British Airways cancels over 2,000 flights including Bangkok

In the face of the spread of Covid-19 as infections surge in the UK, British Airways have suspended all their flights travelling to Bangkok until October of next year. Rumours began circulating about the possible cancellation earlier this week with popular travel sites speculating about the major airline suspending the route. Many passengers told stories of receiving cancellation notices from British Airways and the rumours were confirmed by a spokesperson for the airline who talked about refunds.

“We apologise to customers whose travel plans are disrupted. Where a customer’s flight is cancelled, we always contact them to offer options including a full refund. Customers who are unable to travel, or choose not to, can also continue to change their flights or request a voucher for future use as part of our Book with Confidence policy, which has been available since the beginning of the pandemic.”

Aside from refunding, the airline is offering to reaccommodate passengers on cancelled flights on Qatar Airways flights from London to Doha to Bangkok instead, though the agreement between airlines is reported to be confirmed only until the end of March.

The cancellations come as many people are unsure of their travel plans and how they will be affected by the Omicron variant. Many people are cancelling their holidays and travel plans, or postponing them to later next year when hopefully the pandemic will be better understood and more under control.

With more travel hesitancy, passenger load was down and the reduction in flight demand caused British Airways to decide to pull the plug on thousands of scheduled flights. Data suggests that a total of 2,144 flights were wiped from the British Airways schedule, including long-haul international flights as well as short-haul and domestic flights.

British Airways suggested any person with a trip scheduled to check their flight status on the BA website to reconfirm whether or not they’ve been cancelled. Affected passengers with flights scheduled before August 31 will be able to get a travel voucher that can be redeemed for over one year, until September 30 of 2023.

SOURCE: ASEAN Now