Business travellers have only one new route announcement among those unveiled today by British Airways in its new winter timetable.
The airline has confirmed a three times a day Heathrow-Rotterdam service but is holding back its big announcement about new long-haul services until the autumn, as these will not be introduced until the summer. However, BA has confirmed the axing of former Bmi routes to Amritsar, Bishkek, Casablanca, Dammam, Khartoum, and Yerevan.
In other changes, BA will refurbish its Airbus A321 fleet with a Club World product, offering the lie-flat seat on mid-haul routes like Tel Aviv, where the narrow-body aircraft will replace wide-body Boeing 767 and 777s. Tel Aviv flights will move from 14 to 20 a week. Flights to Gibraltar, currently seven a week, will move to nine a week, with additional flights at weekends. Both changes start on October 28.
BA is also axing Bmi’s frequencies to Jeddah and Riyadh from September 16, but will upgrade its Riyadh service to a Boeing 747 on that date. Bmi’s Cairo and Moscow services will also cease, but BA’s will continue.
BA will also add a second daily Cape Town service on October 28 following South African Airways’ withdrawal from the route.
Apart from Rotterdam, which starts on December 9, BA’s announcement contained only one other new route not already confirmed by the airline, a three times a week service to Alicante from October 28.
Some believe routes like this and increases on existing routes have been introduced in order to hold onto the 42 pairs of daily Heathrow slots BA gained from Bmi. It is thought some of these extra frequencies will be withdrawn at the end of winter and the slots used to launch new routes. “Capacity is being added where strictly speaking it is not needed,” said an observer.
The new services, likely to include a swathe of routes to Asia and China, will be announced in the autumn and begin with the start of summer timetables at the end of March. Meanwhile, BA must use the additional slots allocated for them under the ‘use it or lose it’ rule.
Among changes to the winter Gatwick timetable that affect business travellers, flights to Manchester drop from 28 to 23 a week and those to the Albanian capital Tirana from five a week to four.