British Airways’ decision to halt flights to two Gulf countries has angered politicians in the UK, but people in Bahrain are fighting back with a petition they hope will stop it from happening.
By the end of the first quarter of 2025, the UK airline plans to pull daily flights to Bahrain and Kuwait from its schedule, as it says these routes are no longer commercially viable, due to Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine issues on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet.
In an official statement seen by The National, British Airways said it was “disappointed” to make this decision, but “we’ve taken this action because we do not believe the issue will be solved quickly, and we want to offer our customers the certainty they deserve for their travel plans”.
When asked whether they will reinstate the routes once the engine issues are resolved, there was no response.
Long-standing ties
Stanley Szecowka, managing editor of Bahrain’s national newspaper Gulf Daily News, is now trying to reverse the decision. He has started a petition on change.org, calling on readers and residents to help convince BA chairman and chief executive Sean Doyle to keep the direct route between London and Bahrain. So far, more than 2,000 people have signed it since it launched on Sunday.
“British Airways has got such a long-standing, historic relationship dealing with Bahrain from the very, very earliest days you can imagine of aviation,” he told The National.
“I was looking through our [newspaper] archives and we've got stories of British Airways flights, cabin crew and pilots that have been very much part of the Bahrain community.
“Dame Shirley Bassey once flew from the UK on Concorde to Bahrain and flew back to do another performance at Royal Albert Hall on the same day. There’s so much nostalgia.”
Popular route
The move does not make financial sense because the route is very popular in Bahrain, added Mr Szecowka.
“We have gold card BA members who have been travelling on the airline for 46 years, every year, and said they’ve never seen an empty flight,” he said. “When I go home [to the UK], as I go back once a year to see family, half the people in the queue are American serviceman getting the next flight on to the US.”
Long-time Bahrain resident Helen McKee has flown British Airways for more than 20 years to go back home to Belfast.
“This decision really will affect us,” she told The National. “My mum is coming for Christmas, and a few times a year, and we generally find the connections and prices are better from Belfast or Dublin.”
Now, Ms McKee and her family will have to take flights with more than one connection or travel on Gulf Air, Bahrain’s national airline, to England before getting another airline such as Aer Lingus for the last leg of the journey.
“I tried to book an Aer Lingus flight through Gulf Air once and it was like 1,000 Bahraini dinars [$2,660].”
This is why, so far, the petition has had a good response, said Mr Szecowka. “It got 1,000 signatures within 24 hours and we’re over 2,000 now … If we go a little way with this campaign, we can do something positive.”
British-Bahraini relations
This latest move follows other significant changes to British Airways’ network in recent months, but British politicians have said its decision to scrap the Bahrain and Kuwait routes is “madness”.
Dr Liam Fox, who served as defence secretary under former British prime minister David Cameron, told the Daily Mail that it would send “totally the wrong message”.
“At a time when the Gulf is becoming much more important geopolitically and we are attempting to negotiate new trade agreements in the region, this would be a blow to UK PLC,” he said. “It’s the worst possible decision at the worst possible time.”
Bahrain's King Hamad is currently in the UK and was hosted by King Charles III at Windsor Castle on Monday afternoon as the Gulf monarch marks his silver jubilee year.
Bahrain was a British protectorate for more than 100 years, gaining independence in 1971, and the two nations have maintained close ties, particularly in business. The island kingdom also hosts the only Royal Navy base in the region.
British Airways has been flying between Bahrain and London for 92 years. Imperial Airways, British Airways’ predecessor, flew to the island in 1932, with a transit flight from London to New Delhi, marking the company’s first entry into the Middle East.
On January 21, 1976, Concorde’s first commercial flight, BA300, was from London Heathrow to Bahrain International Airport.
The Bahrain Airport Company, the operating company of Bahrain International Airport, which this year has reached record highs for capacity, has said there was “no discussion” around the decision and it was “disappointed”, but hoped the airline’s position could be “reassessed”.
Mr Szecowka is hopeful his petition will make that case. “There’s a general feeling here that it’s unreal, so, providing the decision hasn’t been rubber-stamped by the British Airways parent company board of directors, then we may have a chance of enlightening them.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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What sanctions would be reimposed?
Under ‘snapback’, measures imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council in six resolutions would be restored, including:
- An arms embargo
- A ban on uranium enrichment and reprocessing
- A ban on launches and other activities with ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, as well as ballistic missile technology transfer and technical assistance
- A targeted global asset freeze and travel ban on Iranian individuals and entities
- Authorisation for countries to inspect Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines cargoes for banned goods
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Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbocharged and three electric motors
Power: Combined output 920hp
Torque: 730Nm at 4,000-7,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic
Fuel consumption: 11.2L/100km
On sale: Now, deliveries expected later in 2025
Price: expected to start at Dh1,432,000
The years Ramadan fell in May
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MATCH INFO
Alaves 1 (Perez 65' pen)
Real Madrid 2 (Ramos 52', Carvajal 69')
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