British Airways is to increase its winter schedule between Scotland and London’s Heathrow Airport, operating almost 200 flights a week from October 27, 2019 to March 28, 2020 next year.

The frequency increases on services from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen to London Heathrow will start in the week beginning October 27.

Weekly flights between Edinburgh and London Heathrow will go up by three to 69. The airline will operate 63 return services a week between Glasgow and Heathrow, an increase of five compared to winter 2018/2019. Services between Aberdeen and Heathrow will increase by three a week to 50. British Airways has already announced that it will also operate a double daily service on the Inverness – Heathrow route from October 2019.

ABERDEEN, UK:
New British Airways lounge at Aberdeen International Airport in Scotland on 11 May 2018
(Picture by Nick Morrish/British Airways)

Above Photo: Aberdeen Lounge.

The result of the changes will see the number of British Airways flights between Scotland’s four principal airports and Heathrow increase to 196 a week, 11 more than winter 2018/19.

British Airways operates more services a week to and from Scotland via Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports than any other part of its global route network.

All photos by British Airways.

British Airways is rolling out the next phase of its investment in its premium economy, World Traveller Plus cabin, by introducing a range of new amenities for customers.

New amenity kits using material from recycled plastic bottles will be introduced from July 1 and will include all the essential items travellers need for a flight, including an eyeshade, soft socks, a pen, a toothbrush and toothpaste and lip balm from the Scaramouche & Fandango range.

More comfort will be delivered through a stylish new quilt and cushion with the herringbone design that is synonymous with the pattern that runs throughout the airline’s First cabin.

The new amenities, which are set to take to the skies from July 1*, follow improvements made earlier this year to the World Traveller Plus cabin including delicious new menus with a focus on seasonal ingredients.

Carolina Martinoli, British Airways’ Director of Brand and Customer Experience, said: “We’re investing £6.5bn for our customers and these improvements to World Traveller Plus mark part of that investment.

The airline will also be introducing alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails to the World Traveller Plus bar menu. These will include a Gin Fizz or Bloody Mary for a cocktail, or a Citrus Twist for a non-alcoholic alternative.

Customers travelling in World Traveller Plus have the ability to pre-order their main meal up to 24 hours before departure, guaranteeing their first choice for their main meal on flights departing from London. Customers can select this option by using the ‘manage my booking’ tool on ba.com.

Customers can choose to cut the cost of  flights by using Avios part payment. They are able to pick from a range of savings by destination and cabin. Customers making the most of this are still able to collect Avios and Tier Points on their bookings.

2019 is British Airways’ Centenary year. The airline is investing £6.5 billion for customers over five years, including new aircraft, new cabins, new catering, new lounges, WiFi, and new routes.

All photos by British Airways.

British Airways made this announcement:

To celebrate Father’s Day (this year in the UK on June 16) British Airways surprised some of its fathers and their sons and daughters by offering them the chance to work together on a special long-haul flight.

The flight, from Heathrow to San Diego in California, departed with help from father and daughter and father and son teams working across the airline’s operation, from check-in to gate agents, operations managers to engineers. The flight was then operated entirely by fathers and their sons and daughters – both cabin crew and pilots. None of the pairs had ever worked together before, making the flight an extra special experience.

Ian Romanis, British Airways’ Head of Mixed Fleet Cabin Crew said: “So many of our people have been inspired to work for British Airways because of the experiences of other family members and this was a fantastic opportunity to create a really special moment for everyone involved. It’s great to be able to reward the fathers in our teams who have inspired the next generation of aviation enthusiasts.”

The team working on board the flight shared how they came to follow in their fathers’ footsteps.

Lois Mackerness, British Airways’ cabin crew, said her Dad has always inspired her:

“Growing up seeing the pride and passion my Dad has for caring for his customers really encouraged me to work hard and make sure that I love what I do too.  It was great to work on board together. I picked up some of his top tips that he’s learnt through his many years of flying.”

British Airways’ Cabin Crew, Andrew Obal, said of working alongside his son:

“With both myself and my son often working in different time zones and countries around the world, it sometimes means that we celebrate special days like birthdays and Christmas on different dates. Father’s Day is of extra importance for us as my son is now a father too, so being a part of this flight and watching my son serve our customers was such a special moment.”

British Airways Captain, Martin Ewins, spoke of the enjoyment of working on the same aircraft as his daughter:

“For 20 years my daughter watched me fly around the world and I’m so proud that I’ve inspired her to do the same as cabin crew. This is the first time we’ve ever worked on the same aircraft together and that’s such a special feeling. I was incredibly proud of her, and from the moment we stepped onto the plane we weren’t father and daughter, but two members of a flying crew getting ready to operate a flight. Despite everyone’s excitement about the flight, that professionalism was shown by the whole team on board.”

Photo: British Airways.

British Airways has made this announcement:

• British Airways is using AI to improve the airline’s operational efficiency, maintenance and  to predict on board food uptake
• Airline is also trialling automated vehicles at Heathrow
• Chairman and CEO, Alex Cruz, is encouraging AI experts to come up with new ideas to make travel more frictionless

With one of its 300 aircraft taking off from somewhere in the world every 90 seconds, British Airways runs a hugely complex global operation, 24-hours a day. Today, its Chairman and CEO, Alex Cruz, laid down the challenge to artificial intelligence experts to help him transform the customer journey.

Mr Cruz asked delegates at the AI Summit at London Tech Week to help his team of 80 data scientists offer customers new, intuitive services, change the way tickets are sold, guarantee no bags are ever misplaced and replace airport queues with virtual ones.

British Airways’ Chairman and CEO encouraged entrepreneurs and start-ups to submit proposals to its parent company International Airlines Group’s (IAG) accelerator programme, Hangar 51, which sees successful applicants embedded in the heart of the business working side by side with an international team of mentors and experts from across IAG. The 10-week accelerator nurtures start-ups with a broad range of technologies, enabling them to develop and test their products on a global scale.

Mr Cruz also outlined some of the advancements the airline is making using AI to improve the service it offers its customers.

Via Hangar 51, British Airways is currently working with technology start-up Assaia. Its intelligent software captures on video every moment from when an aircraft arrives at the airport to its departure, helping airline workers to see the numerous tasks going on around the aircraft (fuelling, cleaning, baggage and catering loading and unloading) and alerting them to issues that could delay the flight’s departure. ​

British Airways is also trialling driverless vehicles at Heathrow. The luggage of customers travelling on certain flights from Terminal 5 is now being driven from baggage belts to aircraft on driverless baggage trucks, speeding up the delivery of bags. ​

As our skies become busier, British Airways is trialling a computer system which looks at flight plans, pulls up to the minute data from the Global Air Traffic Control database, and suggests quicker routes – reducing delays for customers. ​

And the airline’s team of AI specialists has designed and created machine learning algorithms to adjust the volume of fresh food being loaded onto individual flights to help meet customer demand and minimise waste.

British Airways’ Chairman and CEO said: “It is important that we deliver the best service to our customers and that’s why we are looking for the best people to help us. We have a big team of specialists but British Airways and IAG Digital are open to new ideas about how we can use AI to try to reduce flight delays, eliminate airport queues or create a more personalised service for our customers – providing them with relevant in-the-moment travel updates or a unique service, like reserving their favourite seat or serving their favourite meal.”

British Airways has made this announcement:

British Airways is celebrating its centenary year in style with the launch of its own English Sparkling Wine.  Customers will be able to enjoy the bubbles from the award-winning Hattingley Valley from July 1 and raise a toast to the airline’s milestone birthday.

British Airways’ team of wine experts worked with Hattingley Valley’s talented crew of wine makers to create a 2015 Blanc de Noir that will be exclusively available to customers from this summer.

The wine is a Pinot Noir dominant blend that will work perfectly at altitude.  The grapes were hand-harvested and gently pressed, before being bottled at Hattingley Valley’s winery in Hampshire.

The premium sparkling wine will be available exclusively in British Airways’ First cabin as well as the airline’s flagship lounge, The Concorde Room in Heathrow Terminal 5, from July 1. Get a very first taste of the new sparkling at the winery’s Mad Hattingley Tea Party pop-up at TASTE of London in Regents Park from June 19 to June 23.

Founded in 2008, family-owned Hattingley Valley specialises in making premium English Sparkling Wine with distinctively rich flavours. A hallmark of their style is fermenting a small proportion of each year’s wine in oak barrels, creating award-winning wines including the Classic Reserve, Rose and Blanc de Blancs.

British Airways has released a series of centenary editions in partnership with British brands during its centenary. The airline has partnered with Scottish craft brewers, BrewDog, who created a transatlantic IPA for customers and Fife-based distillers, InchDairnie have created a limited-edition whisky. British Airways has also teamed up with Marmite, who have created a centenary branded jar. As Marmite is the most confiscated brand at airport security, the travel-sized jar is conveniently sized to fit within the liquid allowance.

Photos by British Airways.

To mark British Airways’ centenary this year, the airline has opened its archive collection to the public for the first time to share never-before-seen memories of key moments from its 100-year history.

The British Airways Centenary Archive Collection explores moments from the very first international flight with its predecessor airline, Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited (AT&T) on August 25, 1919 carrying a journalist, Devonshire cream, leather and several brace of grouse, to the latest images of its brand-new Club Suite.

The collection, which will be hosted on a special centenary hub – ba.com/100/centenary-collection, showcases hundreds of historical photos and videos, as well as articles explaining how the British Airways we know today evolved from a single-engine De Havilland aircraft flying the world’s first daily international scheduled flight to Paris, to become a leading airline flying more than 45 million customers a year to more than 200 destinations across the world.

The digital collection includes images and videos of aircraft throughout the decades, close-up photographs of uniforms worn by generations of cabin crew and pilots, behind-the-scenes memorabilia from Royal and Olympic flights, and artefacts from Concorde – the most famous aircraft that ever flew.

The reveal of the Centenary Archive Collection comes just days after British Airways had the honour of hosting a visit from Her Majesty the Queen at the airline’s headquarters at Heathrow, to mark the centenary.

British Airways will continue to develop and add to the site throughout its centenary year, including adding recollections written by current and retired colleagues and carefully preserved records, documents and images from its extensive archive.

Alex Cruz, British Airways’ Chairman and CEO, said: “Air travel has always been about connecting people around the world, and this website will share the stories, achievements and memories of 100 years of British Airways history.

“Since 1919, British Airways and its forerunners pioneered commercial air travel, and our Centenary Archive Collection will continue to evolve as we look forward to the next 100 years of aviation.”

The British Airways Heritage Collection is managed by retired British Airways’ colleagues based at the airline’s head office near Heathrow.  It comprises hundreds of thousands of documents and pieces of memorabilia from British Airways and its predecessor companies British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), British European Airwats (BEA), British South American Airways (BSAA) and the pre-war Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd.

British Airways is also hosting a range of activities and events throughout the year to mark its 100^th birthday. As well as looking back, the airline is also hosting BA 2119 – a programme, which will lead the debate on the future of flying and explore the future of sustainable aviation fuels, the aviation careers of the future and the customer experience of the future.

This year the airline has also unveiled four aircraft re-painted in heritage liveries as part of its Centenary celebrations – a British Overseas Airways Corporate (BOAC) liveried Boeing 747, an Airbus A319 in a British European Airways (BEA) livery, and two further Boeing 747 aircraft painted in the Negus and Landor livery designs.

The Centenary activity is taking place alongside the airline’s current five-year £6.5bn investment for customers. This includes the installation of the best quality WiFi and power in every seat, fitting 128 long-haul aircraft with new interiors and taking delivery of 72 new aircraft. The airline has also revealed a brand-new business class seat with direct aisle access, the Club Suite, which will debut on the Airbus A350 later this year.

British Airways flight BA 2167 into Tampa hit turbulence over Florida on Sunday, 21 were injured. Read the full report from NBC News Channel 8 in Tampa: CLICK HERE