BA boosting Italian and Eastern European services

Tuesday, 09 Jan, 2003 0

British Airways has announced its shorthaul strategy for Summer 2003, including new services from Manchester and changes to its Gatwick and Heathrow schedules.

BA will fly from Manchester to Bologna, Pisa and Vienna, all three times a day from 30 March. The carrier is also adding extra daily frequencies to Geneva, Glasgow, Hanover and Rome and an additional weekly service to Lyon from 30 March.

Services from Manchester to Gothenburg are being suspended.

BA says it will increase services on profitable routes to continental Europe this Summer, specifically Italy and Eastern Europe.

Many Italian services are being boosted, with extra daily services from Gatwick to Rome and Verona from 1 May, and to Genoa and Venice from 1 July, and an extra weekly service to Naples from 30 March. An additional weekly flight will operate from Gatwick to Pristina in Kosovo from 1 June.

BA is launching a new service from Gatwick to Krakow in Poland from 30 March, with three flights a week, and services to Athens are being reinstated from 1 June with six flights a week. .

At Heathrow, BA is adding extra daily services from 30 March to Brussels and Copenhagen, three extra weekly flights to Helsinki and two extra weekly flights to Larnaca in Cyprus. Services to Belgrade will move from Gatwick to Heathrow where there will be four flights each week.

BA has finalised its schedule from London City Airport, and will offer three daily flights to Frankfurt, Glasgow and Paris Charles de Gaulle from 30 March. The Paris service will use up the slot, which was coveted by bmibaby, and became available when BA scrapped its Cardiff service.

However, bmibaby has now secured a slot at Paris CDG, and announced yesterday that it is launching flights from Cardiff to the French capital from 30 March. Fares will start at £18 each way including taxes.

Read our previous stories:
19-Dec-2002 BMI wants BA slots
17-Dec-2002 BA pulls out of Cardiff and Leeds-Bradford
16-Dec-2002 BA signs up to FlightScanner
05-Dec-2002 BA: ‘GDS fees are outrageous’
06-Nov-2002 BA banking on key routes for 2003