Nadia Farha Mubin
Due to supply chain issues affecting the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines that power its fleet of Boeing 787 aircraft, British Airways, the national airline of the UK, has discontinued its London-Abu Dhabi route.
In April 2023, the airline began operating daily flights on the London-Abu Dhabi route again after a four-year halt due to the pandemic. However, during the summer travel season, which is from March 30 to October 25, 2025, the service will now be suspended.
In 2025, passengers scheduled to fly from Heathrow to Zayed International with British Airways may need to fly to Dubai and take a 1.5-hour bus between the two emirates. The affected passengers can receive a complete refund from BA or rebook with another airline on the same day.
BA flights to Dubai can be rescheduled on “any date within ticket validity,” according to customer guidelines on the route suspension. However, if rebooking onto an Etihad or Qatar Airways aircraft, the new date of travel must be within 14 days of the original one.
BA cancelled its New York flights from London Gatwick over a five-month period in October, along with the return of daily flights between Heathrow and Kuala Lumpur this winter.
Due to the same technical difficulties, the flag carrier also halted one of the two daily flights between London Heathrow and Doha.
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 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.”
A spokesperson for Rolls-Royce dubbed 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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