The latest news and developments on BA long haul routes at London Gatwick airport.
British Airways has launched a summer seasonal new route from Gatwick to Vancouver.
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British Airways has launched a new route from London Gatwick to Vancouver.
BA will fly from Gatwick to Vancouver from Friday 19 May 2023. Flights will operate daily, except on Tuesdays.
This will complement BA’s existing year round service between Heathrow and Vancouver. This normally operates with an Airbus A380 during the peak season, but this has not been scheduled yet for 2023.
Continue reading “British Airways Launches Gatwick – Vancouver”British Airways will fly to Aruba and Georgetown, Guyana in the summer of 2023.
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British Airways will fly from London Gatwick to Aruba and Georgetown, Guyana in summer 2023.
BA will fly to Queen Beatrix International Airport on the island of Aruba twice weekly on Thursday & Sunday from 26 March 2023. This operates as a “tag on” to existing flights from Gatwick to Antigua.
A constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Aruba is located 18 miles north of the Paraguaná Peninsula of Venezuela.
The airline will also fly to Georgetown, Guyana twice weekly on Monday & Thursday from 27 March 2023. The service to Cheddi Jagan International Airport also operates as a “tag on” on BA’s service from Gatwick to Saint Lucia.
Continue reading “British Airways Launches Gatwick – Aruba & Georgetown”BA’s network of long haul routes at London Gatwick airport for summer 2022.
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The summer 2022 travel season will mark a return to near normal for BA at London Gatwick.
As well as restarting short haul flights, the airline will operate a substantial long haul schedule, albeit still smaller than before COVID-19.
Here are the main schedule changes for the summer season, which officially runs from Sunday 27 March to Saturday 29 October 2022.
Readers can keep up to date with network changes throughout the season on our dedicated page for London Gatwick airport.
All long haul flights at Gatwick are operated with Boeing 777-200ER aircraft, with three classes of travel offered. BA still has no plans to fit its Club Suite on Gatwick based aircraft.
Continue reading “British Airways Summer 2022 Long Haul Schedule At Gatwick”British Airways is to launch a new winter seasonal route from London Gatwick to Montego Bay, Jamaica.
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British Airways is to launch a new winter seasonal route from London Gatwick to Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Flights will operate twice weekly on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 13 October 2020 until Easter 2021.
The route will be operated with a three class Boeing 777-200 aircraft.
It may seem unusual for the airline to launch a new route at a time of significantly reduced demand. However, it’s worth recalling that after the 2008 financial crisis, BA pivoted towards long-haul leisure routes and added a number of destinations at Gatwick such as Male and Cancun. There may also be an element of subsidy for this route.
Virgin Atlantic previously flew to Montego Bay from Gatwick and is due to restart the route from London Heathrow on Friday 2 October 2020. This move by BA will obviously put competitive pressure on Virgin Atlantic.
Continue reading “British Airways Launches London Gatwick – Montego Bay”British Airways has suspended its route from London Gatwick to Fort Lauderdale from Saturday 7 September 2019.
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British Airways is to suspend its route from London Gatwick to Fort Lauderdale.
The last flights between Gatwick and Fort Lauderdale are scheduled to operate on Saturday 7 September 2019.
The route currently operates three times weekly. It launched in 2017 and, like BA’s now suspended route to Oakland, followed the launch of this route by Norwegian at Gatwick.
Norwegian has in the past month switched its Gatwick – Fort Lauderdale route to Miami International. This means London will have no direct link to Fort Lauderdale. This is a shame as Fort Lauderdale is a worthwhile destination in its own right and an alternative to what is a very unpredictable arrivals experience at Miami International.
Passengers whose flights have been cancelled are entitled to a full refund. Alternatively, passengers can be re-accommodated on American Airlines and BA services from Heathrow to Miami International. However, any additional costs such as ground transportation will be at your own expense.
American and BA will operate five joint daily flights between Heathrow and Miami from Sunday 27 October 2019.
Affected passengers should check the status of their booking at ba.com and contact either BA or their travel agent.
Update: BA has published guidance which adds that affected passengers can also choose to fly from Gatwick to Orlando or Tampa in Florida. Again, any consequential costs will be at passengers’ expense.
British Airways has suspended its route from London Gatwick to Oakland from Monday 22 October 2018.
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British Airways has confirmed it has suspended its route from London Gatwick to Oakland, California from Monday 22 October 2018.
The last flight will operate on Saturday 20 October 2018. The route launched in March 2017. Like the launch of Fort Lauderdale and New York JFK, it was a clear competitive response to the growth of Norwegian at London Gatwick. Norwegian will continue to fly to Oakland at Gatwick.
BA has not yet published any official guidance in response to the cancellation. However, if your flight is cancelled you are entitled to a full refund. Passengers are also likely to be offered the opportunity to change their flight to one of BA’s twice daily services from London Heathrow to San Francisco. Note that in this instance any consequential costs such as additional ground transportation would be at your own expense.
BA appears to be using the spare capacity arising from the suspension to make its summer seasonal route to Las Vegas year round.
Affected passengers should contact either BA or their travel agent.
Update: BA has since stated that the route will resume in Summer 2019 and the route is currently showing as scheduled to resume on Monday 1 April 2019.
Update (2): This route will now not resume in 2019.
Update (3): The last flight on this route will now operate on Saturday 13 October 2018.
In 2018, BA will increase the number of economy seats on some Boeing 777 aircraft at London Gatwick from 9 to 10 seats a row. Here are details of the routes on which the reconfigured Boeing 777s will operate in 2018.
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British Airways is now more than a third of its way through the refurbishment of its fleet of Boeing 777-200 aircraft at London Gatwick.
In short, this means that the number of seats in the World Traveller economy cabin would increase from 9 to 10 a row.
At the same time, BA will also increase the number of World Traveller Plus premium economy seats and decrease the number of Club World business class seats.
At the moment only three class Boeing 777-200 are being refurbishment. As at November 2018, six Boeing 777-200 aircraft, registrations G-VIIO, G-VIIP, G-VIIR, G-VIIT, G-VIIU and G-VIIX, have been refurbished. Each refurbishment takes four to six weeks.
Please see here for images of the refurbished aircraft which was unveiled on Monday 5 March 2018.
Initially, up to 25 Boeing 777s will be subject to “densification”. However, you can be confident that the financial performance of refurbished aircraft and customer feedback scores will be monitored very closely.
BA has updated seat maps on its website.
If you are flying on a 9 abreast 3 class Boeing 777 you should see the following cabin configurations on the seat map for your reservation in the Manage My Booking tool:
Club World – Rows 1 – 11 (40 seats)
World Traveller Plus – Rows 12 – 14 (24 seats)
World Traveller – Rows 16 – 40 (3-3-3 configuration)
If you are flying on a 10 abreast 3 class Boeing 777 you should see the following cabin configurations on the seat map for your reservation in the Manage My Booking tool:
Club World – Rows 1 – 4 (32 seats)
World Traveller Plus – Rows 10 – 16 (52 seats)
World Traveller – Rows 20 – 46 (3-4-3 configuration)
Continue reading “BA’s 10 abreast economy Boeing 777 at Gatwick in 2018”
BA is to fly from London Gatwick to Las Vegas and Toronto from summer 2018.
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British Airways has today announced it is to launch a new summer seasonal route from London Gatwick to Toronto and reinstate its London Gatwick – Las Vegas route next summer.
BA will fly to Las Vegas three times a week from Tuesday 27 March 2018 on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday until Friday 26 October 2018. BA will fly to Toronto three times a week from Tuesday 1 May 2018, also on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday until Friday 26 October 2018.
Both Las Vegas and Toronto are served by BA at London Heathrow up to twice daily. BA has previously flown from Gatwick to Las Vegas. However, the service was suspended last year.
Toronto is BA’s first route from London Gatwick to Canada. It is something of a surprise to see BA launch the Toronto from Gatwick, as it is not one of the stronger Heathrow routes due to a lack of presence by the Oneworld alliance in Canada.
However, there can be absolutely no doubt this is a move to take on the growth of low lost long-haul at Gatwick. Las Vegas is served by Norwegian. Toronto is also served by both WestJet and Air Canada Rouge.
Continue reading “British Airways Launches Gatwick – Las Vegas & Toronto”
BA has suspended its direct route to Lima from Sunday 29 October 2017. It resumes on Sunday 25 March 2018.
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British Airways is to suspend its London Gatwick – Lima route for the winter season from Sunday 29 October 2017. The route is expected to resume from late March 2018.
BA launched its route from London Gatwick to Lima in May 2016. No specific reason has been given for the seasonal cancellation. However, it is assumed the cause of cancellation is unsatisfactory commercial performance. The affected BA flight numbers are BA2239 and BA2238.
If your flight is cancelled you will be reaccommodated on Iberia’s daily service to Lima via Madrid from either London Gatwick or London Heathrow. However, do note that Iberia does not always operate its premium economy cabin between Madrid and Lima. Therefore, if you have booked to fly in World Traveller Plus on BA you may be downgraded to economy on Iberia. Iberia’s daily flight from Madrid to Lima (Flight IB6651 departs Madrid at 12:50pm and arrives in Lima at 17:35. Therefore, connections at Madrid should not be onerous.
Alternatively, you can be accommodated on American Airlines’ services to Lima via either Dallas Fort Worth or Miami.
Further options with partner airlines may become available in the coming weeks.
If you prefer you should be able to move your flight to a date when BA is operating the route. Alternatively, you are entitled to a refund.
Affected passengers should contact either BA or their travel agent.
Update: The route is scheduled to resume on Sunday 25 March 2018, operating three times weekly on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
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British Airways has announced its third new transatlantic route in as many weeks with the launch of a four times weekly service from London Gatwick to Oakland California (Oakland International Airport) from 28 March 2017.
This follows the launch of Fort Lauderdale from London Gatwick and New Orleans from London Heathrow.
Flights will operate four times weekly (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) in the summer season and three times weekly in the winter season.
Flights will be operated with a three class Boeing 777 aircraft featuring Club World business class, World Traveller Plus premium economy, and World Traveller economy.
Oakland is BA’s fifth destination in California after San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose.
Like Fort Lauderdale, this route is also served by Norwegian from London Gatwick and there can be no doubt this is a competitive response to Norwegian’s growing network of long-haul routes to the USA at London Gatwick.
BA’s parent company, International Airlines Group, clearly sees Norwegian as a major competitor that requires a strategic competitive response. Further announcements may be made by both BA and other IAG group airlines such as Iberia and Aer Lingus in the coming weeks.
Flights are on sale now at ba.com
Flight BA2279 Depart London Gatwick 10:20 – Arrive Oakland International Airport 13:15 (Monday, Thursday, Saturday)
Flight BA2279 Depart London Gatwick 11:25 – Arrive Oakland International Airport 14:20 (Tuesday)
Flight BA2278 Depart Oakland International Airport 15:05 – Arrive London Gatwick 09:25 (Monday, Thursday, Saturday)
Flight BA2278 Depart Oakland International Airport 16:10 – Arrive London Gatwick 10:30 (Tuesday)