BA pulling Kiev and St Petersburg routes effective 4 Oct 2019
May 17, 2019, 12:40 pm
#31
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data points LHR-LED: So after a long hold, several calls to india where they just hung up coz they didnt know how to do their jobs etc we got some one half decent more locally.
NEED TO KNOW; The Finnair routing ( LHR-HEL-LED) is at present not bookable as it transfers onto Nordic Regional whom BA don't have an agreement with. The agent was knowledgeable and openly admitted they'd been thrown under the bus. They got no prior warning and received the news themselves the same time as we did as pax.
BA have not published the rebooking rules.
Agents don't know when this will happen by, hopefully sooner rather than later - piece of string thing.
Agent I spoke to said that at my instance he could probably force the booking through but from experience at midnight the system would then kill the booking as it was with a non alliance partner and then we would have to go through it all over again.
I'll certainly be pushing for that routing although it's worked out nicely in one way that we will just fly DME-LHR on the return as we were splitting the trip between St Petersburg and Moscow anyway. For those looking at options S7 don't operate CE/ Business so bare in mind that you should then be liable for an invol downgrade and it's associated compensation/ refunding aspect (( Maybe @cws / @KARFA could clarify that part as they're very knowledgeable on such things ))
NEED TO KNOW; The Finnair routing ( LHR-HEL-LED) is at present not bookable as it transfers onto Nordic Regional whom BA don't have an agreement with. The agent was knowledgeable and openly admitted they'd been thrown under the bus. They got no prior warning and received the news themselves the same time as we did as pax.
BA have not published the rebooking rules.
Agents don't know when this will happen by, hopefully sooner rather than later - piece of string thing.
Agent I spoke to said that at my instance he could probably force the booking through but from experience at midnight the system would then kill the booking as it was with a non alliance partner and then we would have to go through it all over again.
I'll certainly be pushing for that routing although it's worked out nicely in one way that we will just fly DME-LHR on the return as we were splitting the trip between St Petersburg and Moscow anyway. For those looking at options S7 don't operate CE/ Business so bare in mind that you should then be liable for an invol downgrade and it's associated compensation/ refunding aspect (( Maybe @cws / @KARFA could clarify that part as they're very knowledgeable on such things ))
May 17, 2019, 1:44 pm
#33
Join Date: May 2017
Posts: 2,016
NEED TO KNOW; The Finnair routing ( LHR-HEL-LED) is at present not bookable as it transfers onto Nordic Regional whom BA don't have an agreement with. The agent was knowledgeable and openly admitted they'd been thrown under the bus. They got no prior warning and received the news themselves the same time as we did as pax.
If you don't wish to take a detour via the continent, then I think that AY LHR-HEL-LED and SK LHR-ARN-LED are your best options. There is also a seasonal twice weekly S7 ARN-LED flight.
May 17, 2019, 2:01 pm
#34
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May 17, 2019, 2:13 pm
#35
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May 17, 2019, 2:54 pm
#36
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It’s Always really sad to see some destinations go from the network. BA tends to be ruthless when it comes to its European network and have been particularly so with ex-CSI ones (GYD, TBS, TLL, etc). I sincerely hope that they will reopen those in a few months or years as there is genuine demand but I think that a mixture of flight length, scheduling limitations (which makes times ‘either’ good for o/d ‘or’ for connections but never really both), low cost and local competition, seasonality, and sanctions make the threshold particularly high.
May 17, 2019, 3:29 pm
#37
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@KARFA unfortunately the email from BA was low on info and we weren't aware that the routes had been canned. Got one email saying the outbound was canx so looked at re-routing options then 2 hrs later got another email advising the return was dead. Neither mentioned why or a route canx simply that our flights had been. Guessing we all got the same emails which is what drove the mass influx of calls to the contact centres today as nobody knew why their flights had been canx and what to do which was terribly sensible of the higher ups.
We aren't flying until early-mod November so you're quite right here's now no rush apart from wanting to secure our pref' routing so I wont bother taking any further action until Monday where I'll call just to check but tbh I doubt they'll have arranged contracts in that time as we're now in the weekend.
@Some person - This was my understanding as well and I did point out that the initial sector -LHR-HEL is a BA codeshare so whilst the 2nd leg has another flight num it's likely to carry the BA6032 number through on the back end of things ( if that makes sense) but the agent seemed to feel otherwise. tbf to the agent he spent some time trying to get clarification on this and when I pointed the above out he did go off again to push for further confirmation. I always try to see the silver lining so a trip back to HEL and sometime to check out the renovated Finnair lounge will be nice as it was off limits last time we went in Feb and it's a good excuse to try out Finns business class product which has been on my to-do list for awhile now.
We aren't flying until early-mod November so you're quite right here's now no rush apart from wanting to secure our pref' routing so I wont bother taking any further action until Monday where I'll call just to check but tbh I doubt they'll have arranged contracts in that time as we're now in the weekend.
@Some person - This was my understanding as well and I did point out that the initial sector -LHR-HEL is a BA codeshare so whilst the 2nd leg has another flight num it's likely to carry the BA6032 number through on the back end of things ( if that makes sense) but the agent seemed to feel otherwise. tbf to the agent he spent some time trying to get clarification on this and when I pointed the above out he did go off again to push for further confirmation. I always try to see the silver lining so a trip back to HEL and sometime to check out the renovated Finnair lounge will be nice as it was off limits last time we went in Feb and it's a good excuse to try out Finns business class product which has been on my to-do list for awhile now.
May 17, 2019, 3:54 pm
#38
Join Date: May 2017
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Usually, the continent refers to the area south of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. See for example this, a sign in Frederikshavn in Denmark welcoming you to the continent, one of the first things you see after getting off the ferry from Gothenburg or Oslo (if you brought your car).
May 17, 2019, 5:26 pm
#39
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Usually, the continent refers to the area south of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. See for example this, a sign in Frederikshavn in Denmark welcoming you to the continent, one of the first things you see after getting off the ferry from Gothenburg or Oslo (if you brought your car).
May 18, 2019, 12:43 am
#42
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I’m a fairly frequent visitor to St Petersburg (about 6 times a year) and it’s often been the last stop of a trip in which London is the first—in fact, I’m doing just that on my next trip. This will definitely make my future travel more complicated....
May 18, 2019, 2:22 am
#43
Join Date: Apr 2017
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I note that on some days in October you can now book the Finnair option to LED on BA.com, but most days it’s offering DME and then back on yourself on S7.
The 24 hour trip will certainly be much harder now, often bumped into people on the flight back, who were on the outbound the day before.
The 24 hour trip will certainly be much harder now, often bumped into people on the flight back, who were on the outbound the day before.
Last edited by Joshm300; May 18, 2019 at 4:31 am
May 18, 2019, 2:46 am
#44
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Such a shame. I went to Kyiv for the first time in April and loved it. So much to see and do, the people are welcoming and friendly. I was looking forward to it being my new regular 160 point destination.
May 18, 2019, 5:40 am
#45
Join Date: Nov 2004
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I think I would take issue with the "usually" as this strikes me as a peculiarly Scandinavian perspective on the matter. AFAIK, most "continental Europeans" outside of Scandinavia (viz well over 95% of continental Europeans) would regard "continental Europe", or "the continent" as normally including the whole of Scandinavia (bar the islands).
