Cancellation of 787 services - Q4 2017 / Q1 2018 - Rolls Royce engine issue
 

This is a reference thread for cancellations of BA services using 787 aircraft. The cancellations are due to an issue with the Rolls Royce engines, which has led to Boeing issuing an advisory to the affected airlines requiring urgent changes. As a result BA have cancelled a number of services, due to a lack of aircraft. In the case of DOH, which has a lot of cancellations through to January, the presumption is that the 777 on that route is being redeployed to 787 routes given the relative ease in rebooking passengers to Qatar.

Previous details / background in these recent threads:
BA292 IAD-LHR Thu 04 Jan Cancelled
BA LHR-DOH-LHR daily cancellation since 13/11?
Atlanta from 789 to 777 change?

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...h-7th-jan.html
The 2017 BA compensation thread: Your guide to Regulation EC261/2004

The last one - and comments that follow from that post - gives information on the EC261 situation - that thread is the best place to explore that particular issue further so that experiences can be shared.

In terms of advice, BA will allow one involuntary change to fix any cancellations so the best thing to do is to research the alternatives and then ring BA to change your booking. If the routes is affected by increased passenger loads over Christmas/New Year, it's best to act quickly. If you are on a 787 service then you would be advised to keep an eye on MMB proactively.

In case there are FTers who don't know how to get to the remainder of a thread quickly, when a link is given to a single post: In the top right hand corner of the page, there is a link with the thread title. If you click that, it should take you to the full thread, positioned with that post at the top of the page.

Thanks for this information. As someone booked on a 787 later this month, I'll keep an eye on MMB.

Can anyone confirm if this issue affects both the 787-8 and the 787-9 or only the latter? The threads I looked at seemed to be 787-9 cancellations.

Edit: According to BA, both variants use the Trent 1000 engines, so I'm guessing both are potentially affected.

VS has been dealing with this since August, wondering why it took BA so long to go down this route... Any estimates on timescales and when resolution will likely to be complete?

From a quick bit of reading about it, it seems to have been known since 2016, when discovered on the ANA Dreamliners, so I imagine all airlines have been aware of it since at least then.

I imagine BA hoped they would have enough other aircraft to cover the flights while the 787s were being proactively fixed, but this has turned out not to be the case. As someone who does the majority of his long haul flying in the WTP cabin, I'm not especially excited by the idea of getting a 777 swapped in, but c'est la vie. I'd also be interested if anyone can flesh out details on timescales, or if there is any way to know if certain routes are more at risk than others.

Oh no :( It would be a painful and potentially very expensive problem if our itinerary to SCL in a few weeks was affected :-(

Was affected by this today: was booked BA279 LHR - SJC in F on Sunday 7th January with my colleague, travelling out to San Fran for the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference (massive Pharma / Biotech Shindig so huge demand for flights out there).

No contact from BA, assuming because it was a TA booking - just noticed in my App that the outbound had disappeared! Unable to change myself, but TA got a reroute LHR - LAX (in F) with an economy hop LAX - SFO (rather than SJC) as no Business available.

Not too bad really, as arriving directly into SFO (versus the car from SJC on the original booking) we shouldn't be too badly delayed into the city.

Still annoying, as direct is far preferable, and indeed is what we booked back in May!

I'm on a 788 this coming Sunday. What are the odds of a cancellation, or it that too soon and BA would not want to deal with the compensation claims?

If you have a look at the threads that c-w-s has linked to, you'll see that there seems to be a theme: cancelling flights on routes on which it is relatively easy to re-accommodate and re-route passengers. SCL doesn't obviously seem to fall into that category.

Ok, so that would answer my question as GIG-LHR has only 6 flights per week. Thanks

I believe that part of the issue is the availability of the engines from RR, meaning that planes are becoming unairworthy and waiting longer for the replacement engines. I wonder if Norwegian are worried?

Thanks @Globaliser.

Should I assume that an aircraft swap is likely to happen?

I started looking into what my various travel insurances would cover in case the airline cancelled without offering alternative transport. The policies I get through my Amex cards would cover very little (Platinum card £300, BAPP £200). My other policy through Coverwise would in theory cover up to £2,000 but they have an exclusion:

I believe that BA has resolved issues with 787-8's, can't remember where I read that.

Could additional routes/flights be cancelled or is this the final list? Got a GIG on the 30th Dec.

We are having a corporate sales kick off in SJC early Jan - so far we've had outbound flights cancelled on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th.vanish from MMB. Very few people have had a cancellation notice so far, which seems about typical...

Return legs are still showing in MMB...