British Airways has just announced their latest US route, which is one that most of us probably weren't expecting. British Airways will be launching flights between London Heathrow and San Jose, California, as of May 4, 2016. The new route will go on sale starting tomorrow, Thursday, August 27, 2015. The London to San Jose…
Continue reading: British Airways Starting Flights Between London And San Jose
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Living in SJC, I wish my recent ACC-SFO-ACC flights were booked via SJC instead. I wonder if I can get this changed. Unlikely though.
I don't really see the need, but I guess it will save some people some time and hopefully help in lowering prices from SFO.
Good news as competition is always to be encouraged. However, these new planes will still have the sub-par ying-yang J seats, which are really not reflective of what J should be these days. BA has been left behind with their hard product decisions.
When I first read the headline, I thought you were talking about the San Jose, Costa Rica service that BA announced recently as well.
Now that BA is flying to both San Jose de Costa Rica and San Jose, California, it gives passengers more opportunity to accidentally fly to the wrong San Jose, just as one BA passenger already accidentally flew to Grenada in the Caribbean when he was trying to get to Granada, Spain.
This is great news for SJC, although I'm unlikely to use the service.
One thing, I don't think the statement "This is an exciting new route, and represents San Jose’s first nonstop flight to Europe" is accurate. As I recall, AA had a very short-lived flight from SJC to CDG in 2001, cancelled almost immediately following 9/11 (along with Taipei).
Greg
Thanks for posting this. If it sticks around, I'll use this flight. What's surprising is the current lack of transatlantic / transcon flights from SJC. Given the tech scene and that San Jose is the 10th largest city in the U.S. shouldn't we have more long haul air traffic?
Maybe it's a reputation thing? When I tell people I live here they'll say "Oh, I have a friend in Los Angeles" or "Now where is that?" etc. So when I'm abroad I usually just say I'm from SF.
Maybe I learned this from you: Supposedly the reason United and other carriers don't have a lot of transcons / transoceanic flights out of SJC is that the bay area is a zero sum game. That is, if you add an SJC-JFK flight, you'll get some traction but you'll mostly just lose SFO-JFK customers. So they focus on one airport for large scale operations.
Finally all that lobbying of BA has paid off! No more stressful Friday night dashes up the jammed 101 to get the 284 or 286. Great news!!!
AA also flew San Jose to Narita years ago. On MD-11 aircraft, then 777 and also 767.
This is great news as I was planning a trip to the UK next summer! Those trips up the 101 can be a drag....
Really not understanding who they plan to sell F to on this route, but hoping it means it will be a decent source of award seats to Europe and beyond.
BA 787-9 seat map. F seems to be slight angled, not straight forward. All seat faces the same too.
Excellent award availability in J, but not a single F seat from what I can tell