It has the worst delays of any Heathrow airline. Complaints concerning the decline of its meals are legion. Now, as BA cancels important routes amid a row with Rolls-Royce over engines… will BA ever be the world’s favorite airline once more?

Heading from Heathrow‘s Terminal 5 to Washington last month with British Airways, I was among passengers who endured a 15-minute journey around back ways of the airport in search of a stand for the plane.

When finally disgorged from the crowded buses, we all had to lug our hand luggage through the rain, across the Tarmac, before climbing up steep steps to the plane without being offered any apology or explanation.

When on board, Club and First-Class travellers, some of whom had paid £10,000-plus for tickets, were deeply disappointed to find that the traditional BA tea they were expecting, of sandwiches and scones, was not available.

 Instead, there was a mug of tea on request.

The deterioration in BA service standards on transatlantic travel, where it is the dominant carrier and earns a large chunk of its profits, is shocking. 

It’s not good for Britain’s reputation as the hub of global finance and can only benefit American rivals United and Delta, which offer cheaper fares and have upped their game. 

The experience is symptomatic of a wider malaise which has seen the quality of food services in all BA flight classes diminish, the worst record of delays of any airline operating from the UK’s flagship airport and the permanent cancellation of services to many parts of the world. 

Among the routes to be axed or curtailed are flights to Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, three of the wealthiest Gulf economies with robust investment ties to Britain.

Carriers across the globe have been cancelling or curbing flights to the Middle East because of Israel‘s wars with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

Many routes to Tel Aviv and Beirut have understandably been suspended for security reasons. But flights to most Gulf destinations are still operating.

If Labour’s growth agenda – with its expectations of overseas investment in Britain’s infrastructure and green energy – is to have any chance of working, the cooperation of Gulf states such as Qatar is absolutely crucial.

Qatar is already one of the biggest investors in this country, with stakes in key FTSE companies such as the London Stock Exchange Group and Sainsbury’s. 

It is not alone. Other countries in the Gulf, along with entrepreneurs from the region, have long provided critical overseas investment because they value the UK for its historic ties with the Middle East, as well as for legal certainty and, crucially, frequent and easy airline links to London.

It seems unfathomable that these links are now being severed or cut back by our national carrier.

When asked about the curtailing of the critical Gulf routes, BA sought to pass on the blame to the aircraft engine supplier Rolls‑Royce Holdings.

‘We’re disappointed that we’ve had to make further changes to our schedule as we continue to experience delays to the delivery of engines and parts from Rolls-Royce – particularly concerning the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines fitted to our 787 aircraft,’ the company said.

‘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.’ Certainty, perhaps, that normal service to some destinations will not be resumed any time soon.

The paradox is that, as far as the Stock Market is concerned, both of these totemic British companies – BA owner International Airlines Group (IAG) and Rolls-Royce Holdings – are flying high.

In spite of all the difficulties, BA has seen its share price climb by 53.9 per cent so far this year. 

The carrier’s value has soared to £12 billion and it is projected to earn an eye-popping £3 billion over the whole of 2024. 

Which means it can hardly blame financial pressures for the delays, flight cancellations and the deterioration in service.

Meanwhile, shares in Rolls-Royce have gone up by 85.5 per cent this year alone, under the charismatic and demanding leadership of Turkish-born chief executive Tufan ‘Turbo’ Erginbilgic. 

Profits are projected to come in at more than £2.1 billion this year.

In both cases, the financial turnaround is all the more remarkable given that both companies looked in danger of going under during the pandemic when passengers vanished and many planes were flying empty simply to protect routes.

British Airways was supported by direct loans from the Bank of England under a special Covid facility and ran up billions in debts, while Rolls-Royce came close to bankruptcy for the second time in its existence and was only saved as a result of the ingenuity of its chief executive Warren East.

He disposed of assets, took on short-term debt (now largely paid back) and received a disguised government bailout in the shape of a loan guarantee from the Department of Business. 

The government had little choice but to weigh in – Rolls‑Royce engines power Britain’s fighter jets and its nuclear turbines are the backbone of our submarine fleet.

 So how can it be that these two iconic British companies are being blamed for letting vital services fall into abeyance at a time when both are raking in soaring profits and their share prices are rocketing?

As I say, British Airways is adamant that the fault lies squarely with Rolls-Royce. Indeed, BA sources describe it as ‘completely unacceptable’ that tens of thousands of customers are having their travel plans cancelled because of the engineering company’s supply issues.

And there is no doubt that BA – now part of the Madrid-based IAG, which owns Iberia, Aer Lingus and other smaller carriers – has problems with Rolls-Royce.

Many of its jets are powered by the highly specified, top-of-the-range Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 turbines which have sensitive blades tested to atomic standards.

These super-efficient power systems require precision and regular maintenance.

But Derby-based Rolls, which does this work, cannot get the parts they need quickly enough. 

Supply chains have been unable to cope with demand for precision alloys and parts following air travel’s rapid recovery from the pandemic.

Other carriers using Trent engines, including Virgin, have encountered similar problems to BA, although Virgin has a much smaller fleet so the impact has been less severe.

It also has to be said that BA suffers because its main hub is Heathrow airport, where it dominates landing and take-off slots. 

And airline operations at the airport are on a tightrope.

After the slump of the pandemic, Heathrow is back at 98 per cent capacity, processing 230,000 passengers a day and is projected to handle 83.8 million travellers this year. 

A luggage belt failure or the slightest glitch to a computer system – and there have been plenty of those – can lead to chaos which takes days to unwind.

Yet many believe that Britain’s premier engineering group has become an easy scapegoat for BA’s declining service levels.

A recent analysis by the Financial Times found that BA customers have suffered an almost doubling of flight cancellations and delays since the pandemic ended.

Some 9 per cent of BA flights from its Heathrow hub were delayed by more than 61 minutes in the 12 months to July 2024. 

That compares with 4.9 per cent in 2019 – before the pandemic.

The anecdotal evidence of the decline in service is also overwhelming. Last year, for instance, passengers on a flight to Tel Aviv were seated on the plane, only to be held for five hours on the Tarmac because of an undisclosed problem with the pilot.

 On a recent plane to New Delhi, all the economy passengers arrived to find their bags were still at Heathrow. It took almost a week for them to arrive.

Can it really all be down to Rolls-Royce? Or could it be that other factors are at work as well, and influencing decisions to cut services and curtail routes?

BA sits at the core of its Spanish-based holding company IAG. Inevitably, its Britishness has been diluted since it moved its domicile to Madrid. 

This was part of the price of buying the Spanish flag carrier Iberia, a purchase which means that the group dominates transatlantic travel both to North and South America.

Even though BA’s headquarters remain at Heathrow, for the first time in its history it has a Spanish chief executive – Luis Gallego, the former boss of Iberia, who took over as head of IAG from that feisty scourge of the unions Willie Walsh in 2020.

Gallego was confronted with the challenge of pulling out of the steep dive of the pandemic. And, sadly, the experience has not been a happy one for customers.

Air fares on all flights, long distance in particular, have soared. In the chase for profits, service levels – whether with regard to ticketing arrangements or onboard catering – have been cut.

The focus has been on the most profitable routes across the Atlantic, at the expense of those – like flights to the Gulf – with historic ties to Britain, which look less appealing to a leadership based in Madrid.

Of course Rolls-Royce must take its share of the blame for the supply problems.

But it cannot be held responsible for all the unacceptable delays and cancellations, the poor communications with passengers, the decline in onboard services that everyone now associates with BA – which was once, remember, the ‘world’s favourite airline’; or for my lengthy journey round the back ways of Heathrow in search of a plane last month.

Truly, Margaret Thatcher’s great friend, the late BA chairman Lord King, who guided the company from state ownership on to the private markets, would be spinning in his grave at what’s happened to his airline.