But do they? I'd argue that it's taken MH 10 years to recover and shake off its 'unsafe' reputation after MH17 and 370 and its only now tentatively restarting more routes in Europe. Countries affected by unrest such as Egypt have seen massive hits to their tourism industry. Yes it can come back, but it often takes years to recover.

While I'm sure the ME3 will continue to fly post war, their profitability and reputation is almost certainly going to take a hit. Unless this war ends quickly and is followed by a long period of calm, I think it will take a long time before confidence is fully restored.

Nah.
As long as the ME3 are a bit cheaper and they pay influencer to tout their products, whether there is a war or they use kitten blood as jet fuel, people will book them. Most people do not care for such things.

Just because I have the Qatar app on my phone (for an upcoming flight), I got a push notification for �limited sale fares� TO DOH starting on 8 March. They�re pushing to monetize the recovery flights, it looks like�I�d also expect a push of �influencers� getting paid to promote by the ME3, as others suggest.

Is that comment about reputation a feeling (vibes argument) or based on actual numbers that you have access to that discount for global events such as Covid?

Genuinely curious as I�ve never seen MH taking any of the blame for what happened to MH17.

Well it took them nearly 10 years after the tragedies to turn a profit. https://www.malaysiaairlines.com/hq/...cond-year.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68487316

Doubtless the pandemic will have set their recovery further back in 2020 but this thread isn't about MH's profitability and I don't want to take the thread any further off topic.

And to go back on topic, I think there is scope for BA to add an extra rotation to SIN and possibly KUL. But that will probably be it for the short term. Medium to long term very much depends on what happens in the ME which only a brave person would be willing to predict. I don't see these events bankrupting the ME3 but I do think their profits and their network will take a hit. Whether it is a short term blip or something longer very much depends on how long this conflict drags on for.

Such is the volume of passengers using the ME3 between the UK and Asia, it only takes a small shift away from them and, low and behold, BA have some opportunities to expand.

Regardless of influencers etc the fact is regardless of how quickly the initial stages clear up there will be an ongoing risk for a while.

I wonder if BA could do a deal for fifth freedom flights/refueling stops in India (where they've expanded a lot) to serve onward travel to the far east/Oceania. I doubt they could do so in SIN as the local carrier may have ambitions to fill the gap.

The big issue for BA is QR from a codeshare point of view may be most affected due to the proximity of the US/RAF base to DOH.

Not sure I agree with many of the recent comments. For sure there is a degree of inertia in markets that means Chinese airlines are not getting the market share their price and convenience currently deserves, and ME3 may have taken a short term reputational hit, but consumers roll downhill as we have seen from the advance of the LCCs in short haul. So I have no doubt that the emperors new clothes will also be exposed in the long haul market. That means BA will not only not have an economic reason to extend its Asian network, but might actually end up contracting it.

Extra SIN and BKK flights added in the upcoming days.
LHR-BKK is on the 10th (BA19/20)
LHR-SIN is in the 10th & 12th (BA13/14)

What is the LHR-BKK route for?

LHR-BKK is also on the 12th.

​​​​​​Must just be a joyride

China Southern, and Chinese airlines in general have OK IT - better than BA - but you need to understand websites are not their main route to market, everything in China is done in apps usually in WeChat, and websites only get a minority of overall customer traffic. They therefore don't get the focus that their apps do.

Using trip.com for booking Chinese airlines is usually a decent compromise, they have functional and decent customer service (they actually pick up the phone 24hrs a day and have agents who can handle English) and can provide the buffer between you can Chinese airlines and their bluesky GDS backend. Whilst many on here will bang the drum to book direct with the airline, and generally that's true, using trip.com for anything China related is a sensible path that can add value.

Super interesting, thanks. BKK from LHR is certainly one of the routes I had in mind.

Using which aircraft? It remains far easier for them to fly west. They really don�t have the aircraft to expand, so surely it�s about cutting elsewhere to support this expansion. If the US traffic holds up, the routes are profitable and the aircraft use greater because of the timing. Given Russian airspace issues, Asia just isn�t as easy/profitable as the US. Prolonged bad feeling with/about the US and a decrease in demand there is more likely to drive BA away from North America than the current Middle East issues. It remains the case that competition west is much softer, the US airlines are pretty much a wash with BA on service standards, whilst the ME/Asian competition is much tougher.

Having witnessed availability during the coming weeks on BA15/16 disappear, my small hope is that the uptick in eastward demand will mean BA decide to keep the 777 on the LHR-SIN-SYD rotation instead of switching to 787 for the Australian winter. Mostly for the CS, but also in the hope that more J/F redemption seats are released!