I believe that BA was just protecting their turf. It is one thing when the majority of fares sold for RTW came from Egyptian residents, but it is another when the majority (probably 90%) of Oneworld tickets sold came from outside the country and they knew it was to take advantage of the lower currency.

Yes it's SOME revenue lost for BA but overall, it is losing already when an Egyptian ticket is sold over a similar RTW if sold in say, UK or USA.

BA probably saw that its staff were overwhelmed by demands of RTW ticketing from a small but affluent group of people, and decided that it was time to raise the issue with Oneworld. Maybe the other partner airlines knew of the fare differences but since I think the majority of tickets issued by FTers went to BA, BA felt that it had to do something.

BA is very price conscious. This isn't the first time. Malaysia was cheaper than Singapore.. and they raised the fares so much that the new fares are now higher than Singapore's! Then came South African fares, and now inevidently Egyptian fares.

The airlines would do better if they had some sort of residency restriction on each fare type, thereby keeping the fares affordable to local residents. These fare restrictions exists for point-to-point fares but funnily enough, not for Round The Worlds.