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EXCLUSIVE: British Airways cancels return to Kuala Lumpur with four weeks notice

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British Airways was due to restart two routes to Asia this winter – Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

Bangkok is going ahead, with flights starting on 28th October.

Kuala Lumpur, which was due to launch on 10th November, seems to have hit the buffers.

EDIT: Whilst a few days old, we are keeping this article pinned to the top of the home page because of the amount of discussion in the comments about BA’s ‘issues’ over rerouting passengers.

British Airways drops Kuala Lumpur flights

Earlier this afternoon the flights were showing as bookable:

British Airways drops Kuala Lumpur flights

…. but five minutes ago it changed to this:

British Airways drops Kuala Lumpur flights

No flights are available until 1st April 2025.

Cancelling a route with less than a months notice is clearly not great news for anyone. However, with oneworld partner Malaysia Airlines offering double-daily flights from Heathrow, it should be possible to get most people on a same-day alternative.

Our 2022 review of the Malaysia Airlines service in business class is here.

Qatar Airways is also likely to be an option due to BA’s joint venture agreement. In fact, it is possible that BA tries to push Qatar Airways as its preferred alternative.

Note that it will take BA a few days to hammer out a formal rebooking arrangement with Malaysian. If you call today you will be offered an indirect alternative.

Why have the flights been pulled?

British Airways told us:

We’re disappointed that we’ve had such to make further changes to our schedule as we continue to experience delays to the delivery of engines and parts from Rolls-Royce – particularly in relation to the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines fitted to our 787 aircraft.

We’ve taken this action because we do not believe the issue will be solved quickly, and we want to offer our customers the certainty they deserve for their travel plans. We’ve apologised to those affected and are able to offer the vast majority a flight the same day with British Airways or one of our partner airlines. 

We continue to work closely with Rolls-Royce to ensure the company is aware of the impact its issues are having on our schedule and customers, and seek reassurance of a prompt and reliable solution.

In terms of ‘why KL?’, competition is probably part of it. Malaysia Airlines offers a decent product on the route which also allows flyers to earn Avios and British Airways Executive Club tier points.

BA’s shortage of A380 aircraft is also likely to be a factor. As we have covered, the fleet is proving very unreliable.

Kuala Lumpur was scheduled as a daily service on a Boeing 787-9, which was a heavy commitment in terms of aircraft. Pulling what was always going to be a low yield route is a relatively low cost way of building some resilience in the schedule.

Let’s hope the 1st April 2025 date is firm.

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Comments (644)

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

  • Wis says:
    16 Oct16 October 17:50

    OK so assuming the non-stop option is not going to be an option…

    For those who have taken QR for the return back to UK, did you go for the overnight flights ex-KUL or the morning departure? I’m wondering if the day option is brutal or does it work ok? I noticed it’s shorter in overall duration than the evening departure options because of the shorter connection time in DOH.

    It might be preferable to do KUL-SIN-LHR if BA at least offers the shorthaul connection on MH, eventually!

  • Yorkshire rich says:
    16 Oct16 October 17:52

    I feel like this is my new obsession. I’ve been following this closely and read every link posted and every post on here and FT.
    I do wonder what they will offer me in the end but I’m quite enjoying chatting to the agents with my new found knowledge, and recognising when they are spouting complete waffle.
    I genuinely thought last night I was getting somewhere when I asked for Qatar on business. I fully understand I’m not within my rights to get that but I don’t want to be downgraded. I would have accepted Singapore airlines premium if they would have flown me from KL, but then a different agent the other day pretty much accused me of lying and said they wouldn’t have offered me that as it’s not one world. I’m going to continue with my battle and wait for the actual policy.

    I must re-iterate my post what I said in my post earlier that the agent yesterday seemed to insinuate I was going to get some good options soon. Im genuinely happy to be flexible with my holiday plans and will spend 2 week in various parts of SE Asia but I won’t be Inconvenienced or out of pocket. As my flight is in March, I’m happy to wait. I’m

  • Ryan Harrigan says:
    16 Oct16 October 18:13

    4th time unlucky with BA customer support for me. On the 1st call I was offered a refund or a rebooking with a connection in Doha, in lieu of the direct flights that I paid for. 2nd time I was told my only option was a refund and that the option of a connecting flight via Doha (or anywhere) had gone (not that I wanted it anyway). Third time I was told nothing had changed since the first time and to call back on Wednesday when the new policy would be in place and when there was a good chance that I’d be able to get the Malaysian flight. And of course, today (Wednesday) I’ve called back again and been told there’s still no policy in place and no way to rebook with Malaysian.
    If this goes on for much longer I’m more than likely going to book the Malaysian flights myself and invoice BA the difference. It seems manifestly unfair to offer a connecting flight in lieu of a direct one – especially without any compensation – so my interpretation of the CAA guidance is that they’d have to pay up. I am interested on others’ thoughts on this approach.

    • Alex79 says:
      16 Oct16 October 19:22

      I’ve watched this thread carefully, having booked First (241 + GUF2 + Joker). Called a couple of times to be told I can only be delivered to Singapore. Emailed the priority team to be told the same. Online chat however garnered various responses that either came to nothing or a downgrade on QR. However as someone mentioned I suspected the agents are all of differing abilities and often holding online chat with more than just one passenger; my result after persevering was being booked on QR first-business-business-first exactly as I had suggested with BA codeshare flight numbers. The booking codes are all F & J. It took a while but I suspect you may be able to push if you speak with the right agent!

    • JDB says:
      16 Oct16 October 23:51

      @Ryan Harrigan – if BA doesn’t agree to reimburse you the full sum (or the difference) you need to meet the three stage legal test that the costs you incurred were “necessary, appropriate and reasonable”. Proceed with caution!

      You may consider it unfair to be offered only a connecting flight but as you will have read here, many seem quite pleased and airlines are allowed to offer indirect routings and there is no compensation for that.

  • Anna L says:
    16 Oct16 October 18:34

    Why this post receives so many comments, while there wasn’t that much of a reaction when Virgin cancelled Shanghai or BA cancelled Beijing.

    • Mark says:
      16 Oct16 October 18:58

      For Beijing at least it looks like the reroute guidance was published at the same time the cancellation was announced, offering Qatar or China Southern, unlike the chaos and this time around.

  • Lady London says:
    16 Oct16 October 18:43

    It is true that being rerouted with a connection (padticularly via Doha where layover times often span those awful hours of the early morning and Qatar Airwys is becoming known on here to unilaterally lengthen layover times unilaterally after passengers have made their boolngs) as a replacement for a nonstop flight can be argued as not being rerouted in similar travel conditions.

    However if judged in England then the full relative unreasonableness compared to whatever other flights with commercial availability were flying and comparing any other available (=being sold) nonstops with for you, how much worse are travel conditions of the rerouting you’ve been offered instead.

    It’s well established that comparable travel conditions would generally include travelling in the same cabin Y/PY/J/F as you booked. For other travel conditions such as addition of connecting flights when nonstop was booked you’d have to.be able to say why what you’re being offered is not reasonably comparable. Practically, this means that other flights must still have availability that will give you a reasonably comparable.journey.

    So those travelling with small children may find replacing a single nonstop flight with 2 flights and a longish, but not long enough to get the children to sleep in Doha is unreasonable paeticularly if the overall journey time is then lengthened beyond reason.

    Others could argue proposed reroutings could take too many days off a holiday or not bring someone back to work in time. It all depends what other flights may be available in the market and technically, not just on your canceling airline’s other airline friends, airline convenience or lower cost to the cancelling airline by their own “policy” backed by whatever lower cost deal they can scrape up.

    So unless it”s jist cabin class be aware and prepared to fight and BA may put you through the wringer of dogged procedural pursuit over many months, even if you can win, if you can’t sweet talk them into a reroute you can live with.

  • Darren says:
    16 Oct16 October 19:02

    As

  • Darren says:
    16 Oct16 October 19:02

    As

  • Darren says:
    16 Oct16 October 19:02

    As

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