British Airways will halt flights between London and Beijing from Oct. 26, the company confirmed on Thursday.
The announcement made the company the third commercial airline that has recently announced plans to suspend a route to China amid an ongoing ban on Western airlines using Russian airspace.
British Airways, a subsidiary of the International Airlines Group (IAG), did not specify the reason for the decision.
It’s one of many Western airlines forced to take detours to avoid Russian airspace, meaning their flight times became considerably longer.
In a statement emailed to The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for British Airways said: “We will be pausing our route to Beijing from October 26, and we’re contacting any affected customers with rebooking options or to offer them a full refund.
“We continue to operate daily flights to Shanghai and Hong Kong.”
The suspension is expected to last until at least November 2025.
During and after the COVID-19 pandemic, British Airways suspended its London–Beijing route for three years.
Flights didn’t resume again until June 2023, when the company described the route as one of its “most important routes.”
The airline’s decision to pause flights to and from Beijing came weeks after it halved flights between London and Hong Kong, from two fights a day to one, until next year, citing longer flight times and higher costs because of Russia’s airspace ban.
It also comes less than a month after another British airline, Virgin Atlantic, said it would suspend flights between London Heathrow and Shanghai—its only route to China—from Oct. 26.
The company cited “significant challenges and complexities” as part of the reason to axe the route that has been operational since 1999.
Virgin Atlantic had also suspended the route during the COVID-19 pandemic and only resumed it in May 2023.
The changes mean British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will be able to use the valuable London Heathrow takeoff and landing slots for other routes that may be more profitable.
In May, Australian airline Qantas said it was suspending flights between Sydney and Shanghai from July 28, citing lower-than-expected demand, less than a year after resuming flights following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Western airlines were banned from using Russian airspace.
Chinese Airlines Gain Market Share
Meanwhile, Chinese carriers have continued to take shorter northern routes to Europe and North America over Russia’s vast airspace.British Airways’s four days a week Beijing–London flight takes around two-and-a-half hours longer than China Southern’s daily flight on the same route it launched last year, according to flight tracker Flightradar24.
The discrepancies have expanded the cost advantage held by Chinese airlines and allowed them to take a larger share in the international market at a time when fierce competition on domestic routes has put pressure on ticket prices and profitability.
Chinese airlines including China Southern, China Eastern, and Air China in July operated 90 percent of the number of international flights they were operating in July 2019, according to Cirium schedule data analysed by Reuters.
Foreign carriers operated only 60 percent of pre-pandemic flights, indicating a retreat.
China’s international traffic has been growing since pandemic-related restrictions were lifted at the start of 2023, but it has recovered more slowly than in other countries owing to a faltering economy and a turn towards domestic travel, with political tensions contributing to some of the stagnation.
