British Airways is the largest airline to operate at London City airport where it operates short-haul leisure and business flights. Here is the latest news in connection with BA at London City.
Salzburg Landscape (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways has launched a new winter seasonal route from London City and Southampton airports to Salzburg.
Flights from London City launch on Friday 10 December 2021. They will initially operate twice weekly, before reducing to Saturdays only from 19 March 2022. The route is due to end Saturday 16 April 2022.
A weekly service from Southampton also launches on Saturday 11 December 2021 and will end at the same time as the London City route.
This will complement BA’s existing winter seasonal service to Salzburg from London Heathrow which is also due to resume on Friday 10 December 2021. Passengers can combine departure and arrival airports, if appropriate.
BA CityFlyer Embraer Aircraft (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways has launched two new summer seasonal routes from London City airport.
BA will fly from London City to Gibraltar and Jersey twice weekly on Mondays & Fridays from 25 June 2021. Fights are due to operate until late September.
Whilst frequencies are relatively limited they can be mixed with BA flights to other London airports. Jersey is ordinarily served by BA from Gatwick but is currently operated from Heathrow, along with Gibraltar.
As these are new seasonal routes the operating dates and frequencies may be changed at short notice depending on commercial demand.
At present, BA is operating an extremely limited scheduled from London City to Belfast, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt. The resumption of other year-round and seasonal routes is subject to commercial demand and travel restrictions.
BA Embraer E170 London City Airport (Image Credit: British Airways)
As the UK government continues to play whack-a-mole with quarantine restrictions on inbound travellers, hopes of an orderly return to short-haul travel in Europe have been dashed.
BA’s subsidiary BA CityFlyer is currently operating a limited schedule from London City Airport.
This includes routes to Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The airline is also operating summer seasonal routes to Bergerac, Florence, Ibiza, Mahon, Nice, and Palma de Mallorca.
Seasonal routes to Mykonos, Quimper, San Sebastian, Santorini, Skiathos and Split are not operating this year.
BA CityFlyer had planned to reinstate many year-round routes from late August and early September. These have now been pushed back. The earliest dates for these routes are:
The route was suspended in March 2020 and was due to return from late October 2020. It has now been withdrawn from BA’s timetables entirely.
Passengers whose flights have been cancelled are entitled to a full refund. Alternatively, passengers can be rebooked on alternative American Airlines and BA services to New York from London Heathrow.
BA has suspended flights from London Gatwick to New York JFK and these are provisionally due to return from late October 2020.
In light of market conditions and IAG’s decision to take into account environmental considerations when planning new routes it is unlikely that BA will launch a similar service again.
New York JFK was the only long-haul route from London City airport. Start-ups such as Odyssey Airlines have expressed a desire to launch all business class routes from London City. These are unlikely to succeed without guaranteed support from corporate customers and business travellers who can be lured away from frequent flyer programmes of rival airlines.
What happens to BA’s fleet of two Airbus A318 aircraft isn’t clear. One is leased to Titan Airways. Both aircraft have been provided as security for a $750 million loan which means BA can’t sell or scrap them until the loan is repaid in May 2021.
BA CityFlyer Embraer Aircraft at London City airport (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways has resumed scheduled passenger flights at London City airport.
BA’s subsidiary BA CityFlyer restarted flights early today, Friday 10 July, after a hiatus of more than three months.
Flights BA8483 and BA8463 departed London City for Palma de Mallorca and Ibiza shortly before 07:30, to be followed this morning by flights to Malaga and Florence.
This is the start of the progressive resumption of most of BA’s route network at London City throughout the summer.
BA’s Flight Plan At London City
BA will resume flights from London City to Dublin, Glasgow and Edinburgh from Monday 20 July.
This will be followed by Nice on Saturday 1 August, Bergerac on Sunday 2 August and Mahon on Monday 3 August.
BA will also launch a new route to Belfast City airport on Tuesday 1 September.
BA does not currently plan to resume flights to Amsterdam, Berlin Tegel, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Milan Linate, Munich, Prague, Rome Fiumicino, Rotterdam, Venice and Zurich until late August / early September.
Summer seasonal routes to Mykonos, Santorini, Skiathos and Split do not appear to be operating this year. The planned launch of San Sebastian has been postponed.
BA has suspended London City – New York JFK until Sunday 25 October 2020 at the earliest.
As far as other airlines at London City concerned, Eastern Airways is flying to Teesside. Loganair is operating flights to Dundee and the Isle Of Man (as a wet lease for BA).
KLM plans to resume Amsterdam on Monday 13 July. Lufthansa will resume Frankfurt on Monday 7 September.
British Airways Embraer E170, Airbus A318 aircraft, London City airport (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways is to temporarily suspended operations at London City airport.
BA has previously suspended its all business class service to New York JFK until September 2020.
The airline has also suspended all short-haul flights operated by its subsidiary BA CityFlyer from Monday 23 March until mid July 2020 at the earliest.
Passengers whose flights have been cancelled will be re-accommodated on alternative services from London Heathrow.
Passengers should receive an e-mail to advise that they have been automatically rebooked.
In theory, passengers are also entitled to a refund as their original flight has been cancelled. However, if you try to do this on ba.com you will be offered a voucher for redemption against a future booking.
Passengers can check the status of their booking using the Manage My Booking tool on ba.com. If you need to contact BA, telephone numbers are on this page of ba.com
All airlines are asking passengers not to contact them unless they are due to travel within the next 72 hours.
A very large number of BA short-haul flights have been cancelled outside of the dates above, and this is likely to continue until August at the earliest.
Given how fast moving events are with Coronavirus, further cancellations, and indeed airport closures, are possible.
La Concha Bay, Monte Igueldo, San Sebastián (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways has launched a new summer seasonal route from London City Airport to San Sebastián in the Basque Country region of Spain.
BA will fly from London City to San Sebastián twice weekly on Monday & Friday from Friday 10 July 2020 to Friday 4 September 2020.
Flights will be operated with Embraer E190 aircraft in a two class Club Europe business class and Euro Traveller economy configuration.
This will be the only direct service to San Sebastián from London. BA already serves San Sebastián indirectly through an onward codeshare from Madrid on Air Nostrum. It is of course possible to mix and match London airports, albeit with an element of backtracking. Bilbao airport (served by BA from Gatwick) is also around 100km from San Sebastián.
Flight BA7335 Depart London City 09:15 – Arrive San Sebastián 12:10 (Monday) Flight BA7335 Depart London City 09:10 – Arrive San Sebastián 12:10 (Friday)
Flight BA7334 Depart San Sebastián 13:30 – Arrive London City 14:25 (Monday, Friday)
BA CityFlyer Embraer Aircraft at London City airport (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways has suspended its route from London City to Paris orly from Friday 31 May 2019.
The route currently operates up to three times daily. It transferred from London Heathrow to City two years ago. This will mean there is now no direct route from any London airport to Paris Orly, nor any direct route from London City to Paris.
Passengers whose flights have been cancelled are entitled to a full refund.
Alternatively, passengers can be accommodated on alternative BA services between London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle. However, any consequential costs such as ground transportation will be at your own expense.
Affected passengers should contact BA or their travel agent.
British Airways is to launch a new summer seasonal route from London City to Split, Croatia.
The airline will fly to Split three times weekly from Friday 21 June 2019 to Friday 6 September 2019. Flights operate on Monday, Thursday and Friday.
Flights will be operated with an Embraer aircraft in a two class, Club Europe and EuroTraveller, configuration.
This will complement BA’s existing daily summer seasonal service from London Heathrow which operates from Sunday 28 April 2019 to Friday 25 October 2019.
It is of course possible to “mix and match” London departure and arrival airports if that is convenient.
EI-GHK Embraer E190 Business Class (Image Credit: Virgin Australia)
Opinions have always been divided on whether business class on intra-European flights is worth it.
However, in the case of BA from London City, the general consensus it isn’t.
There’s no lounge at London City. The seating configuration is the same as economy. And, due to the overall number of seats being capped at less than 100 for industrial relations reasons, there is relatively generous leg room in economy.
However, there is now one aircraft where business class is at least a tangible improvement. Some time ago BA announced a wet-leasing agreement with Stobart Air to provide additional capacity at London City.
The first aircraft, registration EI-GHK, entered into service this weekend. The aircraft used to be operated by Virgin Australia.
It does benefit from a separate business class cabin. It comprises two rows, each with three seats in a 1-2 configuration. Passengers also benefit from more generous leg room of 38 inches.
There is of course a certain irony in a BA flight operating with a cabin from a Virgin branded airline.
So far it has operated to Milan and Rotterdam. There’s no way of predicting exactly on which routes the aircraft will operate. And there’s a less than 5% chance of it being on your flight. However, if it is you should see the seat map below immediately before your flight: Continue reading “Experience Virgin Australia Business Class At London City”
