British Airways is dropping flights from London Heathrow to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, and will resume services to Dubai, Doha and Tel Aviv in the second half of the year at a much-reduced scale.
The airline suspended most flights to the Middle East shortly after the start of the Iran war. Airspace in the region is starting to reopen, with Gulf Air of Bahrain about to resume flights to London.
But BA is pivoting away from the Middle East with permanent changes to its network. The carrier currently flies from Heathrow to Jeddah, but all flights will be axed from 24 April.
In addition, the scheduled double-daily London-Riyadh link will be reduced to a single flight each day when services to the Saudi capital resume in mid-May.
Flights to Dubai, Doha and Tel Aviv are set to resume from 1 July, but at a much-reduced scale. Dubai will receive just one flight a day each way compared with three daily services prior to 28 February. Doha and Tel Aviv will both be reduced from two daily flights to one. Flights to the Jordanian capital, Amman, and Bahrain will not resume until 25 October, the start of the winter season.
British Airways is doubling flights to Bangalore from 1 June to 24 October. For 19 days at the start of June, an extra daily flight will operate to and from Mumbai. Three extra trips each week from London to Delhi will be made between mid-July and 20 August. Larger aircraft are being assigned to the routes to the Indian capital and Hyderabad. In addition, London-Nairobi will double in frequency to two flights a day from 1 June to 24 October.
A British Airways spokesperson said: “Due to the ongoing situation in the Middle East, we have made further changes to our flying schedule to provide greater clarity for our customers. We’re keeping the situation under constant review and are directly in touch with affected customers to offer them a range of options. Since the disruption began, we’ve helped thousands of customers return home, operated relief flights, and added additional capacity on key long‑haul routes. We will continue to assess and introduce further flying where possible.”
Aircraft and flight crew freed up by cancellations and frequency reductions are to be redeployed mainly on India services – seeking to capitalise on the continued problems affecting Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways. The “Middle East Three” are currently at well below pre-war capacity, and hampered by the Foreign Office’s no-go warning against changing planes at their hubs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha respectively. But they will be encouraged by the limited return to the Gulf by British Airways. BA’s moves away from the region are partly explained by the expectation that Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways will cut fares to fill aircraft to the Gulf and beyond.
Read more: What would peace in the Gulf mean for airlines and passengers?