{"id":545418,"date":"2026-03-17T04:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T04:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/545418\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T04:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T04:11:14","slug":"british-airways-adds-flights-to-melbourne-as-iran-war-halts-middle-east-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/545418\/","title":{"rendered":"British Airways adds flights to Melbourne as Iran war halts Middle East travel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chris<\/p>\n

Updated March 17, 2026 \u2014 11:28am,first published 11:00am<\/p>\n

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As conflict ties up airports in the Middle East, British Airways has announced a new route to Australia, launching daily flights between London and Melbourne early next year.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s flag carrier will operate daily services from Melbourne to London via Kuala Lumpur from January, deploying a four-class Boeing Dreamliner 787-9.<\/p>\n

\"BritishBritish Airways serves Sydney and will soon serve Melbourne.iStock<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a long history of connecting Britain and Australia, and we\u2019re excited to be returning to this great city,\u201d said British Airways\u2019 Chief Planning and Strategy Officer Neil Chernoff.<\/p>\n

British Airways already has a daily service to Sydney. The additional daily flights to and from Melbourne will increase capacity from Australia to the UK with a connection in South-East Asia. British Airways last served Melbourne in March 2006.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Emirates,<\/a><\/p>\n

The route opening comes as conflict in the Middle East<\/a> disrupts the transit of passengers<\/a> between Australasia and Europe. The war, which has seen airports hit by Iranian drones<\/a>, has forced travellers to book on routes that avoid the region \u2014 and its uncertainty \u2014 altogether.<\/p>\n

The UAE\u2019s General Civil Aviation Authority temporarily closed the country\u2019s airspace on Tuesday as an \u201cexceptional precautionary measure\u201d.<\/p>\n

BA\u2019s expanded services to Australia will start at the same time that Qantas\u2019 Project Sunrise<\/a> \u2013 direct flights from Sydney to London \u2013 is expected to begin. The move pairs the two national carriers \u2013 Qantas and British \u2013 in the business of end-to-end connections between the UK and Australia, flying routes that let them sidestep the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The BA route planning began before the Middle East war began on February 28. It\u2019s understood BA could not send a representative to the media conference in Melbourne partly due to Mideast-related travel disruptions.<\/p>\n

British Airways will offer four classes aboard the planes \u2013 first, business class, premium economy, and economy cabins \u2013 on flights that start on January 11. Sales for the tickets start on Tuesday night with fares starting at $1960 round trip Melbourne-to-London.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are thrilled to welcome British Airways back to Melbourne Airport and we\u2019re incredibly excited about what this extra choice means for travellers and exporters,\u201d said Melbourne Airport chief executive officer Lorie Argus.<\/p>\n

British Airways joins Finnair and Turkish Airways as European airlines serving Victoria. Argus said: \u201cWith the largest choice of airlines flying to the UK and Europe, 24-hour operations and the shortest minimum connection time of any Australian airport, Melbourne Airport is now the clear choice for Europeans heading to Australia or Australians looking to travel abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

From January 9, 2027, flight BA33 will depart London Heathrow daily at 9.10pm, arriving in Kuala Lumpur at 6.05pm the following day and then into Melbourne at 6.40am the day after.<\/p>\n

The return flight BA34 will depart Melbourne Airport at 4.35pm on January 11, arriving in Kuala Lumpur at 21.35pm and then into London Heathrow at 5.20am the next morning.<\/p>\n

British Airways said that in addition to its new route to Melbourne, and to Colombo, beginning October, it has also introduced seven extra return services from London to Bangkok and Singapore over recent weeks, \u201cto meet rising demand for these routes as a result of the situation in the Middle East\u201d.<\/p>\n

The airline has cut flights to the Middle East destinations Amman, Bahrain, Dubai, Doha and Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

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\"ChrisChris Zappone<\/a> is a senior reporter covering aviation and business. He is former digital foreign editor.Connect via X<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated March 17, 2026 \u2014 11:28am,first published 11:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-545418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}