25 February 2003 Source: Reuters British Airways is to lodge stop-over crew in Cyprus and cut some services to the Gulf after a British defence worker was shot dead in Saudi Arabia and as war looms in Iraq. The carrier said the decision to stop using Gulf hotels followed a change in security advice from the British Foreign Office which has warned the Gulf region was a place where there was an increased threat to Britons from militant attacks. "The planes will still go down to the Gulf but the crews won't stay in the hotels which we would normally use down in the Gulf region," a British Airways spokesman said. "They will spend their days of rest in Larnaca, Cyprus." German carrier Lufthansa said it had similar contingency plans in the event of war and was prepared to house crew on long distance flights to the Gulf "somewhere around the Mediterranean, for example Cyprus". Lufthansa spokesman Michael Lamberty also told Reuters in Frankfurt that Europe's second-biggest airline was likely to shorten the time its aircraft were parked at Gulf airports. British Airways said it was reducing the number of flights from London to Dubai to one a day from two and had suspended services to Muscat, Oman, from Abu Dhabi. "It's all part of the safety and security of the operations," the spokesman for British Airways said. The airline warned earlier this month that its return to profits would be under threat if war broke out in Iraq. _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail