BA Boeing 747 Centenary Flights Update

British Airways is offering passengers who have booked flights to Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle that were scheduled with a Boeing 747 on Sunday 25 August a refund.

London Air Travel » Newcastle

British Airways Boeing 747 Centenary Tailfins
British Airways Boeing 747 Centenary Tailfins (Image Credit: British Airways)

Last week we reported that BA had scheduled Boeing 747 aircraft on selected UK domestic flights from London Heathrow to Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle on the day of its centenary, Sunday 25 August 2019.

This did come with the caveat that BA had made no official announcement about these flights. These flights have attracted a lot of interest and a week later BA has today, Friday 7 June 2019, issued the following statement to the travel trade:

We’ve been exploring a number of options to put our customers at the heart of our birthday weekend celebrations, but we still haven’t confirmed any plans.

We haven’t revealed any of the details of our birthday weekend so far. Some aviation websites made a guess at what we were planning, but we were very clear that this was speculation.

We are still considering our options for that weekend and will release details in due course.

Clearly, some passengers may have booked these flights (in some cases for the cost of a transatlantic flight) hoping for special celebrations on board.

BA is now offering passengers who booked a Boeing 747 flight from London Heathrow to Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle on Sunday 25 August between 30 May and 7 June 2019 and no longer wish to travel a refund.

Affected passengers should contact BA or their travel agent.

Passengers can check the status of their booking using the Manage My Booking tool on ba.com

Update: Many passengers are now receiving e-mails from BA advising that these flights will no longer be operated with a Boeing 747 aircraft. So the plan for special flights appears to have been cancelled entirely.

Flybe launches London City – Newcastle

Flybe is to launch a new direct route from London City to Newcastle from Monday 7 January 2019, operated by franchise partner Eastern Airways.

London Air Travel » Newcastle

The Angel Of The North
The Angel Of The North (Image Credit: NewcastleGateshead Tourism)

Flybe is to launch a new direct route from London City airport to Newcastle from Monday 7 January 2019.

Flights operate twice daily on weekdays and once a day on Sundays. This will be the only direct air link between London and Newcastle after BA’s service from Heathrow.

The service will be operated by Eastern Airways under Flybe’s livery. Eastern Airways also operates London City – Aberdeen on behalf of Flybe which, from Monday 7 January 2019, will operate via Newcastle.

The flight time is 65 minute from London and 70 minutes from Newcastle. This compares to a journey time of around 2 hours and 50 minutes on the train.

At the moment flights up to Friday 29 March 2019 are only on sale. However, flights beyond Sunday 31 March 2019 should be on sale in the coming weeks.

Continue reading “Flybe launches London City – Newcastle”