Assuming the use of a 787-9 aircraft and a detour over the ‘southern route’, the findings are revealing.
Typically, this southern route involves flying over Central Asia, heading over the Caucasus region, including the air space over Georgia and Azerbaijan, and then continuing towards East Asia. This compares to the normal great circle routing, which would take the service directly over Russian airspace.
Approximate routeing avoiding Russian airspace between London Heathrow and Beijing
By avoiding Russian airspace, navigation costs decreased by approximately 35% (Source: AirportCharges). However, due to the longer flight distance, fuel costs significantly increased by around 20% (Source: Apex).
We then compare the two routing options using the Route Performance tool in Apex, further highlighting the cost differences resulting from the longer flight time.
With an assumed 80% load factor overall operating costs increased by c.16%, implying that revenue per passenger would need to rise by approximately £85 to offset these additional expenses.
Fare pricing data available in Apex data reveals that an extra £85 would equate to a c. 25% increase in the base average economy one-way airfare achieved by BA on the service.
Considering that BA's average summer fares (APR-JUN) 2024 to Chinese destinations are already -20% compared to the same period last year, and the lowest to Asian destinations on per km basis (see below), this only highlights what a challenge BA is facing in this market, and one they don't appear to have the appetite to continue to fight.
British Airways Economy class fare per km (EUR) between London Heathrow and Asian destinations
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