British Airways has been forced to cancel hundreds of long-haul flights over the coming months due to delays in the delivery of engines from Rolls-Royce.
The UK-based carrier has pushed back plans to restart the route between London Heathrow and Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, which had been due to resume on 12 November, to April 2025. The supply chain issues with Rolls-Royce will particularly affect BA’s fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
In another move, BA is dropping one of its two daily flights from Heathrow to Doha over the winter season, which begins at the end of this month. The airline will also suspend its route between London Gatwick and New York’s JFK airport from 12 December to the end of March 2025.
A spokesperson for the airline said: “We are disappointed that we’ve had 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.”
The airline emphasised that the “vast majority” of affected passengers would be able to take an alternative flight on 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,” added the spokesperson.
A Rolls-Royce spokesman said in a statement: “We continue to work with British Airways and all of our customers to minimise the impact of the limited availability of spares due to the current supply chain constraints. Unfortunately, this is an issue affecting the whole aerospace industry.”
British Airways has already announced that it is suspending its Heathrow to Beijing flights for the winter season from 26 October.