Late last week I shared the rumor that British Airways was apparently shortly going to announce a new flight between Nashville and London. Well, that new route is now official.
As of May 16, 2018, British Airways will be launching 5x weekly flights between Nashville and London Heathrow using a Boeing 787-8. The flight will operate with the following schedule:
BA223 London to Nashville departing 3:45PM arriving 6:50PM
BA222 Nashville to London departing 8:20PM arriving 10:30AM (+1 day)
Per the press release, this will be British Airways’ 26th US destination from London next summer, and between the American and British Airways joint venture, the two airlines will operate 67 daily flights from London to the US… wow.
British Airways’ 787-8 features 214 seats, including 35 business class seats, 25 premium economy seats, and 154 economy seats.
Award availability on the new flight is excellent, as you’d expect. British Airways promises to always make two business class and four economy award seats available per flight, and it looks like those have all been loaded for the Nashville route. For example, here’s the American AAdvantage calendar for the route for next May & June:
Since this redemption is on British Airways, though, expect big carrier imposed surcharges — about $500 one-way.
It’s understood that this new route is being made possible by some concessions from the airport and city (read: subsidies, which US carriers find to be illegal and highly unethical when the Gulf carriers do it, even though they have no issues benefiting from it themselves).
While this is the only new route that British Airways is announcing for now, they are also adding capacity on three US routes next summer:
- British Airways’ daily flights to Phoenix and Philadelphia will be increased from 7x weekly to 10x weekly as of next summer
- One of British Airways’ two daily Chicago flights will be operated by an A380
Bottom line
This new route is exciting news for Nashville, as it will be the first scheduled transatlantic route that the airport has in this century. It’s impressive to see the number of US destinations that British Airways has been adding, presumably largely because of Norwegian’s growth.
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