British Airways will reduce flights to the Middle East and use the freed-up planes to offer more direct services to Asia and Africa, in a sign it expects reduced demand for Gulf travel for much of the rest of this year.
The airline will not resume services to the Gulf until at least July, when it will offer significantly reduced flights to Dubai, Doha and Tel Aviv, it said on Thursday. It will drop Jeddah in Saudi Arabia as a destination and will reduce services to Riyadh from mid-May.
Instead, the airline will fly larger aircraft to Delhi and Hyderabad, and will launch additional services to Nairobi, Bengaluru and Mumbai as well as more frequent flights to Delhi.
The revised schedule will run until October 24, when the industry’s “winter season” starts. BA has already delayed restarting Abu Dhabi flights until the winter season. The carrier’s routing decisions were taken before this week’s US-Iran ceasefire announcement.
Western airlines have seen a rise in demand for direct Asian travel as travellers avoid flights that connect through the Gulf airports, pushing up prices.
