British Airways has suspended flights between London Heathrow and Abu Dhabi next summer amid ongoing aircraft delivery delays.
The Middle Eastern route is the latest airline schedule change due to the slow supply chain of Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines that power BA’s fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
BA resumed the daily Abu Dhabi service in April after a four-year pause due to the pandemic.
The long-haul flights to the UAE capital will now be put on pause for the summer travel season between 30 March and 25 October 2025.
Passengers due to depart Heathrow for Zayed International with BA in 2025 may now have to fly to Dubai and board a 1.5-hour bus between emirates.
BA offers affected travellers same-day rebooking options with other airlines, or they can request a full refund.
Customer guidelines on the route suspension state that BA flights to Dubai can be rebooked on “any date within ticket validity”, but if rebooking onto an Etihad or Qatar Airways flight, they can be rebooked within 14 days from the original travel date.
In October, BA cancelled the resumption of daily flights between Heathrow and Kuala Lumpur this winter as well as its New York flights from London Gatwick over a five-month period.
The flag carrier also suspended one of two daily London Heathrow-Doha links due to the same technical issues.
A spokesperson for British Airways said: “We’re 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. We’ve apologised to those affected and are able to offer the vast majority a flight 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.”
A Rolls-Royce spokesperson called the delays “challenging industry wide supply chain constraints”.
They said: “The Trent 1000 is an important engine for our customers and our business. Its reliability is proven, with over 20 million in service flying hours since its entry into service in 2011.
“We have been taking decisive action and moving quickly to prioritise the resources needed to reduce the impact created by the current industry wide supply chain constraints, it’s the highest priority for our Civil Aerospace division.
“Over the last 12 months we’ve introduced a number of initiatives to reduce the impact on our customers. Our Trent 1000 Task Force has been working at pace to deliver these improvements, drawing on our world-class engineering and technology capability. This Task Force brings together people from across our operations, supply chain, engineering, technology, safety and planning teams.”
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