First reported by our schedules blog, Airline Route, the initial plan for summer 2015 and winter 2015/2016 suggests BA switching the operational aircraft on three routes. Its daily London Heathrow – Seoul Incheon route and six times weekly London Heathrow – Montreal link will be switched from 777-200ERs to the 787-8, while the daily London Heathrow – Austin service will see a 787-8 replaced by a 777-200ER.
Virgin Atlantic will end the Little Red flights, operated on its behalf by Aer Lingus, during summer 2015. The London Heathrow – Manchester route will close at the end of March 2015 and the links from the UK capital to Aberdeen and Edinburgh at the end of September 2015.
Initially, British Airways will operate A380 service five times a week at Washington. The service will increase to daily by the end of October. It will supplement the daily 747 flights and the three weekly 777 flights out of the airport.
The first European operator of the new Boeing 787-9, Virgin Atlantic will deploy its aircraft on routes from London Heathrow to Boston from October 28, 2014; Washington from December 17, 2014, Newark from January 19, 2015 and New York from February 28, 2015.
BA will utilise a four-class Boeing 777-200ER on the route configured with 12 seats in First, 48 in Club World, 32 in World Traveller Plus and a further 127 in World Traveller. Its return to the city pair will boost capacity on the route by 22.2 per cent with weekly seats increasing to 8,449 in each direction.
After the announcement earlier this year, Qatar Airways have finally welcomed the first of its ten Airbus A380 Aircraft on order, at a ceremony in Hamburg earlier today.
The 469-seat A380 will substitute a smaller Boeing 747-400 on the five London – San Francisco services boosting weekly capacity by just under 20 per cent. All nine other weekly rotations will continue to be served using the smaller Jumbos which are configured in either 299- or 337-seat arrangements.
Air China will introduce a second daily rotation on its route between Beijing and London Heathrow from October 26, 2014, while China Eastern will boost its existing Shanghai route to the UK's largest international air gateway from October 29, 2014 with a sixth weekly flight.
The carrier is planning to widen its European network with the addition of regular flights to Paris from autumn 2014 and to Prague in spring 2015, complementing established European routes from Frankfurt to Astana (daily) and Atyrau to Amsterdam, six times per week.
The first European operator of the new Boeing 787-9, Virgin Atlantic will deploy its aircraft on routes from London Heathrow to Boston from October 28, 2014; Washington from December 17, 2014 and New York from February 28, 2015.
The sale of the slot pair for the carrier’s daily Larnaca service - flights CY346 and CY347 - will result in Cyprus Airways switching its London operations to Stansted Airport from September 14, 2014.
The Star Alliance member will offer a three times weekly service on the route during the winter 2014/2015 schedule serving Heathrow Airport's new Terminal 2, also known as The Queen's Terminal, where it will take up residency from June 18, 2014.
United Airlines operates 34 flight arrivals and departures from new Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport on opening day (june 4, 2014) linking the London gateway with six destinations in the United States: Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York/Newark, San Francisco and Washington Dulles.
This latest announcement shows how the partnership between Virgin Atlantic and Delta Air Lines, which launched on January 1, 2014, is increasing the network of each carrier. Virgin Atlantic will now have access to Delta's Atlanta hub, the busiest airport in the world, for the first time, providing greater access for the carrier to offer connections through to points throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
The initial tentative schedule shows the aircraft will operate twice daily on the Toronto - Halifax route from May 23, 2014 through to May 25, 2014 and then on various dates through to the end of June 2014. Alongside this domestic link, Air Canada also plans to use the aircraft on its flights from Toronto to Zurich (from May 25, 2014 to July 14, 2014) and London (from July 2, 2014 to July 13, 2014).
The Abu Dhabi-based airline’s first Airbus A380 will operate commercially to London Heathrow from December 2014, while its first Boeing 787-9s will debut on routes to Düsseldorf from December this year and then to Washington DC and Mumbai from January 2015.
The first of 13 aircraft it has on order, Qatar Airways is set to receive three A380 aircraft in quick succession this summer and the new aircraft will commence operations on the ‘QR003’ and ‘QR004’ rotations to and from London Heathrow.
