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British Airways boosts UK regional services following bmi deal

British Airways boosts UK regional services following bmi deal

The UK regions are set to benefit from British Airways’ new winter schedule, which begins on October 28th, 2012 thanks to the purchase of bmi by parent company IAG.

The airline will add extra frequencies and use bigger aircraft on flights to Scotland enabling it to offer nearly 27,000 more seats a week from London.

This includes two extra flights a day between London Heathrow and Edinburgh and two extra flights per day between Heathrow and Aberdeen.

In addition British Airways is also starting a three-per-day service between London City and Aberdeen on September 24 to connect the two business hubs.

From December 9th, British Airways will start four flights per day between Heathrow and Leeds Bradford, connecting Yorkshire with the airline’s extensive global route network at Heathrow and increasing consumer choice in the north of England.

The airline has already taken over bmi’s six daily flights to Belfast, and will be launching a new timetable of seven flights a day between London and the Northern Irish capital on October 28th.

A new London City to Isle of Man route has also recently launched.

At the time of EU approval for the bmi deal, IAG committed to launching new flights to important trading nations and delivering on that, British Airways is to begin flying six times a week to Seoul in South Korea from December 2nd.

A brand new, thrice weekly service from London Gatwick to Las Vegas starts on October 29th.

In Europe, Zagreb in Croatia will benefit from new daily flights to Heathrow from December 9th, six flights a week to Venice will be added to the London City route network on September 17th and a new three-per-day service from London Gatwick to Barcelona will launch on February 23rd, 2013.

From October 28th, former bmi routes from London Heathrow to Agadir, Bergen and Stavanger will become new British Airways routes from Terminal 5, while former bmi routes Belfast and Hanover will become new British Airways Terminal 1 routes.

British Airways aircraft and crew will operate these routes, and customers will receive the full-service airline’s on-board experience.

A number of existing British Airways routes including Basel, Dusseldorf, Luxembourg, Lyon and Toulouse will move from Terminal 5 to Terminal 1 on October 28th.

Keith Williams, British Airways’ chief executive, said: “bmi’s integration into British Airways is really enabling us to grow our network as we promised, giving customers more flights to destinations we know they want to fly to.

“We’re focusing on new routes such as Seoul, Leeds Bradford and Zagreb, more flights to popular destinations and creating more connections for the UK regions to our global network of flying.”

Due to the volume of changes being made to British Airways’ network for winter 2012, the changes will go on sale on ba.com in stages over the next few days and further route announcements will be made next month.