BA CityFlyer Embraer at London City AirportAnother week, another London City route suspension!
After announcing the cancellation of Alicante & Madrid and Angers & Hamburg, BA is to also suspend its London City – Geneva route for the summer season from mid June to mid September 2017.
The last flights operate on Friday 16 June 2017 and resume on Monday 11 September 2017.
The affected flight numbers are BA2280, BA2281, BA2284, BA2285, BA 2286 and BA2287.
Affected passengers will have the option of a refund or being accommodated on a BA flight to Geneva from London Heathrow, which operates up to eight times daily. Passengers should contact either BA or their travel agent.
Swiss will continue to fly London City – Geneva year round up to three times daily.
Note: An earlier version of this article stated that the route suspension was for the entire summer season (late March to late October). This was incorrect as we had erroneously inferred that a summer suspension was for the whole of the summer timetable.
British Airways is to suspend its routes from London City to Angers and Hamburg from late March 2017.
Flights to Angers (Arville Airport) had intended to operate three times weekly on a summer seasonal basis from Monday 27 March 2017 to Friday 27 October 2017. All of these flights have now been suspended. Affected passengers have the option of being rerouted BA’s twice weekly summer seasonal service to Nantes from London Heathrow or a full refund.
The affected flight numbers are BA8743 and and BA8744.
Flights to Hamburg currently operate up to three times daily and will be permanently suspended from Sunday 26 March 2017. Affected passengers have the option of being rerouted on BA’s daily services from London Heathrow or a full refund.
The affected flight numbers are BA3291, BA3292, BA3293, BA3294, BA3295 and BA3296.
Affected passengers should contact either BA or their travel agent.
British Airways is to launch a new summer seasonal route from London City airport to the Greek island of Skiathos.
Flights will operate from Monday 26 June 2017 to Wednesday 6 September 2017, three times a week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to Skiathos Island National Airport.. It will resume in 2018 from Monday 25 June 2018 to Wednesday 5 September 2018.
Flights will be operated using Embraer E190 aircraft in a two class, Club Europe business class and EuroTraveller economy configuration.
Separately BA has announced that London City – Mykonos will operate five times weekly in the summer (every day, except Tuesdays and Saturdays).
This route announcement does increase BA’s summer seasonal which also includes Chania, Corfu, Kalamata, Kos, Mykonos, Santorini and Zakynthos from London Heathrow.
Last year British Airways launched a series of summer seasonal weekend routes from London Stansted to Faro, Ibiza, Malaga and Palma. That was considered a success. This summer BA will continue to fly to Faro, Ibiza, Malaga and Palma as well as launching new routes to Florence, Geneva and Nice between early May and late October.
BA will fly to Florence twice a week from Saturday 20 May 2017 to Saturday 28 October 2017. It will fly to Geneva once a week from Friday 19 May to Saturday 28 October 2017. It will fly to Nice once a week from Saturday 20 May 2017 to Saturday 8 October 2017.
Flights will be operated with Embraer aircraft with a two class, Club Europe business class and EuroTraveller economy, service.
As BA also flies to these destinations from some, or all of, London Heathrow, Gatwick and City airports. As such, it should be possible to “mix and match” flights between different London airports if that is more convenient.
British Airways is to launch a new route from London City to Manchester.
Interested? Well don’t get too excited. There’s just one return flight a week and it only operates from Sunday 21 May to Sunday 1 October 2017!
However, there is method behind the madness. Allow us to explain:
London City is closed from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. As this would leave BA’s fleet of Embraer aircraft otherwise sitting on the ground, last year it ran a successful experiment of summer weekend leisure flights from Stansted. BA is now looking to extend this to other UK airports and Manchester is the latest airport to gain weekend leisure routes.
BA will offer weekend leisure flights from Manchester to Alicante, Ibiza, Malaga, Mykonos, Nice and Palma from late May to October 2017.
As BA needs to move aircraft from London City to Manchester to operate the flights, it has also opened this flight for sale to passengers.
Flights from Manchester are on sale now at ba.com. The only exception are flights between Manchester and London City which go on sale on 21 February 2017.
Please note that the timetables below are indicative only. There may be changes to the schedule depending on the strength of forward bookings.
Whilst food & drink should initially be complementary in EuroTraveller, at some point in the summer BA is expected to extend its Marks & Spencer Buy-On-Board to all London City flights and London Stansted and Manchester weekend leisure flights.
With the exception of Alicante, all of these routes are also served by BA from Heathrow and it should be possible to “mix and match” direct flights with indirect flights via London Heathrow (or via Iberia in Madrid in some cases). If booking connections take care not to book connections from different London airports as any travel between London airports will be at your own expense and not recommended. Continue reading “BAs launches London City – Manchester (sort of..)”
British Airways Lounge, South Terminal, London Gatwick (Image Credit: British Airways)
There has been a lot of interest in the planned new British Airways lounges at London Gatwick’s South Terminal which, from today, is BA’s new home at Gatwick.
The lounges were planned to open today, Wednesday 25 January 2017. However, this has been delayed.
It is understood that construction work is complete and the official line from BA is that it is hoped that the lounges will open “soon”.
In the interim, passengers travelling in First Class on any flight and Gold Executive Club cardholders can use the third party operated No 1 Clubrooms.
In addition, all passengers travelling to Jersey, New York JFK and Bermuda who are eligible for lounge access can use this lounge. However, this will be subject to capacity constraints.
All other passengers who are eligible to access lounges (e.g. Club Europe, Club World and Silver Executive Club cardholders) can use a temporary “Speedbird” lounge operated by BA.
If you are flying BA from Gatwick you should be handed a letter at check-in explaining these options.
It is obviously disappointing that the new lounges are not open today. However, the problems associated with its opening do not seem insurmountable.
Update 7 February 2017
It is understood that the new lounges have undergone a “soft” opening ahead of a formal launch. However, not all facilities may be available at all times.
The new Club lounge is open from 05:15 until the last flight has departed. Passengers travelling in Club World on any long-haul flight and Club Europe to Jersey, and all British Airways Executive Club Silver cardholders travelling on long-haul flights or to Jersey are eligible to use the lounge.
The new First lounge is open from 07:00 until 20:00 and all passengers travelling in First Class and all British Airways Executive Club Gold cardholders are eligible to use the lounge. If there capacity constraints passengers will be invited to use the No 1 Club rooms.
All other passengers, e.g. those travelling in Club Europe to other than Jersey and on Business U.K. tickets and British Airways Executive Club Silver cardholders travelling on short-haul flights other than Jersey will be invited to use the temporary Speedbird lounge.
Update 20 February 2017
It is understood that the new lounges are now fully operational and all other temporary lounge arrangements have been withdrawn.
British Airways Lounge, South Terminal, London Gatwick (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways Lounge, South Terminal, London Gatwick (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways Lounge, South Terminal, London Gatwick (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways Lounge, South Terminal, London Gatwick (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways Lounge, South Terminal, London Gatwick (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways Lounge, South Terminal, London Gatwick (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways Lounge, South Terminal, London Gatwick (Image Credit: British Airways)
New amenities for British Airways flights between London Heathrow, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong
British Airways is to add additional in-flight amenities and services to passengers travelling between London Heathrow, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Passengers travelling in World Traveller Plus and Club World will be offered slippers. Passengers travelling in all cabins will be offered Twinings green tea, the option of chopsticks for eating meals and bilingual menus.
In the grand scheme of things, these are fairly small changes. It’s also not unusual for BA to offer additional in flight amenities on certain routes for cultural reasons. Slippers have long been offered on flights to Tokyo and bilingual menus are common on many routes.
However, it does point to an effort to do better in China where BA has had mixed success. BA’s route from London Heathrow to Chengdu was suspended this month and BA faces very strong competition from Cathay Pacific on the London – Hong Kong route.
British Airways Logo (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways has suspended sales of flights on its London Heathrow – Abuja route from Wednesday 8 March to Tuesday 18 April 2017.
The reason for this is that Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport is to close for essential repairs to its runway which is reported to have pot holes.
The airline has yet to announce how passengers already booked to fly to Abuja during the closure will be accommodated. One option is to allow passengers to change the dates of flights to outside the closure period, or to allow passengers to fly to another destination in Africa (but any onward transport would be at the passenger’s own expense).
According to press reports, the Nigerian Government has instructed airlines to operate flights to an alternative airport in Kaduna (some 200km north of Abuja) with onward road transport provided to Abuja. However, airlines will need to be satisfied that security arrangements for their passengers and crews are sufficiently robust.
There’s more detail on the background to the closure of the runway in this article from the Financial Times (subscription required).
The affected BA flight numbers are BA083 and BA082.
Update: BA has subsequently decided to cancel all flights between London Heathrow and Abuja during the period of the runway closure.
Affected passengers have the option of a refund, rebooking on an alternative flight between London Heathrow and Abuja outside the runway closure (up to Friday 19 May 2017), or rebooking on an alternative flight to/from Accra or Nigeria within 7 days of the date of your original booking. However, if you choose the later option any additional costs such as ground transport or hotels will be at your own expense and will not be reimbursed by the airline.
Affected passengers should contact either BA or their travel agent.
British Airways is to suspend its twice daily London City – Madrid route permanently from Sunday 29 January 2017. The airline is to also not proceed with its planned seasonal London City – Alicante service this summer. This was planned to operate from Monday 26 June to Monday 4 September 2017.
No specific reasons have been given for the cancellation. However, it’s a reasonable assumption that poor commercial performance is the cause. BA has yet to announce which routes will operate in their replacement.
Affected passengers have the option of a refund or being accommodated on alternative BA flights to Madrid from London Heathrow (served by some 13 return flights a day) or Alicante from London Gatwick respectively (which operates up to twice daily at various times).
If you have not already been contacted you should contact either BA or your traval agent.
British Airways partnership with Marks & Spencer “M&S On Board” (Image Credit: British Airways)
This Wednesday, 11 January 2017, marks a significant change to BA’s UK Domestic & EuroTraveller European short-haul flights to and from London Gatwick to London Heathrow.
The current offer of complimentary food and drink will be replaced by Buy-On-Board food and drink from Marks & Spencer. You can view the food menu and the drinks menu on the BA website.
Key points to note are:
Payment will only be accepted by credit card or Avios from your British Airways Executive Club account
Cash will not be accepted
To pay with Avios you will need to have the latest version of the BA app on your smartphone (it will show a barcode on the “My Account” screen of the app)
