British Airways (BA) will suspend its daily flights from Manchester to New York JFK in October because of increasingly poor performance on the route.
It will move the Boeing 767 aircraft which operated it to Heathrow, and switch a 777 to Gatwick to fly daily services from there to JFK on 27 October.
This will boost the carrier”s capacity from the capital to JFK to 62 flights a week, with 55 already going from Heathrow.
”Passenger yield was reduced and the route was no longer viable,” a BA spokesman told ABTN. ”Increased competition is a factor, and there were not the passenger numbers to sustain it.”
The four-class 777 will offer First, Club World, World Traveller Plus and World Traveller.
BA general manager network planning Lynne Embleton said: ”The new Gatwick service will give our customers even more choice when flying between London and New York.
”Not only do we already have an extensive schedule from Heathrow to both JFK and Newark, but next year we will launch business-only flights from London City.”
Also in October, BA will start daily short-haul routes from Gatwick to Oporto ” Portugal”s second largest city - and Valencia, Spain. Second daily services to Alicante and Turin will be added from the end of that month.