British Airways shrinks Middle East

British Airways spent last autumn adding Middle East flying, then spent this week cutting it back. The airline now plans to drop Jeddah entirely and reduce summer service to Dubai, Doha, Riyadh and Tel Aviv as it reshapes its network after weeks of disruption tied to the Iran war. (marketwatch.com) (bloomberg.com) The cuts are sharpest on routes British Airways had only recently been building up. Last August, the airline said Jeddah would rise to five weekly flights in summer 2026 and Riyadh would rise to 14 weekly, but Jeddah is now being scrapped and Riyadh is being pulled back to one daily flight between July 1 and October 24. (businesstraveller.com) (marketwatch.com) Dubai shows how big the reversal is. British Airways currently runs three flights a day from London Heathrow to Dubai, and that schedule is being cut to one daily flight for the core summer season. (marketwatch.com) Doha and Tel Aviv are getting the same treatment. British Airways currently flies Heathrow to Doha twice a day and Heathrow to Tel Aviv twice a day, and both routes are also being reduced to one daily flight this summer. (marketwatch.com) This is not just about one city or one route map tweak. British Airways has active travel-disruption notices covering Abu Dhabi, Amman, Bahrain, Doha, Dubai, Tel Aviv, Jeddah and Riyadh for customers booked through October 31, 2026, which shows how wide the operational fallout has become. (britishairways.com) When an airline cuts one region, those planes do not sit still. Bloomberg reported that British Airways is redirecting aircraft toward India and Africa, where demand has held up better and the airline can use scarce long-haul capacity more profitably. (bloomberg.com) That same logic has been showing up across the rest of the network for months. British Airways ended San José, Costa Rica in March, plans to stop Tampa later in 2026, and has concentrated some of its most valuable long-haul flying at Heathrow instead of spreading it across multiple airports. (simpleflying.com) New York is the clearest example of where the airline still wants to be oversized. British Airways is set to run nine daily Heathrow flights to John F. Kennedy International Airport in summer 2026, its highest level in more than a decade, while dropping the London Gatwick to John F. Kennedy service. (simpleflying.com) (headforpoints.com) So the picture is not “British Airways is shrinking.” The picture is that British Airways is pulling back from routes made less attractive by war risk, weaker demand or lower yields, and pushing those same aircraft toward markets where a Heathrow slot and a full premium cabin are worth more. (simpleflying.com) (bloomberg.com)