where next

I had the pleasure of leaving ISB on the BA flight (redemption in CW) on the night of the Marriott incident. Had just had a great holiday mountain biking in the Kashmir region. (i was meant to be in the swat valley, but the itinerary was changed for some reason). Including a great bus journey up the Karakorum Highway.

Miss the direct flights, last time had to go on EK. Fortunately I left via KHI on the CX flight, bargain one way fares in J to HKG at the time.

Betteronacamel

I did it in '76 as a schoolboy after the Christmas holidays when the routing was KHI-BAH-JED-LHR. Super VC-10 -GASGI (17.01.76)

I doubt very much that the situation in Pakistan will allow a return for BA services in the forseeable future. I'm afraid it looks very bleak, linked to a likely implosion of Afghanistan almost the moment ISAF/NATO etc depart the scene. At a 'wild guess', BA has better opportunities elsewhere in the region.

dunk

I'll see your '76 and raise you 1979 ... LHR-DXB-BKK-HKG on a 747 ... staff travel ticket Don't have the reg though !

amaroo

Yeah, no room for passengers, luggage or even Pilots.

Betteronacamel

Oh very good. Heard that they were back again yesterday.

DUNK - I think the question related specifically to flights to/from Pakistan. If you want to play a game with numbers of stops I can comfortably outbid you with flights to MEL/SYD in the 70's when flights pit-stopped about 5 times. I think the longest one we ever did was on UTA to Tahiti from Paris on a DC8 the long way round, but that would be OT (and thus not allowed now ). Oh, and no reg number or flight number = no dice!

dunk

Touch�

Around that time (when I worked in the industry and read the ABC guides for a living), there was a US domestic NW flight that made 7 stops. A mail service I guess.

Betteronacamel

As you've been so nice here's one that takes in the Pakistan theme but involves your HKG destination.

09/01/72 - BA 924.

B707 - G-ARRC

LHR-FRA-FCO-KHI-CCU-HKG-TYO

nth_utsera_sth_utsera

Similarly, I wonder when BA will resume flights to TIP. Another BD star route Am guessing some airport / runway rebuilding might be necessary. The overall security situation seems to now be stabilising.

ajax

Actually, there was quite a lot of traffic going to UN postings in Afghanistan via Islamabad. Every time that I flew BA to Pakistan (several), CW was entirely full.

FWIW, you could always fly PIA. I now fly them regularly and they are actually (shock horror) not all that bad. You have to work bloody hard to crash a 777-300.

Betteronacamel

Probably more chance of being shot down or bombed by Terry Taleban.

Are PIA still a 'dry' airline?

ballencrieff

I agree that the security threat is likely almost zilch for BA or any other Western operator for that matter. Seeing as 80%+ of any BA aircraft pax arriving or leaving ISB/KHI are going to be either Pakistanis or of Pakistani origin, I highly doubt "Terry Taliban" would want to create an incident. The plane may say "British" on the side, but the news reports after any attack would all be about Pakistanis grieving for lost relatives. Hardly the best way to build support for yourself locally.

I agree that BA probably wouldn't be able to compete on price for Pakistani destinations, with so many airlines flying there from the UK, both direct and indirect. And as many of the bookings would be family groups, a few quid per seat can really add up and BA may end up having to join a price war that would make the routes unprofitable.

NA-Flyer

I don't see a problem for BA to fly to KHI with an extension for one of its 3 daily flights to Dubai. This way they make sure that the crew won't layover there. CX and SQ are flying there and they never have any security issues.

However, for ISB I think it will not see any BA metals in the near or far future.

Globaliser

So that, of course, is why we never see any reports of terrorist attacks either in Afghanistan or Pakistan that hurt any locals.

Isn't it?

ajax

To my knowledge, yes.

You seem disastrously ill-informed about Taliban attacks in Pakistan. Suffice it to say that hundreds, if not thousands, of Pakistanis have been murdered by Taliban fighters/sympathisers/agents in the past five years. Several hotels and marketplaces in Peshawar and other cities and villages throughout the NWFP and FATA have been bombed. About eighteen months back, several dozen Ahmadis worshipping in a mosque in Lahore were cruelly murdered by Taliban-linked extremists. The Taliban are not interested in building support locally.

BA were doing just fine on the route; it was cancelled due to security reasons.

Betteronacamel

Hmm, I don't think that the Taliban are actually that bothered about 'collateral' damage.

They are interested (inter alia) in what we used to call 'spectaculars' which in essence means attention grabbing incidents that give their organisation and their cause the oxygen of publicity. A BA aircraft either hi-jacked, attacked on the ground or shot out of the air would get just that sort of publicity. Of those scenarios, an attack on the ground is easily the most likely and, given that the Pakistan Navy can't even reliably secure their own main base against attack, security at a tempting target like an airport must be equally questionable against a determined, motivated and probably suicidal attack. Such an incident would likely be with the collusion of insiders within the local military and security forces.

Now I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be prepared to put staff, passengers or property on the line in such circumstances. I can't remember when BA pulled out of KHI but they were long-time carriers into ISB (previously Rawalpindi - RWP) which is the political capital and therefore would have attracted all the diplomatic, military and UN etc type traffic which tends to fill the front of the plane. With PIA being the only competition you can see why most westerners would have taken BA. I think BA did do a 'loop' service back in the '80's through AUH.

In any case, given the paucity of slots at LHR and not many redundant aircraft in the fleet, I imagine BA have better fish to fry. It still beats me that they don't fly to South Korea for example.