British Airways has just announced their 23rd US destination (they operate more routes to the US than any other European airline), which has been speculated for quite a while. Starting March 27, 2017, British Airways will launch 4x weekly flights between London Heathrow and New Orleans. The flights will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, with the following schedule:
London to New Orleans departing 3:40PM arriving 7:40PM
New Orleans to London departing 9:10PM arriving 12:00PM (+1 day)
The flight will be operated by a Boeing 787-8, featuring 35 business class, 25 premium economy, and 154 economy seats.
This route represents New Orleans’ first nonstop transatlantic route in 35 years, so it’s big news for the region. Interestingly Condor will also be launching flights between New Orleans and Frankfurt starting next May, so it’s cool that they’ll be getting two transatlantic links in such a short timeframe.
This route seems like it has the potential to do pretty well for British Airways. New Orleans is a popular vacation destination with Europeans, while there’s also a sizable market in New Orleans that could benefit from a nonstop link to Europe.
Interestingly British Airways just recently announced that they’re discontinuing their flight between London and Chengdu as of January 2017, which is also operated by a 787. So while Chengdu being cut and New Orleans being added aren’t necessarily related, I guess that quite easily explains where the availability for the 787 is coming from.
If you’re interested in booking this flight, keep in mind that British Airways has a policy where they make two business class award seats available as soon as a route becomes bookable, so you should have no trouble snagging award seats on this flight once it becomes bookable. The catch, however, is that British Airways’ business class product isn’t great, and there are also hefty carrier imposed surcharges of $800+ roundtrip on award tickets, so it won’t be cheap.
Is anyone excited about British Airways’ new route between London and New Orleans?
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