A petition has been started in a desperate bid to convince British Airways boss Sean Doyle to reverse the airline’s decision to axe flights to Bahrain, which will result in the closure of a cabin crew base in the Kingdom amidst Rolls-Royce engine woes.
Last week, it emerged that British Airways plans to indefinitely suspend flights to both Bahrain and Kuwait due to maintenance and supply chain issues with the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines that power BA’s fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Although the Bahrain route is currently served by Boeing 777s, British Airways says it has been using this long-haul workhorse to make up for the Dreamliner issues, and these planes now require downtime for additional maintenance.
If British Airways doesn’t reverse its decision, the route between London Heathrow and Bahrain will be axed at the end of March 2025. At the same time, a cabin crew base made up of local Bahrainis who work on BA flights across the Middle East will be shuttered, and the crew will be made redundant.
The Gulf Daily News has now started a petition on Change.org in an attempt to convince British Airways that removing Bahrain from its route network is the wrong decision.
“Together, we need to convince Sean Doyle, chairman and CEO of British Airways (BA), of the routes’ importance, popularity and sound business strength for his company, as well as the UK and the Kingdom of Bahrain,” the petition reads.
“Thousands of passengers – Bahrainis and expatriates – fly from Bahrain to London. Many stay to holiday in the UK, others such as members of the US Navy based in Juffair travel on to their home states via, the capital.”
British Airways and its predecessor airlines have served Bahrain for nearly 92 years, but the airline says that the decision to suspend the route is purely a commercial one after reviewing destinations across its network.
The airline has been forced to review the viability of several popular destinations because of a years-long issue with the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines.
British Airways has publicly slammed Rolls-Royce over the delays in servicing the engines that have taken Boeing 787 Dreamliners out of service for prolonged periods of time.
Next summer, British Airways will no longer serve Dallas Fort Worth after striking a deal with transatlantic partner American Airlines to take over the route with a fifth daily flight to London Heathrow.
British Airways is also axing one of two daily flights to Miami and has delayed its much-anticipated return to the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, by at least six months.
The airline has already withdrawn from Beijing and has halved the number of flights it operates to Hong Kong due to the continuing closure of Russian airspace.
British Airways once had international cabin crew bases dotted around the world, but in recent years, it has closed bases in Argentina, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The airline does, however, maintain bases in Egypt, India, and China.
I feel very sorry for the crew, but passengers will still have Gulf Air non-stop to LHR, plus numerous carriers operating at BAH making connections to LHR via just a single short flight easily done