British Airways has cancelled its daily flight from London Heathrow to Doha (and the return flight from Doha on the following day) for a period of four days from Friday 17 February to Monday 20 February 2017.
The affected flight numbers are BA123 and BA122.
The reason cited for the cancellation is “operational reasons”. It is highly likely that this is connected to planned strike action by “Mixed Fleet” London Heathrow cabin crew on these dates.
BA has a rebooking agreement with Qatar Airways (which is a fellow Oneworld alliance member and a 20% shareholder of BA’s parent company International Airlines Group).
British Airways has cancelled all direct flights between London Heathrow and Abuja route from Wednesday 8 March to Tuesday 18 April 2017.
The reason for this is that the airport’s runway will be closed for emergency repairs.
According to press reports, the Nigerian Government had instructed airlines to operate flights to an alternative airport in Kaduna (some 200km north of Abuja) with onward road transport to Abuja. However, these contingency plans has clearly not been implemented by BA.
The affected BA flight numbers are BA083 and BA082.
Affected passengers have the option of a full refund, rebooking on an alternative British Airways operated flight between London Heathrow and Abuja outside of the runway closure (up to Friday 19 May 2017), or rebooking on an alternative British Airways operated flight between Accra or Nigeria and London Heathrow within 7 days of the date of your original booking.
However, if you choose the later option any additional costs such as ground transportation and hotels will be at your own expense and will not be reimbursed by the airline.
BA is the only airline to fly non-stop between London and Abuja. In terms of the response from other European airlines, Air France and Lufthansa fly from their respective hubs in Paris Charles de Gualle and Frankfurt to Abuja. Both airlines appear to have cancelled all flights during the period of the runway closure.
Affected BA passengers should contact either BA or their travel agent.
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 has updated its schedules to account for its contingency plans following planned industrial action by “Mixed Fleet” cabin crew at London Heathrow on on Thursday 9, Friday 10 or Saturday 11 February 2017.
BA has confirmed that:
All flights from London City, London Gatwick and London Stansted will operate as normal.
The vast majority of flights from London Heathrow are scheduled to operate as normal.
BA has cancelled a select number of flights from London Heathrow. In the event that your flight is cancelled you should be offered an alternative flight on the same route, a rebooking to an alternative destination nearby, or a refund.
BA has not published a list of cancelled flights. However, We have scanned BA’s schedules and we have identified the following cancellations so far.
Please note this is not intended to be a definitive list and this may be subject to change. You should always check you booking directly at ba.com before finalising your travel plans.
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.
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 coverage of Greece which also includes Chania, Corfu, Kalamata, Kos, Mykonos, Santorini and Zakynthos from London Heathrow.
British Airways has today updated its schedules to account for its contingency plans following planned industrial action by “Mixed Fleet” cabin crew at London Heathrow on Sunday 5, Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 February 2017.
Further industrial action is due to take place on Thursday 9, Friday 10 or Saturday 11 February 2017 and schedules for these days will be updated on Thursday 2 February 2017.
BA has today confirmed that:
All flights from London City, London Gatwick and London Stansted will operate as normal.
All long-haul flights from London Heathrow are scheduled to operate as normal.
BA has cancelled a select number of short-haul flights from London Heathrow. In the event that your flight is cancelled you should be offered an alternative flight on the same route, a rebooking to an alternative destination nearby, or a refund.
BA has not published a list of cancelled flights. However, We have scanned BA’s schedules and we have identified the following cancellations so far.
Please note this is not intended to be a definitive list and this may be subject to change. You should always check you booking directly at ba.com before finalising your travel plans.
BA CityFlyer Embraer at London City AirportBritish 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.
London City – Manchester (Sunday 21 May 2017 – Sunday 1 October 2017)
As has been widely reported around the world, President Trump has issued an Executive Order banning nationals of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya from entering the United States of America.
The Executive Order has effect for a period of 90 days, until 27 April 2017.
If you are national of one of the seven countries included in the Executive Order and are due to travel on any British Airways operated flight to the USA up to 27 April 2017 then you can:
Obtain a full refund; or
Reroute from your original departure point to an alternative destination on BA’s network (with any difference in fare paid)
Unite, the Union which represents BA’s “Mixed Fleet” cabin crew at London Heathrow, has called even further industrial action in February.
This follows five days of industrial action in January 2017. Strikes are scheduled to place in two 72 hour blocks. The first three days of industrial action will be on Sunday 5 February, Monday 6 February and Tuesday 7 February. The second three days of industrial action will be on Thursday 9 February, Friday 10 February and Saturday 11 February.
BA will update its schedules for the days affected by the disruption on Tuesday 31 January for the first three days and Thursday 2 February.
