British Airways Galleries Club Lounge, London Heathrow Terminal 3 (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways has called on its Oneworld alliance partner Finnair to operate a number of short haul flights on its behalf throughout the summer 2022.
British Airways Airbus A319 aircraft in BEA livery, London Heathrow (Image Credit: British Airways)
The summer travel season begins today, Sunday 27 March 2022.
Whilst this summer should mark a return to near normal for the travel industry, BA has publicly acknowledged it is struggling to resource its current schedules. It remains to be seen if this will ease in the coming weeks. It is inevitable that, at Heathrow, short haul flights will bear the brunt of late cancellations.
Here are the main schedule changes for the summer season, which officially runs until Saturday 29 October 2022.
Readers can keep up to date with route changes throughout the season with our dedicated page for BA’s short haul route network and well as a dedicated route guide for Terminal 3.
Manchester Airport Terminal 3 (Image Credit: Manchester Airport)
British Airways flights at Manchester airportwill move to Terminal 3 from Sunday 27 March 2022.
Terminal 3 closed in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic with all flights at the airport initially consolidated at Terminal 1.
This should also coincide with BA finally relaunching a daily service between Gatwick and Manchester after a delay of a year.
Occasional flights between London City and Manchester will also continue to operate. Weekend seasonal flights operated by BA CityFlyer between Manchester and Europe remain suspended.
In terms of lounge facilities for eligible passengers, it is assumed BA will provide access to the Escape Lounge at Terminal 3, as the BA lounge is reported to have closed.
BA Airbus A319 aircraft at London Heathrow (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways will suspend flights from London to Bilbao from Sunday 27 March 2022.
Before COVID-19, BA flights to Bilbao operated from London Gatwick airport, having not long transferred from London Heathrow.
The route has more recently operated from Heathrow along with all other Gatwick short haul flights, but with brief periods of suspension. Indeed, no flights will operate from Saturday 8 January until Friday 4 February 2022.
São Miguel, Azores (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways is to launch two new summer seasonal routes to the Azores in 2022.
BA will fly to Ponta Delgada on São Miguel Island once weekly on Saturdays from 2 July to 3 September 2022.
The airline will also fly to Lajes Airport on Terceira Island once weekly on Sundays from 10 July to 28 August 2022.
Both routes will operate from Terminal 5 with Airbus A320 aircraft in a two class, Club Europe and Euro Traveller configuration.
The addition of the Azores region to the BA route network is welcome. Though, given the relatively short season and limited frequencies, it is clearly a tentative move.
These routes have also been announced well ahead of their planned launch. As these are new seasonal routes the operating dates & frequencies may change according to commercial demand.
Old Street Kramarska, Gdansk near the Long Market, Poland
British Airways has launched four new summer seasonal routes from London Heathrow to Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Gdansk and Wroclaw, Poland; and Riga, Latvia.
Flights to Cluj-Napoca (Avram Iancu Cluj International Airport), Gdansk (Gdansk Lech Walesa Airport) and Riga (Riga International Airport) will operate three times weekly on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from Friday 2 July to Sunday 26 September 2021.
Flights to Wroclaw will operate twice weekly on Thursday and Sunday from Thursday 1 July to Sunday 26 September 2021.
It is not unusual to see BA launch new summer seasonal routes at Heathrow, but this choice of routes suggests a greater focus on Visiting Friends & Relatives traffic, rather than leisure.
Further route launches are likely when there is clarity on the lifting of travel restrictions from England in May.
At present, all flights are planned to operate from London Heathrow Terminal 3, but this is subject to the terminal reopening and BA restarting operations there.
As these are new summer seasonal routes, the operating dates and frequencies may change depending on their commercial performance.
It goes without saying that the operation of these routes is subject to travel restrictions and passengers must comply will all pre-departure and arrival requirements.
British Airways Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner (Image Credit: Heathrow)
Over the past few months BA has operated selected short-haul flights in Europe with wide body long-haul aircraft.
This originated when BA was operating a skeleton schedule in Europe, with wide body aircraft used for its cargo capacity.
The following short-haul services from London Heathrow are no longer operated with Boeing 787 aircraft from this week. They revert to Airbus A320 series short-haul aircraft:
Amsterdam on Wednesday & Thursday under flight numbers BA430 & BA431 ended on 29 October.
Athens on Friday under flight numbers BA632 & BA633 ended on 30 October.
Larnaca on Thursday under flight numbers BA662 & BA663 ended on 29 October.
Zurich on Saturday under flight numbers BA712 & BA713 will end today, 31 October.
BA will, from Sunday 1 November, operate a wide body Boeing aircraft between London Heathrow and Madrid every day under flight numbers BA458 and BA459.
The airline is clearly in the process of reviewing its route network, with nothing off the table, and further changes are likely in the coming weeks.
BA launched fights to Moscow Sheremetyevo in October 2018, to complement existing flights to Moscow Domodedovo airport.
Passengers whose flights have been cancelled can rebook on to alternative service to Moscow Domodedovo. Any consequential costs such as ground transportation will be at passengers’ expense. BA is currently due to resume flights to Moscow Domodedovo from Wednesday 1 July 2020. This is of course subject to change.
Passengers are also entitled to a full refund. Affected passengers can check the status of their booking using the Manage My Booking tool and should contact BA or their travel agent.
