British Airways started four new weekly services between London and Johannesburg on Sunday (October 28) increasing the number of direct flights between the cities to 18 a week.
The additional flights will depart London Heathrow at 16h20 in the afternoon, arriving at OR Tambo at 05h40 the following morning. The return flight will leave Johannesburg at 07h40 in the morning, landing at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 at 17h50 that evening.
BA will operate the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner one these services, alongside the existing 14 weekly A380 services.
BA also opens its new route from London to Durban today (October 29), offering three weekly services using Boeing 787-8s.
BA will also increase its Cape Town schedule to provide double-daily summer flights from London Heathrow as well as offering three weekly flights between Gatwick and CPT next month. eTNW will publish the schedule for these flights when it becomes available.
“In total we’ll be operating our largest schedule ever between the UK and South Africa; 38 flights a week to three destinations,” says Sue Petrie, BA commercial manager for Southern Africa.
The schedule increase comes as BA rolls out a £4.5 billion (R84bn), five-year customer investment plan.
On its South African routes, it has introduced new bedding and amenity kits in its Club World cabin, by luxury lifestyle brand, The White Company. BA lounges around the world are being revamped, including Johannesburg.
New World Traveller and World Traveller Plus cabins are being rolled out across the Boeing 777 fleet operating from Gatwick. It is these aircraft that fly to Cape Town during the South African summer. In World Traveller new menus have been introduced.
The investment plan will also see BA upgrading the interiors of 128 long-haul aircraft and taking delivery of 72 new aircraft. The WiFi offer will also be upgraded, details will follow at a later date.
