Qantas its to withdraw its London Heathrow – Dubai – Melbourne route from Sunday 25 March 2018.
Qantas Boeing 787-900 Dreamliner (Image courtesy of Qantas Airways)
Following the news today that Qantas is to fly direct from London Heathrow to Perth from Sunday 25 March 2018, Qantas has also confirmed it is to also withdraw its service from London Heathrow to Melbourne via Dubai, operated with the Airbus A380.
Instead, passengers wishing to travel between London and Melbourne courtesy of Qantas can either fly on an Emirates codeshare service with a change of aircraft in Dubai.
Norwegian’s aggressive expansion at London Gatwick continues with the launch of a new route from London Gatwick to Singapore Changi airport.
The route will launch on Thursday 28 September 2017. It will initially operate four times weekly, increasing to five times weekly from Monday 30 October 2017. The flight will be operated by the mainstay of Norwegian’s long-haul operations, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in a two class configuration.
TAP Portugal is to launch a direct route from London City airport to Lisbon from Sunday 29 October 2017.
The route will operate twice daily on weekdays and once a day on weekends. This will be the third London airport served by TAP Portugal after London Heathrow and London City. It will also be the only direct route between London City and Lisbon.
TAP Portugal will also offer connections to the Azores and its extensive long-haul network in Brazil such as Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and many other cities.
Flybe today (Sunday 26 March 2017) launches new direct flights from London Heathrow to Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
The first Flybe flight to depart London will be BE2122 to Aberdeen at 09:45.
Flybe will fly to Aberdeen & Edinburgh up to 3 & 4 times daily on weekdays. Flights will operate with reduced frequencies on Saturdays and Sundays. Flights will operate from London Heathrow Terminal 2.
At launch, Flybe will codeshare with Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Virgin Atlantic. Flybe also has interline agreements in place with United Airlines, Delta, Qantas, and TAP.
British Airways is to suspend its London Gatwick – Lima route for the winter season from Sunday 29 October 2017. The route is expected to resume from late March 2018.
BA launched its route from London Gatwick to Lima in May 2016. No specific reason has been given for the seasonal cancellation. However, it is assumed the cause of cancellation is unsatisfactory commercial performance. The affected BA flight numbers are BA2239 and BA2238.
If your flight is cancelled you will be reaccommodated on Iberia’s daily service to Lima via Madrid from either London Gatwick or London Heathrow. However, do note that Iberia does not always operate its premium economy cabin between Madrid and Lima. Therefore, if you have booked to fly in World Traveller Plus on BA you may be downgraded to economy on Iberia. Iberia’s daily flight from Madrid to Lima (Flight IB6651 departs Madrid at 12:50pm and arrives in Lima at 17:35. Therefore, connections at Madrid should not be onerous.
Alternatively, you can be accommodated on American Airlines’ services to Lima via either Dallas Fort Worth or Miami.
Further options with partner airlines may become available in the coming weeks.
If you prefer you should be able to move your flight to a date when BA is operating the route. Alternatively, you are entitled to a refund.
Affected passengers should contact either BA or their travel agent.
After months of speculation, International Airlines Group (“IAG”) which is the parent company of Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia and Vueling, has today confirmed is to launch a new low cost long-haul airline.
The airline is called “Level”. This is the first new airline launched by IAG in its six year history.
The airline will initially be based in Barcelona. It will launch on 1 June 2017 and its inaugural route will be Barcelona – Los Angeles which operate twice weekly.
Routes from Barcelona to Oakland California (three times weekly) will follow on 2 June 2017. Barcelona – Punta Cana (twice weeky) on 10 June 2017. Barcelona – Buenos Aires on 17 June 2017 (three times weekly).
The airline will intially operate with two brand new Airbus A330-200 aircraft with 239 seats in economy in a 2-4-2 configuration and 21 seats across three rows in premium economy in a 2-3-2 configuration.
In economy a seat pitch of 30″ will be offered with a 9″ personal entertainment screen. Checked baggage, extra leg room seats and hot meals can be purchased in advance. Food and drink, duty free goods, in flight comfort amenities such as blankets and pillows can be purchased on board.
In premium economy, a seat pitch of 37″ will be offered with a 12″ personal entertainment screen and noise-cancelling headphones.
Checked luggage (in addition to a free cabin bag), hot meals drinks and snacks, priority boarding, and in flight entertainment will be complimentary for customers flying in premium economy.
High speed internet connectivity will also be available for a charge for all passengers.
The availability of refunds and flight changes and seat selection will depend on the type of fare purchase in both cabins.
IAG promises one way fares economy from €99 and one way premium economy fares from €599.
Connections will be available from Vueling’s short-haul network at Barcelona which, of course, operates from London Gatwick and Heathrow and a number of UK regional airports. However, flights with connections need to be booked via Iberia.com
Members of the Aer Lingus, British Airways and Iberia frequent flyer programmes will be able to earn Avios on all flights operated by Level.
The launch of Level is a clear competitive response by IAG to Norwegian which is launching new routes from a number of IAG markets in Europe. We have already seen a number of moves such as the launch by BA of routes from Gatwick to New York JFK, Fort Lauderdale and Oakland. BA is also planning to “densify” (that’s add more seats) some of its Boeing 777s to compete against Norwegian. We are likely to see further moves such as the launch of “unbundled” long-haul economy fares by Aer Lingus and BA.
As IAG have adopted a trans-national brand name, the airline will no doubt explore more routes from other European cities where connections from Vueling are available, such as Rome and Paris. Looking at the branding and marketing materials, IAG is actively pitching this airline at a younger market than many of its existing airlines. It will of course be interesting to see how this develops and whether it launches any routes from the UK.
Virgin Atlantic is to launch a new winter seasonal route from London Heathrow to Barbados.
The airline will fly from London Heathrow to Barbados Grantley Adams International Airport from Tuesday 12 December 2017. Flights will operate twice weekly each Tuesday and Saturday.
This will be the only direct route between London Heathrow and Barbados. This will complement Virgin Atlantic’s existing daily service from London Gatwick.
Flights will be operated using an Airbus A330 aircraft with 33 Upper Class, 48 Premium Economy and 185 Economy seats.
The merry go round of route changes at London City and BA’s gradual increase of weekend services at London Stansted continues with the launch of new year-round services to Milan, Italy from these two London airports in April.
The new routes to Milan’s Linate Airport will start from London City Airport on Monday 24 April 2017 and from Stansted Airport on Saturday 29 April 2017.
There will be two flights a day on week days and one a day at weekends from London City and two a week from Stansted.
Flights will be operated using Embraer aircraft in a two class Club Europe business class and EuroTraveller economy configuration. Note that at some point in the summer, BA will introduce its Buy On Board “M&S On Board” catering service on these flights.
BA also flies to Milan Linate (as well as Malpensa airport) from London Heathrow up to six times a day and it is possible to “mix and match” flights if convenient.
The addition of this route at London Stansted means BA now serves nine routes at this airport: Berlin, Faro, Florence, Geneva, Ibiza, Malaga, Nice, and Palma.
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.
