BA, the ‘world’s favourite airline’, had started its business in Kolkata in 1932, when India was under the British rule. After that, it withdrew and restarted its service several times. The BA stopped its direct service from Kolkata in 1985, but reintroduced the same again in 1993. The absence of BA would create troubles for both the travel industry and frequent fliers from eastern India for whom this direct Kolkata-London-Kolkata flight was the most convenient link with the United Kingdom as well as other European countries.

While speaking to the media, Anil Punjabi, the chairman (East) of the Travel Agents Federation of India said, “British Airways' leaving is a disaster for aviation in the east. We will soon feel the repercussions.” The concerned officials of BA have stated that low profitability, security issues and low passenger load are the main reasons to cancel the direct service from the Kolkata based airport. Apart from Kolkata, BA would also stop its direct service from Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh.

BA offers Boeing 777 flights with a seat capacity of 272 passengers (36 seats are for the business class, 236 seats are for the economy class). Though 70 per cent seats are filled in BA from here, most tickets of the business class have to be sold at a discount which hampers profitability. The competition increased when Lufthansa Airlines launched their Kolkata-Frankfurt-Kolkata flight in 2006. The Emirates Airlines also started their business from Kolkata to Dubai which compelled BA to face a tough competition.

Passengers from Kolkata go to Dubai directly by Emirates Airlines flights and then get cheaper tickets of different airlines from Dubai to visit other European countries. Reports also said that BA was forced to slash its fares by 30 to 50 per cent.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai is now the only airport from where BA makes profit regularly. Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore airports also have BA flights. The BA started their service in Hyderabad on December 6, 2008.

But the absence of BA flights from Kolkata would cause troubles to the passengers as the Kolkata-London flight was the quickest way to reach UK as well as the USA. Now, passengers flying to London and back would lose several hours because of many stopovers in different cities. To avert this problem, Air India would start a Kolkata-Delhi-London flight on the same day the BA finally takes off from here.

Now Kolkata has international airlinks like Lufthansa Airlines, Fly Emirates Airlines, etc.