British Airways has added a handful of new routes and made a variety of changes to its short haul route network, for the upcoming winter 2023/2024 season.
New routes all over Europe have popped up as part of the announcement, with the highlights being a new route to Riga in Latvia and Belgrade in Serbia, among other destinations in the likes of Germany and Italy.
As well as new additions, a handful of routes are also seeing positive changes in the form of extensions.
All of these changes cover both BA’s mainline brand based out of London Heathrow as well as one of their subsidaries, BA Cityflyer based out of London City.
Riga and Belgrade
The first new route, Riga has been announced to start on the 29th October 2023 and will run 3 times a week throughout the winter season on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
British Airways intends on using a mix of A320 and A321 family aircraft on the route and now marks the second major city in the Baltic states to be served with Tallinn being the other.
Riga is in fact the largest out of the three major Baltic state cities (Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius) and is well known for its food culture, intriguing architecture and expansive green spaces.
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Moving to Belgrade, BA intends on starting this route on the 31st October 2023 and it will also run 3 times a week on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
In the same case as Riga, BA also intends on using a mix of its A320 and A321 family of aircraft for the route.
Belgrade is well known for its vibrant night life and extensive history as well as being at the confluence of the river Danube and Sava, attracting many visitors year round.
Cologne and Turin also launching
As well as the two routes to eastern Europe launching this winter, British Airways also intends on giving Eurowings a run for its money, by launching flights to Cologne from London Heathrow this winter.
Flights will run 12 times a week, unlike Eurowings offering up to 18 flights a week currently. Tuesdays and Saturdays will be the only days each week to not see 2 flights a day.
Once again, BA will use its full A320 family of aircraft including A319s to service the route and will allow more options for travellers looking to visit this vibrant German city.
Famous of its Cathedral and museums as well as its picturesque old town, customers will be sure to enjoy a well deserved city break in Cologne.
Heading south to Italy, British Airways will also announced a new route from Heathrow to Turin, which will run once per week on Sundays, starting on the 10th December 2023.
This route will in fact compliment BA’s existing route from London Gatwick, operating under the BA Euroflyer brand, giving customers more options for travelling to Turin from London.
Winter extensions and BA Cityflyer
The British flag carrier has also confirmed that two routes will be seeing extensions into the winter season, now making them an all year round route.
These are Ljubljana in Slovenia and one of the airline’s most recent additions to the network for 2023, Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen (SAW).
Ljubljana flights in the winter will run 4 times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays and the Istanbul route will also run 4 times a week, but on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Moving to BA Cityflyer, BA has confirmed the subsidiary will be re-launching its Milan Linate route from Sunday 5th November 2023 running on Sundays only utilising the Embraer E190. This route hasn’t run since pre covid and will compliment the existing London Heathrow route.
In addition, BA Cityflyer will also be extending its service to San Sebastian in Northern Spain, for the winte season, making it a year round route and will run on Thursdays and Sundays.
Neil Chernoff was present to comment on the network additions saying, “We are excited to be adding European cities, Riga, Belgrade and Cologne to our route network. These are destinations that we think our customers will love offering an alternative to some of the well known cities we fly to.”
“We also know that Italy in particular is a firm favourite with our customers, so we look forward to adding more capacity with flights to Milan and Turin, alongside more choice across Europe generally”.
Flights are now on sale and can be booked through the British Airways website.
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