British Airways suspends Heathrow Entebbe flights
British Airways suspends Heathrow–Entebbe flights, But why?
British Airways (BA) final flights to and from Entebbe airport to London Heathrow will be on October 2 and October 3, 2015 respectively as the company suspends all its services.
BA says after a review of its flight schedules, Heathrow-Entebbe route was not considered commercially viable.
British Airways was offering a luxury of direct flights from Uganda to the UK, but some Ugandan travellers prefer to use airlines going via the Middle East, despite the longer journey time.
By 2009, British Airways had dominated the competition increasing its flights from Entebbe to London from three-times-a-week to five times.
Why British Aiways abandoned their flight from London to Entebbe
Some have noted that BA’s exit is no surprise because of underlying fundamentals, especially in terms of trade.
Whereas some traders have redirected their efforts to China and India, UK remains a powerful trading partner with Uganda, not considering it has been turbulent for at least five years.
Imports from the UK in 2000 stood at $84m with exports standing at nearly $30m. However, there was a fast-paced growth, rising to $134m in 2011.
However, in 2014 it experienced a drop falling to $100m in 2014, which represented an import growth of 19 per cent between 2000 and 2014.
Exports have been flat in the same period, despite peaking at $54m in 2011.
And as it seems, BA has been courting these trade ties on hand and also bringing in tourists from the UK.
As of 2013, according to the Uganda Tourism Board, at least 60 per cent of all visitors from Europe were from UK.
And like the trade figures, 2011 was the best year with visitors from the UK growing to 77,702 but dropping in 2013, to 43,000, which again, according to market analysts wasn’t too bad.
That's so sad, especially for the staff here at home. It will be missed.