After much press speculation and claims by rivals about poor load factors, Virgin Atlantic has today confirmed it is to close its “Little Red” short-haul operation from London Heathrow.
Flights between London and Manchester will cease on 28 March 2015.
Flights between London and Aberdeen and Edinburgh will cease on 26 September 2015.
In a further sign of renewed confidence in its London Gatwick operation, British Airways has added three new routes to its 2015 Gatwick schedule.
These are Seville in Spain (five weekly) Funchal in Madeira (thrice weekly) and Las Palmas in Gran Canaria (twice weekly) which will operate from 29 March 2015.
British Airways has today announced it is to cancel its thrice weekly London Gatwick – Colombo service, which operated as an additional leg to its service to Male in the Maldives.
The last flight from London Gatwick will operate on 27 March 2015 and the last inbound flight will operate on 28 March 2015.
The Male service will also be suspended from the above dates until 25 October 2015, operating as a seasonal service only.
British Airways has today confirmed that its next new route for the Airbus A380 will be San Francisco.
This is the sixth BA destination to be served by the A380.
From April 2015, the A380 will operate on one of BA’s twice daily flights between London Heathrow and San Francisco, five days a week.
The A380 will operate as BA287 & BA286 to/from San Francisco to London on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The same flight on Tuesdays and Wednesdays will continue to be operated by a Boeing 747, as will the second daily service, BA 285 & BA284.
BA currently operates the A380 on selected flights between London Heathrow and Hong Kong, Johannesburg, and Los Angeles. The A380 is also due to fly to Washington from 2 October and Singapore from Thursday 28 October.
British Airways’ expansion at London City airport continues with the launch of a twice daily service (excluding weekends) from the airport to Hamburg in Germany from 27 October 2014.
The route will be operated for BA by its Scandinavian franchise partner SUN-AIR using a single cabin (so no Club Europe business class) Dornier 328 Turboprop commuter aircraft.
Here is the planned timetable:
British Airways has today announced that it is to suspend its thrice weekly route to Lusaka in Zambia from 25 October 2013.
The final flight (BA255) from London to Lusaka will operate on Friday, 25 October 2013, and the return flight from Lusaka to London (BA254) will operate on Saturday, 26 October 2013.
No reason has been given for the suspension of the route. However, it is a safe assumption that unsatisfactory commercial performance is the reason.
British Airways has provided rebooking guidelines which include re-routing options via other BA gateways in Africa. Additional options may be added in due course if BA can reach commercial terms with other airlines.
British Airways launches its new thrice weekly route from London Heathrow to Chengdu on Sunday 22 September. In a sign that forward bookings are perhaps not as strong as BA would like, the airline is offering special return fares for bookings made up until Tuesday 16 July. These fares are:
Economy (World Traveller) – £508
Premium Economy (World Traveller Plus) – £808
Business Class (Club World) – £1,888
British Airways has today confirmed that is to take delivery of its first Boeing 787 aircraft on 26 June, and a second Boeing 787 aircraft a day later. It will take delivery of its first Airbus A380 aircraft on 4 July at a special media event at Heathrow to celebrate the introduction of two new aircraft types to its fleet.
British Airways has announced it is to launch a new, thrice weekly, route from London Gatwick to Larnaca.
Continue reading “British Airways launches new route from London Gatwick to Larnaca”
British Airways continues to surprise with its choice of new routes to occupy the 50 or so extra Heathrow slot pairs it has to fill following the purchase of bmi. Following the launch of Leeds Bradford, Rotterdam, Zagreb and seasonal summer flights to Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca, the airline has now launched a weekly return flight to Gran Canaria from Saturday 26 October 2013.
The flights are now on sale on ba.com:
Flight BA488 – London – Las Palmas – 10:05 – 14.35
Flight BA489 – Las Palmas – London – 15:20 – 19:40