British Airways has pushed back its planned return to Kuala Lumpur until April as part of a trimming of its planned winter long-haul flight programme due to delivery delays particularly impacting its Rolls-Royce Trent 1000-powered Boeing 787s.
The Oneworld carrier had originally been due to resume direct flights from London Heathrow to the Malaysian capital from 10 November using 787-9s. Direct flights are now only bookable from April 2025 on BA’s website.
The delay is among several changes, which also include suspending some winter London Gatwick-New York JFK flights.
”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,” says British Airways.
”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,” the company says. ”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.”
Rolls-Royce says: “We continue to work with British Airways and all of our customers to minimise the impact of the limited availability of spares due to the current supply chain constraints. Unfortunately, this is an issue affecting the whole aerospace industry.”
Air New Zealand earlier this year suspended operations to Chicago between 31 March and 25 October owing to the lack of spare Trent engines for its 787s.
In September Kenya Airways was again forced to amend its schedule after two of its GE Aerospace GEnx-powered 787s were grounded due to to ”unscheduled engine overhaul and unforeseen engine supply chain constraints”. It had been forced also to make changes in May this year.
