London Air Travel

Virgin Atlantic will launch a new winter seasonal route from London Heathrow to Phuket.

Flights will operate three times weekly from 18 October 2026.

The route will go on sale from 26 November 2025.

VS214 LHR 12:00 - HKT 07:20 (Wed, Fri, Sun)

VS215 HKT 09:20 - LHR 16:00 (Thu, Sat, Mon)

British Airways has also now suspended its summer seasonal service from London Gatwick to Las Vegas.

These flights will end on Saturday 25 October and won’t resume as planned in March 2026.

(Up to 3 flights a day to LAS did seem like too much.)

BA has also confirmed, amongst other relatively modest frequency changes, that New York JFK will be served from Heathrow only.

An extra rotation has been loaded from mid-March:

BA181 LHR 12:30 - JFK 15:30
BA182 JFK 00:20 - LHR 11:15

BA has also confirmed amongst other long-haul frequency changes for next summer that New York JFK will operate 9x daily exclusively from LHR.

British Airways will fly from London Gatwick to Bangkok year-round from next summer.

The route was due to operate until the end of April 2026, but will continue three times weekly from May onwards.

Slots for flights from London to Boston, Chicago & Miami for the Summer 2026 season will shortly be put out to tender.

The CMA has accepted proposals by AA & BA to make slots available to rival airlines for these routes, after consultation and with some slight modifications.

Lufthansa has transferred 72 weekly slots at London Heathrow to its short-haul subsidiary Lufthansa City Airlines for the winter 2025 season.

These will be used to operate selected flights to Munich.

Riyadh Air has acquired a daily slot pair at London Heathrow from British Airways for the Winter 2025 season under the bmi remedy slot release mechanism.

British Airways has suspended its winter seasonal service from London City to Prague.

The route was due to return in early November.

British Airways is to launch new winter seasonal routes from London Gatwick to Graz, Austria and Rabat, Morocco.

Virgin Atlantic has also confirmed it will refurbish its fleet of Boeing 787-9 aircraft from 2028, with an increase in Upper Class seats from 31 to 44, with 8 Retreat seats.

Virgin also promises investments in its Clubhouses at Heathrow and New York JFK.

Virgin Atlantic is to install Starlink WiFi on its Boeing 787-9, Airbus A350-1000, and A330neo aircraft from Quarter 3 2026, with the installation expected to complete by the end of 2027.

British Airways has suspended its winter seasonal route from London Heathrow to Grenoble.

The route will not return as planned in December. BA will continue to serve Grenoble from Gatwick.

Channel 5 will air what the TV industry terms a “fast-turnaround” documentary “Air India Disaster: What Really Happened?” on Wednesday 2 July at 8pm.

This is produced by ITN with teams in the UK and Ahmedabad.

WestJet has applied to the Canadian Transportation Agency for regulatory approval for the charter airline Privilege Style to operate flights between the UK and Canada on its behalf from 7 to 19 June.

On 11 June, Sky Documentaries (UK) will air “Flight 149: Hostage of War” on the alleged government cover-up behind BA flight 149 from London Heathrow to Kuwait on 2 August 1990.

Virgin Atlantic will not resume flights between London Heathrow and Tel Aviv as planned this October. The route is now suspended permanently.

Virgin will continue to offer a codeshare to Tel Aviv with EL AL.

Air Canada’s pivot to Europe continues.

In addition to a new route from Montreal to Edinburgh, the airline is adding additional weekly frequencies from Toronto to Athens, Paris and Rome for the summer 2025 season.

American Airlines & British Airways propose to offer slots at either Gatwick or Heathrow for rival airlines to fly daily to Boston, Chicago and Miami.

This follows a review by the Competitions & Markets Authority of the transatlantic joint business & is subject to consultation.

All future flights have now been pulled.

Following the demise of Comair, this was BA’s last franchise partner.

Whilst BA stopped pursuing franchise partners decades ago, in the 1990s it was seen as a means to generate connecting traffic & fees from franchising the brand.

Picture of SUN-AIR of Scandinavia A/S Dornier 328 aircraft at Billund airport.

British Airways’ last remaining scheduled franchise route from London City to Billund now appears to be suspended indefinitely.

There has been uncertainty around the future of this route, operated by SUN-AIR of Scandinavia A/S. for some time.

Cape Town, South Africa

British Airways has once again added a third daily flight from London Heathrow to Cape Town for the Winter 2025/2026 season.

The additional flight (BA45 / BA44) will depart Heathrow on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday from early November.

Example British Airways codeshare flights operated by JetBlue departing New York JFK, Wednesday 26 February 2025.

Not sure when this happened but British Airways' codeshare with JetBlue is now live.

This does add more connection opportunities at Boston & New York JFK, as well as destinations not covered by the American Airlines joint-business like Martha's Vineyard & Nantucket.

Codeshare destinations include Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

Reciprocal frequent flyer recognition is expected to be announced in due course.

Virgin Atlantic has announced a new codeshare agreement with WestJet to 13 destinations in Canada, when connecting to / from Virgin's own flights between London Heathrow and Toronto Pearson International.

British Airways is to purchase Boeing’s hangar and Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (MRO) business at London Gatwick airport.

This will be used to carry out minor 777 maintenance work & in source some heavy Airbus A320/321 maintenance.

British Airways’ daily flight from London Gatwick to Glasgow is scheduled to be operated by Emerald Airlines ATR 72 turboprop aircraft from the start of the summer 2025 season (though it’s not currently on sale).

This replaces Airbus A320 aircraft operated by Heathrow crews.

Virgin Atlantic has advised its ending its codeshare on WestJet flights between London and Calgary from 30 March 2025.

This coincides with the relaunch of Virgin’s own service from London Heathrow to Toronto.

BA and British Midland were fierce rivals on UK domestic routes - though both airlines progressively scaled back their in flight service following the rise of low cost airlines in the 1990s.

In 1983, faced with increased competition from British Midland BA introduced the “Super Shuttle” with significantly improved catering. This was marked by a special Concorde flight to Glasgow.