BA to reopen routes throughout July

Above: A British Airways' A350 in flight.
Courtesy British Airways

Across the UK and Europe, the airline will return to more short haul destinations by the end of July, including Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Morocco, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. Domestic flights will resume between London and Belfast, Inverness, Jersey, Manchester, Newcastle and Newquay and the airline will move to double daily services to Edinburgh and Glasgow.

British Airways will also return to a small number of its normal long-haul routes by the end of July. Services will resume across the Americas including flights to Bermuda, Dallas, Miami, Seattle and Toronto. These join flights to San Francisco, which restarted in June along with destinations served throughout, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York (JFK) and Washington, with a very reduced schedule. The Caribbean will also see British Airways return from July to Barbados and Kingston.

Joining Hong Kong and Singapore in the Far East, which again, the airline resumed limited flying to in June, will be services to Haneda in Japan.

Customers whose flights were affected over recent months and who claimed a voucher can use it towards the flights. Alternatively, Avios can also be used towards Reward flights, upgrades, hotels and car rental. When using Avios part payment, customers can pick from a range of savings by destination and cabin and they still collect Avios and Tier Points on their bookings.

BA stressed that afety is at the heart of its business and the airline has introduced a range of measures to keep its customers safe and is asking customers to abide by the new measures to help manage the wellness of everyone travelling.

These include:

• checking-in online, downloading their boarding pass and where possible self-scanning their boarding passes at the departure gate
• observing social distancing and using hand sanitisers that are placed throughout airports
• wearing a facemask at all times and bringing enough to replace them every four hours for longer flights
• asking customers not to travel if they think they have any symptoms of Covid-19
• cabin crew wearing PPE and a new food service, which reduces the number of interactions required with customers
• asking customers to ensure they have everything they need from their hand luggage before departure, and where possible, storing their carry-on bag under the seat in front of them

The airline is cleaning all key surfaces including seats, screens, seat buckles and tray tables after every flight and each aircraft is completely cleaned from nose to tail every day. The air on all British Airways flights is fully recycled once every two to three minutes through HEPA filters, which remove microscopic bacteria and virus clusters with over 99.9% efficiency, equivalent to hospital operating theatre standards.

Alex Cruz, British Airways’ Chairman and CEO, said: “Following months of lockdown and stress, we know people will want to travel to be reunited with friends and family and to take a well-deserved break.

“We have put in place measures – to UK Government and aviation regulator standards – to ensure we’re doing all we can to protect the wellbeing of our customers and colleagues and we’ll be asking them to play their part in that too.”