British Airways trims long haul network, cuts first class to India
Luke
British Airways is adjusting its route network in response to reduced demand and worldwide coronavirus travel restrictions, and there’s bad news for those who fly in BA’s top cabin on flights to India.
BA’s shrinking long-haul network
Last week, BA announced it was permanently suspending a number of its long-haul routes from London for the summer 2021 season, which begins in late March.
The cuts will make a big dent in the airline’s international network, which was already sparse outside of North America. The affected services are:
- Pittsburgh
- Calgary
- Charleston
- Seoul
- Durban
- Dammam
- Lima
- Osaka
- Kuala Lumpur
- Seychelles (last service April 24, 2021)
- Abu Dhabi
- Muscat
- Jeddah (short adhoc operation to continue over Hajj period in July 2021)
The following routes are being suspended for the summer 2021 season only, and are expected to resume in November 2021:
- Sydney (SYD)
- Bangkok (BKK)
- San Jose (SJO)
BA cutting first class to Delhi and Mumbai
BA’s schedule changes also appear to include a significant reduction in the availability of first class seats to Delhi and Mumbai (business class continues to be the top cabin on flights to Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru).
According to BA’s website, there are no first seats for sale to Delhi for much of next year:
Or Mumbai:
A follow up search on ITA Matrix, for first class tickets from London to Mumbai and Delhi with BA shows very patchy availability, with eye-watering prices to match:
For many dates I searched next year, there is simply no option to purchase a first class ticket on the BA website:
The bad news keeps coming, because flights to Bengaluru, which were previously operated by a new Airbus A350, thereby guaranteeing the new Club Suite business class product with 1-2-1 seating, are now scheduled to use a Boeing 777.
As of now, the BA website shows Club Suites on 777 flights to Bangalore – though only a minority of BA’s Boeing 777s are fitted with the new product. Clearly, there is a good chance you might end up flying BA’s uncompetitive legacy Club World business class cabin, which features seats in a 2-4-2 configuration.
That same Club World legacy cabin now appears to be the workhorse of BA’s flights to India, as the old 2-4-2 set up is rostered for many flights to Delhi and Mumbai next year.
Summing up
British Airways obviously expects to be a much smaller airline after the coronavirus epidemic, and has permanently cut a number of its long-haul services, including flights to Abu Dhabi, Kuala Lumpur and Calgary.
The airline is also reducing the number of first class seats available to India, instead flying three-class Boeing 777s (with business class as the top cabin) to Mumbai and Delhi for much of next year.
At the moment, the best hope of flying BA’s most competitive premium product, the new BA business class Club Suite, is on a flight to Bengaluru – though with so much changing there’s clearly no guarantee what product you’ll end up with.
How do you feel about the new slim-line British Airways? Do you like to fly BA in first or business class to India?
1 thought on “British Airways trims long haul network, cuts first class to India”
this is a very bad decision by ba. as someone who travels regularly on this sector (and have been for years) working late in mumbai and straight to work on landing the other side, this is just for bad news.
and their club world cabin with due respect is a joke!
loyalty seems to have no meaning left in their new plans. for years we have paid hefty prices and always travelled on their first cabin (though it was no match for the jet first, which in terms of size,space and comfort just beat it by miles).
looks like india does not feature on BA’S priority (although it has the most new emerging millionaires) list and they seem to be obsessed with trans atlantic flights, where they are dumping all their first equipped aircraft, which i think will be a huge mistake as on the so many flights that i have travelled, first has never been light except the covid times. writing to them and requesting at least a 4 class cabin aircraft once a week has also had no results so far. it is a matter of time till a revived jet airways (distant dream) or vistara takes up this premium space which has been occupied by BA as far as i remember from even before the VC 10 days! shame on this decision making process, that seems to make it a global equivalent of easy jet or even ryan air!