London Air Travel » British Airways »
British Airways is slowly increasing its flying programme from London.
BA has added a number of seasonal and year-round short-haul routes at London Heathrow, with a focus on leisure routes.
BA CityFlyer has resumed some short-haul flights at London City. BA has also restarted a small number of long-haul flights at London Gatwick.
As borders outside Europe are largely closed to all but essential travellers, long-haul schedules are limited well into 2021. BA will only reinstate routes where they generate positive cash flow which means the resumption of long-haul routes is likely to be driven by cargo demand.
Below are the main changes up to the end of August. These are indicative and subject to change.
For the most accurate live flight information, it is recommended you use the flight timetables and live flight status pages on ba.com
Also note that cancelled flights are still showing on some airport websites. BA is operating a number of cargo-only flights which may appear on some websites and apps under their regular flight numbers.
Quick Links
Travel & Entry Restrictions
Travel and entry restrictions vary by both country and region and can include:
- Restrictions on entry based on citizenship and purpose of travel.
- Evidence of a negative PCR COVID-19 test.
- Completion and submission of a medical declaration before travel.
- Advance registration with overseas authorities.
- Some long-haul routes (eg India & South Africa) closing for sale up to 7 days before travel.
- Restrictions on transit passengers.
BA has provided a list of links to country-by-country guidance and relevant forms that must be completed before departure on its website.
Some countries require forms to be completed, and submitted to relevant authorities where necessary, 24-72 hours before travel. Passengers who do not comply may be denied boarding.
IATA also has full details of country entry restrictions and any country specific forms that need to be completed prior to check-in or prior to completing customs and immigration procedures on landing.
Country-by-country guidance for UK travellers is also available from the Foreign Office.
Full details of new airport and on board procedures for BA flights are available at ba.com
Some flights may have specific procedures such as different check-in procedures, temperature checks, restrictions on hand luggage and additional Personal Protective Equipment requirements.
BA Refund and Rebooking Policies
If your flight is cancelled you are entitled to a full refund.
You will need to call BA to obtain a refund as this cannot be done online.
All passengers due to travel up to Wednesday 30 September 2020 have the flexibility to change their booking free of charge or exchange the value of their ticket for a Future Travel Voucher (redeemable by phone) or eVoucher (redeemable online).
These can be used as payment towards a new booking for travel up to and including 30 April 2022. More details of this policy are at ba.com Please note there are separate rules on the use of Future Travel Vouchers and eVouchers.
Passengers can check the status of their bookings using the Manage My Booking tool on ba.com
London Heathrow
All BA flights are operating from Terminal 5.
BA has reopened some of its Heathrow departure lounges. A number of airport cafes and coffee shops have reopened. At Terminal 5, the Club Aspire lounge, Gordon Ramsay Plane Food and the Plaza Premium Lounge have reopened.
The food and beverage service on all flights remains limited. Here are details of the service for all cabins.
All other airlines at Heathrow, apart from American Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Iberia, Japan Airlines and Qatar Airways are operating from Terminal 2. Terminals 3 and 4 are closed.
London Heathrow – UK Domestic
BA is currently flying to Aberdeen, Belfast, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Manchester, Newcastle and Newquay.
BA has permanently suspended Leeds Bradford.
London Heathrow – Short-Haul Europe
BA has reinstated a number of year-round and summer seasonal routes to mainland Europe.
Routes with more than twice daily flights include:
Amsterdam
Barcelona
Madrid (Flights BA460 & BA461 operated with Boeing 777 aircraft on Monday, Thursday and Saturday)
Routes with at least, or near, daily flights from July / August include:
Athens
Berlin Tegel
Bologna
Brussels (now suspended until 1 October)
Budapest
Copenhagen
Dublin (now suspended until 1 October, codeshares with Aer Lingus still operate)
Frankfurt
Hamburg
Istanbul
Lisbon
Luxembourg (now suspended until 1 October)
Lyon
Milan Malpensa
Munich
Nice
Paris Charles De Gaulle
Prague
Rome Fiumicino
Stockholm
Toulouse
Routes with less than daily flights from July / August include:
Basel (now suspended until 1 October)
Billund (suspended from 4 September until 1 October)
Dusseldorf (now suspended until 1 October)
Geneva
Gibraltar
Gothenburg (now suspended until 1 October)
Hannover
Innsbruck (delayed to 12 December)
Krakow
Larnaca
Marrakech (delayed to 1 October)
Marseille
Milan Linate (delayed to 1 October)
Moscow Domodedovo
Oslo
Pisa
Reykjavik (suspended during September)
Sofia
Stuttgart (delayed to 1 October)
Valencia (until 6 September)
Vienna (until 7 September)
Warsaw
Zagreb
Zurich (until 6 September)
BA has permanently suspended flights to Beirut and Moscow Sheremetyevo.
Returning summer seasonal routes from July / August include:
Bastia (until 5 September)
Bodrum
Brindisi
Corfu
Crete
Dalaman
Faro
Figari Sud-Corse Corsica
Ibiza
Kalamata
Kefalonia
Malaga
Mykonos
Olbia
Palermo
Palma de Mallorca
Preveza
Pristina (until 5 September)
Pula (until 5 September)
Rhodes
Santorini
Split
Zakynthos
Summer seasonal routes to Ljubljana, Montpellier, Nantes, Perugia, and Podgorica are suspended until 2021.
BA has transferred many short-haul routes from Gatwick to Heathrow until early November 2020 including:
These still carry their original Gatwick flight numbers, which have four digits beginning with a 2. They may show on some websites as having been diverted, due to the change of London airport.
Alicante
Algiers (delayed until 1 October)
Bari
Bilbao (ends 29 August)
Bordeaux (ends 5 September)
Cagliari
Catania
Dubrovnik
Funchal
Genoa (ended 16 August)
Gran Canaria (from 26 October)
Jersey
Kos
Lanzarote (until 2 September)
Mahon, Menorca
Malta (until 7 September)
Naples
Paphos
Porto
Salzburg (delayed until 3 October)
Seville (ended 29 August)
Tenerife
Thessaloniki
Turin
Verona
Flights on overlapping routes such as Dalaman, Faro, Ibiza, Palma and Rhodes have also transferred to Heathrow.
London Heathrow – Long-Haul
A number of long-haul routes are suspended with frequencies cut on others until late March 2021.
Some long-haul flights may be reinstated at short notice depending on reciprocal agreements between governments on reopening routes. These may have specific booking and check-in procedures. Some may also operate on a one-way basis only.
Long-haul routes operating with reduced frequencies are:
North America
Boston
Chicago O’Hare
Dallas / Fort Worth
Los Angeles
Miami
New York JFK
San Francisco
Seattle
Toronto
Washington Dulles
Central & South America
Sao Paulo
India
Bengaluru (one way only to London Heathrow)
Chennai (one way only to London Heathrow from 3 September)
Delhi
Hyderabad (one way only to London Heathrow)
Mumbai
Note that flights between London Heathrow and Delhi and Mumbai close for sale 72 hours before departure. All passengers travelling between the UK and India must complete a number of forms prior to travel and ensure they comply fully with all entry requirements. There are also restrictions on transit passengers. Links to the relevant forms are on ba.com
Asia
Hong Kong
Islamabad
Shanghai
Singapore
Tokyo Haneda (delayed until 1 October)
Middle East
Bahrain (from 18 September)
Dubai
Kuwait (from 2 September)
Riyadh (from 17 September)
Tel Aviv
Africa
Abuja (from 16 September)
Accra (from 4 September)
Cairo (from 2 September)
Johannesburg (one way only flights to London Heathrow on 6 & 11 September – these close for sale 7 days before departure)
Lagos (from 1 September)
Nairobi
London Heathrow – Sydney via Singapore is suspended until 15 December 2020.
BA has suspended summer seasonal routes to Calgary and Charleston until 2021. The planned launch of Portland, Oregon has been cancelled.
A number of long-haul routes are expected to be suspended for the winter season. These include Abu Dhabi, Dammam, Durban, Jeddah, Osaka and Pittsburgh.
BA’s sister airline Iberia has resumed many long-haul routes to Latin America.
Due to the time it will take for travel restrictions to be lifted, the restoration of long-haul routes is likely to be driven by cargo demand.
BA is currently operating cargo-only flights to Atlanta, Bangkok, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Houston, Johannesburg, Mexico City and Philadelphia.
One-off cargo flights have also operated to destinations not on the BA route network such as Edmonton and Manila.
Long-haul flights are currently operated with Airbus A350-1000, Boeing 777 and Boeing 787 family aircraft.
BA’s fleet of 12 Airbus A380 aircraft is grounded and 4 aircraft are expected to be placed into storage for up to 3 years. BA has retired its entire Boeing 747 fleet, some four years earlier than planned. Up to six Boeing 777 aircraft will be placed into storage for up to 3 years.
London Gatwick – Long Haul
BA is currently operating limited flights from London Gatwick to Antigua, Bermuda, Barbados, Kingston and St Lucia.
BA currently plans to resume the following long-haul destinations at Gatwick:
Cancun – Thursday 1 October
Montego Bay – New winter seasonal route from Tuesday 13 October
Punta Cana – Tuesday 13 October
Providenciales – Thursday 15 October
As the South Terminal is currently closed to passenger flights, these will operate from the North Terminal.
Las Vegas, Lima, New York JFK and Toronto are suspended until summer 2021. Winter seasonal flights to Cape Town will not operate this year.
London Gatwick – Short-Haul
Short-haul flights will not resume at London Gatwick until 9 November 2020 at the earliest.
Flights from Gatwick to Antalya will not resume until April 2021. Almeria and Milan Bergamo have been permanently suspended.
London City
BA CityFlyer has resumed, with limited frequencies, flights to Dublin, Edinburgh, Florence, Glasgow, Ibiza, Mahon, Nice, and Palma de Mallorca (until 1 September).
Summer seasonal routes to Bergerac have ended for the year.
BA will launch a new route to Belfast City airport on Monday 7 September.
Year-round routes will resume as follows:
Amsterdam (5 October)
Berlin Tegel (7 September)
Dusseldorf (21 September)
Frankfurt (10 September)
Geneva (28 November)
Milan Linate (2 November)
Munich (2 November)
Prague (5 October)
Rome Fiumicino (5 October)
Rotterdam (5 October)
Zurich (5 October)
BA’s franchise partner SUN-AIR will reinstate London City – Billund from 21 September at the earliest.
Summer seasonal routes to Mykonos, Santorini, Skiathos and Split are not operating this year. The planned launch of San Sebastian has been postponed. Venice has been suspended until summer 2021.
London City – New York JFK is suspended permanently.
BA’s booking engine and timetables are showing that the Bermuda service resumes on Friday 17 July, then flying Mondays and Fridays till the end of the month.
Thanks. The article has been corrected.
You’re very welcome. Much appreciate the time and effort you put into this informative blog.
My wife and I are booked Gatwick to Malaga on 16th September 2020…is this still likely to.be operating?
BA has not confirmed when short-haul flights at London Gatwick will restart. However, BA will be flying to Malaga from London City to Heathrow in September so you would have the option of moving to an alternative flight from these airports if your flight from Gatwick is cancelled.
i have booked flight delhi to canada for 22 august will this flight fly??
British Airways has confirmed it will start return flights between London Heathrow and Delhi from Sunday 16 August. There are a number of restrictions and special procedures associated with these routes.
https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/incident/coronavirus/entry-requirements
I need to travel from Chandigarh, India to Copenhagen, Denmark. There is a flight connection showing on August 1, 2020 (IXC-BOM-LHR-CPH) that I have purchased. But, how will I know whether the flight is still on? Please advise…
I’m booked to fly 2 pax with British Airways from LGW to Orlando on BA 2037 on 8th September returning on BA2036 on 29th September 2020.
Does anyone have any information if these flights are likely to go ahead? I’m hoping not!
In all likelihood they won’t. Orlando is not on the list of 15 approved US airports through which eligible passengers can enter the US. I suspect BA will process further cancellations for September in the next couple of weeks.
Many thanks for your opinion which is much appreciated 🙂
Hello,
For the London city airport you mentioned a few seasonal lines but not the one to Quimper (France). Do you have more information on this line ?
thanks!
Hi, This route does not appear to be operating this summer. It is currently due to return on 13 May 2021.
Any insights regarding flights from London to South Africa – I realise that this is probably a government issue, in the sense that SA’s borders are still closed, but I wonder if there’s been an industry chatter about this. Thanks, Helen
Hi, BA’s timetables indicate that it will resume passenger flights to Johannesburg on 1 September and Cape Town on 2 September. Durban is not scheduled to resume until October 2020. However, these dates may be pushed back again. BA is running daily cargo only flights to Johannesburg and it is more likely that Johannesburg will resume first as BA is prioritising long-haul routes that have stronger cargo demand.
Many thanks … fingers and toes crossed as the repatriation flights have been a nightmare to track and trace and we’re still stuck in London.
Hello again, I’m afraid BA has pushed back the restart of both Cape Town and Johannesburg again until October at the earliest.
Why not spend the time in Madeira. Madeira is virus free.
Thanks for the updated information – very appreciative
Hi, This is at short notice, but South African Airways are running a flight to Johannesburg from Heathrow on 4 September on behalf of Guardian Assist:
https://twitter.com/flysaa/status/1300113205570801667
It looks like BA flights from LGW to Orlando and Orlando to LGW have been cancelled for September. When I put in my booking reference it says I don’t have any bookings?
Also direct bookings LGW-MCO-LGW are no longer bookable on the BA website for September.
Will flights Naples (NAP) to LGW resume in December please. Gatwick is more convenient for me. Thankyou
Patty Lister
The official line from BA at the moment is that short-haul routes will return to Gatwick from 9 November, but this could be subject to change.