:

      9 Aug9 August 14:02

      If one extrapolates that, the conclusion is that the UK’s size and business model makes it impossible to compete with China and we’re done for. It won’t be funny when after a period of state subsidy the Chinese carriers have caused western carriers to shrivel to become regional operators and along with the car you use to drive to the airport, you’re obliged to fly on a Chinese airline to get to large parts of the world. At some point the middle-eastern oil revenues will shrivel and both the subsidies available to, as well as the service standards on the ME3 will plummet leaving the Chinese as the dominant players. Dominating aviation appears to be more a matter of national prestige than of anyone actually making any money, however.

      How on earth does one book an Oz-UK fare for £220? I’ve never seen a fare that low.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    8 Aug8 August 22:38

    The notion of flag / national carriers is also an old one.

  • Richard E says:

    8 Aug8 August 23:43

    British Airways is owned by a Spanish registered business (IAG). Call me old fashioned, but a “national carrier” should have the decency to be registered within said nation.

    • ChrisBCN says:

      9 Aug9 August 00:28

      You’ll lose your mind when you find out what involvement the Qataris have…

    • John says:

      9 Aug9 August 07:05

      BA isn’t the UK’s national carrier and the UK doesn’t have a flag carrier

      • LittleNick says:

        9 Aug9 August 08:59

        Not according to wikipedia, the very first line on the BA article is “British Airways plc (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom.” Is Wikipedia wrong?

      • PeterV says:

        9 Aug9 August 09:39

        And China isn’t the world’s most populous country

      • James says:

        9 Aug9 August 20:49

        Well apparently Sean Doyle says otherwise on BA’s website. A fight is inevitable between BA and its fanboi.

• C says:

  8 Aug8 August 21:17

  Apologies, I suspect that this has by now already been flagged in previous comments but this route canx is *predominantly* due to BA (and other western airlines) being banned from Russian airspace since their invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

  BBC is carrying this story and in essence BA are stating that the additional mileage (to circumvent Russia) is adding significant costs and time.
  Chinese airlines are not banned, and therefore have a “commercial advantage”.

  • Throwawayname says:

    8 Aug8 August 22:26

    AFKL and LH don’t seem to have a problem maintaining two routes each to Beijing. BA just don’t have the same level of connecting pax from/to Europe.

    • John says:

      8 Aug8 August 22:35

      Who would want to do security again and possibly need to get a transit visa?

    • Sigma421 says:

      8 Aug8 August 22:54

      Lufthansa is selling business class returns to PEK for around €1,200 from some parts of Europe so I doubt it’s a profit centre for them.

      • CamFlyer says:

        9 Aug9 August 00:23

        “Lufthansa is selling business class returns to PEK for around €1,200 from some parts of Europe so I doubt it’s a profit centre for them.”

        Or it could be that BA has better alternative uses for the aircraft. Thrre is more demand for UK- Americas than Germany-Americas, for example to secondary US cities.

      • Throwawayname says:

        9 Aug9 August 07:57

        LH/SN offer similar fares to the likes of NBO, so I wouldn’t read too much into that.

  • Will says:

    9 Aug9 August 00:20

    It’s rather ludicrous that the result of sanctions is to once again hand a competitive advantage to states seeking to undermine us.

    If Russia bans “our” airlines, we should in turn ban other airlines that overfly Russia.

    It’s rather akin to us closing our steel/manufacturing on cost and environmental grounds but being quite happy to buy goods from other countries who don’t adopt the environmental standards we do handing them an economic win at cost to ourselves.

    Our democratic governments are being totally out played by authoritarian governments who have long term strategic plans and no intention of playing fair.

    • Danny says:

      9 Aug9 August 00:36

      Ban the airlines of China from Britain? I mean even China allows Taiwanese carriers to overfly the country, albeit on narrow air corridors

      • Throwawayname says:

        9 Aug9 August 08:00

        There’s no need to ban any airlines when you can just stipulate that the flights in question mustn’t fly over Russia.

        • Erico1875 says:

          9 Aug9 August 08:59

          I think the whole Russia thing is just so half hearted.
          Tough tarrifs on any country trading with Russia
          So far we are just cutting our nose of to spite our face

        • will says:

          9 Aug9 August 17:55

          Exactly this, Russia banned western airlines as retaliation for sanctions. Russia’s aim was to economically damage western airlines.
          If other airlines (Chinese) are overflying Russia then we should simply stipulate that no flights may land in the western world that has overflown Russia, ie force “them” to jump through the same hoops that “we” have to.

    • Eoc says:

      9 Aug9 August 06:15

      Errr…sounding like an enraged DT comment poster…

      https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/carbon-border-adjustment-mechanism_en
      Uk due to follow

      • will says:

        9 Aug9 August 18:05

        CBAM doesn’t address the last decades of exporting emissions but of course it is a welcome step which we’ll have to watch the implementation of. It’s going to now be incredibly expensive to return heavy industry to many parts of the western world so there is an amount of economic damage done that will be very hard to rectify.

        AFAIK there’s plenty it wont cover though or that is practically impossible to measure. For example, will completed consumer goods be subject to a carbon adjustment assessment? Would this even be possible to accurately measure?

      • TGLoyalty says:

        9 Aug9 August 23:18

        You either believe in the free market or you don’t.

        But as usual it’s believe in what’s good for my back yard not the consumer.

        • Will says:

          10 Aug10 August 11:47

          That’s a grossly unfair and over simplistic reflection.

          If a country adopts environmental and employment standards and another one doesn’t then that’s not a free market.

          If one country state subsidises its industry and another doesn’t is that a free market?

          Free markets themselves are not the evil, it’s the lack of recognition that all too often we are not operating in a free market and yet allow the economy to operate as if we are.

          It’s not just trade with other countries, it might be airports, railways, planning permits for land, PPE contracts in Covid etc etc etc.

• Michael C says:

  9 Aug9 August 09:36

  I’m a bit late to the comments, but just to add that when we arrived on our BA flight to the extremely magnificent Daxing airport a few weeks ago, we were the ONLY flight in the massive bag collection area.
  We were also the only passengers on the 144-hour visa and it caused quite some excitement: we were interviewed by 2 newspapers and a camera crew!

  • JDB says:

    9 Aug9 August 10:23

    @MichaelC – I hope you had a great time there. Daxing was deserted last October as well – quite unusual these days for a big international airport. There were incredibly few foreign tourists last year and barely any British ones, more Americans and French.

    It’s never seemed to be a destination Brits have latched onto which I find surprising when it has so much going for it as a tourist destination.

    BA super efficient on the rerouting for our return but it’s never a country it has felt very committed to gradually downsizing Beijing from a daily 747 and Shanghai chops and changes, usually reducing seat numbers and frequency (now maybe assisted by Virgin’s decision) and BA started the very useful Chengdu route to great fanfare and quietly dropped it fairly quickly.

    • Danny says:

      9 Aug9 August 14:30

      I was surprised just how many French go to Mainland China and Hong Kong. In Beijing it would be rare to meet a Brit, but Americans and French are numerous.

      Daxing has a beautiful lounge too.

      • JDB says:

        9 Aug9 August 17:11

        Far more French tourists in the Balkans than Brits as well. I’m not sure when they became so adventurous while Brits are in retreat!

        • Londonsteve says:

          10 Aug10 August 15:02

          I agree it’s odd that there should be so many French tourists who are not known generally known for their inclination to travel outside of France. I don’t think the Brits have become less adventurous, the underlying problem is likely to be a chronic lack of disposable income due to the very high cost of living versus incomes in the UK. People are increasingly preferring packages to popular (and therefore usually cheaper) destinations, often partnered with staying at all inclusive resorts to keep a lid on expenditure.

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