An extra 4,000 seats a week will be provided by British Airways between London Heathrow and Glasgow starting on October 30.
The move is designed to compensate for the seat shortage on this route following the withdrawal by rival Bmi earlier this year (see online news January 31). With fewer seats available, passengers using the Heathrow route have faced paying more for their tickets.
Overall it represents good news for all Anglo-Scottish passengers seeing as Bmi recently announced it was cutting flight frequency between Heathrow and Edinburgh (see online news September 27) from the end of this month.
All told BA will add 25 per cent more seats to the Glasgow run by next January. It means the total number of weekly return flights will rise from 57 to 67. Larger capacity one-class 252-seater B767s will be rostered for a limited number of peak time flights.
The increases will be phased in two stages. From October 30, the weekly return flight total will rise from 52 to 60 before increasing again to 67 a week effective January 9, 2012.
According to Stuart Patrick, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce chief executive as saying, “I’ve been getting regular calls from business leaders emphasising the need to widen the offer for Heathrow services and so we are naturally delighted to see British Airways responding. We are confident that demand is there and that BA will be commercially justified in their decision.”
Tony Davies, BA’s regional customer services manager said “the decision to increase capacity was the result of significantly greater demand on the Glasgow-Heathrow route because of market changes earlier this year.”
Initial plans call for the B767 to appear on BA1472 out of Heathrow at 0705 (daily except Thursday, Saturday and Sunday) and to return with BA1477 departing Glasgow (on the same days) at 0930. But always check in case of last minute plane changes.
For more information visit ba.com.
Report by Alex McWhirter
