British Airways isn’t heading back to Bangkok until at least next year. Tour operators were hoping the British flagship carrier would be adding regular flights again between Heathrow and Bangkok in time for Thailand’s high season, just when the winter kicks in in the UK.

British Airways was originally set to resume flights in November this year but has now reviewed this decision and made no commitment to restarting services between Heathrow and Suvarnabhumi.

BA says that Bangkok, and Thailand, “is not top of BA’s list for resumption, as it is predominantly low-yield tourist traffic”.

(Low-yield traffic are passengers who are predominantly chasing the lowest fares and spend the least per seat on an aircraft.)

They also cited the “stiff price competition from the Middle East carriers – Qatar, Emirates and Etihad” – who are already flying either daily or multiple fleets per week.

But BA is selling Bangkok flights with a OneWorld partner, with connections in Doha using Qatar Airways.

“We regularly keep our extensive global network under review, and we’ve taken the decision to extend the suspension of our Bangkok service.”

Meanwhile, Thailand will lose another UK connection in August. Budget airline Scoot, which began flying Gatwick-Bangkok-Singapore in March, will suspend services on August 21., But the Singapore-based budget airline says they are planning to return to regular UK – Thailand flights at the end of October. But these flights have not been confirmed at this time and are not currently available for bookings.

Only Thai Airways and Taiwan’s EVA Air offering non-stop services between Bangkok and London’s Heathrow.

Doc67 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 11, 2022 12:23 pm BA has long been losing it's footholds on this route for a long time. I seem to remember they used to be in partnership with Qantas and for Brits going to Australia they could go to Bangkok for a stopover and then go onto Oz with BA or Qantas and vice versa with flight shares arrangements. They were even in talks about merging in 2008. Those grandiose plans all fell apart and now if you want to go to Australia with BA you go via Singapore (and they are up against both Qantas and Singapore airlines).

LHR to BKK is now a stand alone route and Thai and EVA are cheaper and the Arab or European airlines are way cheaper if you don't mind a stop somewhere.

BA's product is just not competitive anymore. In 1983 they described themselves as the "World's Favourite Airline" which was a stretch even by advertising slogans low truth bar. It was bases on the number of people flown. It has long since lost any claim to that. "We never forget you have a choice" was another one; a fact not lost of their former passengers.

When I return to the UK, British Airways never gets on the first page of SkyScanner and a quick look at their prices shows why.