Qantas Airbus A380 at London Heathrow Terminal 3 (Image Credit: Heathrow)
Qantas will restart Airbus A380 flights between London Heathrow and Sydney, via Singapore, from Sunday 19 June 2022.
Since Qantas restarted international flights between London and Australia last year, all flights to Sydney and Melbourne have operated non-stop between the UK and Australia via Darwin.
Qantas will also restart non-stop flights between London Heathrow and Perth from this date. This flight will continue to Melbourne.
As ever, this is subject to change. Readers can keep to date with the latest international network changes from Qantas.
London Heathrow Airport (Image Credit: London Heathrow)
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 11 April 2022.
Travel To London’s Airports This Easter
“Why is air travel such a nightmare right now?” asked yesterday’s Sunday Times.
Passengers continue to contend with short notice cancellations, security queues and long waits for baggage at airports.
The situation will no doubt abate, but not in the short term. If you are heading to an airport this coming Easter weekend, there is also disruption to rail services.
No Gatwick Express services will run over the four day weekend. Nor any Southern rail services from London Victoria to Gatwick. Southern and Thameslink trains will continue to run between Gatwick and London Bridge.
On London Underground, no trains will run between Acton Town and Heathrow stations. If you’re heading to Paddington, the Hammersmith & City line is closed all weekend. Heathrow Express and TfL Rail services to Heathrow should operate normally.
There are also no direct trains between London and Stansted. Full guidance is available from National Rail.
JetBlue Airbus A321 Mint Studio (Image Credit: JetBlue)
JetBlue has launched its second transatlantic destination from London.The airline will fly to Boston daily from late summer 2022.
Like JetBlue’s existing route from London to New York JFK, this will be served daily from both Gatwick and Heathrow airports.
Flights from Gatwick launch 20 July 2022. Heathrow follows on 23 August 2022.
The prospects for this route are strong. Boston is major hub for JetBlue. It offers connections to a wide range of destinations in the US and Caribbean.
To give JetBlue credit, many attempts by established airlines to move from short haul to long haul flights, particularly with a small sub-fleet of aircraft, have either failed or experienced significant teething problems. JetBlue has so far managed to avoid this and its in flight service has been well received.
Flights are on sale now at JetBlue for travel into 2023.
London Heathrow Terminal 5 (Image Credit: Heathrow)
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 4 April 2022.
The Easter Getaway Begins
Today, the first week of April, marks the official start of the Easter Holidays for schools in the UK.
It also marks the start of the second quarter of the year. This is supposed to be the time when airlines leave COVID-19 losses behind, return to profitability and take advantage of pent up demand for summer travel.
The signs are this will be, at best, a bumpy ride.
Both BA and easyJet made a large number of short notice flight cancellations over the weekend. This follows repeated disruption at BA, due to both staffing issues and IT failures, in previous weeks.
In an ominous warning BA is only selling fully flexible short haul economy fares at Heathrow for travel over the next two weeks. This is historically only done when the airline is expecting mass cancellations.
The long Easter weekend is next week. If airlines do not have the resources to meet their current Easter schedules, they would be well advised to take the pain of cancellations now. Otherwise, the EASTER TRAVEL CHAOS newspaper front pages will write themselves.
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.
BA has today, Friday 25 March, updated its planned schedules.
According to timetables, Iberia Express will operate selected flights from April to a wide range destinations. These include Cagliari, Madrid, Mahon, Malta, Seville, Venice and Verona.
Further changes are possible during the summer season.
British Airways Lounge, South Terminal, London Gatwick (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways will reopen its short haul base at London Gatwick on Tuesday 29 March, shortly after the start of the summer season.
This follows the complete suspension of all short haul flights at Gatwick two years ago. Until recently, BA has operated a single solitary day flight to Glasgow, using Heathrow based aircraft. This will be joined by Manchester on Sunday 27 March.
Not all former Gatwick short haul routes will return. Routes such as Algiers, Funchal, Jersey, Naples, Porto and Tirana will remain only at Heathrow.
Others such as Dubrovnik and Kos will now be served at both Gatwick and Heathrow.
Other former Gatwick routes not immediately served before COVID-19 such as Athens, Madrid and Milan Malpensa return.
Edinburgh will no longer be served at all at Gatwick. Former Gatwick routes such as Bilbao and Genoa are suspended entirely.
Many routes are only on sale until the end of the summer season. The exceptions are Alicante,Bordeaux, Faro, Malaga, Malta, Palma, Seville, Turin. It is inevitable that the route network and schedule will be refined according to commercial & operational performance.
British Airways Lounge – London Gatwick South Terminal (Credit: British Airways)
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.
