e8steve

Flights are still available to book - currently from the end of October. But T&T airports have been closed for international arrivals since March and no sign that they will reopen any time soon. Many nationals have been stranded in the UK (and worldwide) as even they are unable to enter the country without special permission from the government and there is no way to travel there without chartering a private aircraft.

BAeuro

I don’t think BA will be needing that 3 daily IST service now...

sammyg901

Turkey is very popular route into the USA currently (if you spend 2 weeks there you can then enter) so at least some demand will be unaffected since that was one way. But yes a whole bunch of FTVs for those cheapo CE flights will be currently being requested I am sure!

mizakd

Why has MCO disappeared from the wiki despite showing on the long haul map for the winter season?

londonsmiler

I see Austin and a few others have been scrubbed to the end of October (as per the wiki). Just waiting for November cancellations to kick in note

nufnuf77

I just booked AUS on Jan 9th, hope it sticks

lcylocal

I wonder if that route may be closed off sooner rather than later. UK action seems to be related to Turley under reporting their stats.

I do think IST will stay though, perhaps with fewer rotations, but can’t be much hope for the other Turkish routes once people have been returned.

ISTFlyer

There are many UK citizens ( mostly retired people ) who rent summer houses at the southern part for 3 or 6 months. There would still be people for DLM and BJV but not people under package holidays.

ISTFlyer

By the way, for tomorrow ( 2 October )

TK has scaled up all their IST-LHR and IST-LGW services to 777-300ER, also adding an additional 777-300ER flight to Gatwick.
Plus some extra flights from the south as well.

BA has taken no special arrangement for tomorrow to allow passengers to travel to the UK before the quarantine requirement starts.

orbitmic

We have quite a bit of comparison with other routes by now. When Spain was added to the quarantine list, frequencies reduced quite drastically, but few routes were closed entirely, and frequencies to a number of destinations have now stabilised. Same story in France. For NCE, for instance, the frequencies were abruptly cut from 5 daily to 1 daily, but then moved slightly up to 1-2 daily and are now due to go up to 3 daily to LHR plus 10 weekly LCY despite the quarantine undoubtedly continuing for the foreseeable future.

I think the idea is that any route which has strong point to point traffic, especially "commuter routes" (and a surprising number of European destinations have weekly commuters) with families split between the two ends of the route, sometimes with little choice but to continue some level of travel even if it means quarantining one or both ways. I'm unsure about Turkish routes as many were seasonal at the best of time, though anticipating potential future changes, I'd guess that a number of Greek and Italian destinations will match that description and retain some frequencies even if the countries are added to the quarantine lists.

nufnuf77

And those commuter routes presumably work because the weekly commuters dont quarantine (special exemption)

EDDLEGLL

I have a question about potential cancellations in October. If I now book a flight for within 14 days and BA cancels / moves me to a different flight (more than 2/3 hours apart), am I owed compensation (assuming no changes to travel advise etc.) or just a refund ?

I’m trying to assess if it’s now “save” to finally book BA to DUS again. They’re still showing 3 flights for most days in the middle of October and only the late ones will work for me.

KARFA

If BA cancels the flight you are definitely due a full refund regardless of what alternative BA offers you.

If your flight is merely retimed you are only due a refund if the retiming is 240 minutes or more.

In terms of compensation the change may be within scope if cancelled and rebooked, but it will come down to what the reason was and whether it was caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken - at that stage I am sure BA will invoke the coronavirus card!

sammyg901

Extra flights from Bodrum and Dalaman and all Istanbul flights are A321N - the evening service is showing Y1 so looks OK, BA have been very proactive in these arrangements over the last few weeks and I imagine if they thought there was a need they'd have ran an extra sector/uppedto a widebody

BAeuro

From Routesonline: