A380 to return *

According to an official statement British Airways (BA) is planning to return its fleet of 12 Airbus A380s into service.

As part of the pilot and cabin crew familiarisation programme some of the aircraft will be used on short-haul European service but BTN has been unable to learn which flights and whether the First Class will be used.

On long-haul BA says that the A380 will be initially operating to Dubai, Los Angeles and Miami. 

The airline is increasing flights to the US by adding more services to key cities including New York, with up to eight daily services by December.  

The airline will also be operating double-daily services to Boston, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Washington and Toronto, as well as daily services to Atlanta, Denver, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Seattle and Vancouver.

In addition to frequency increases, in October and November BA will restart services to Austin, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Orlando, San Diego and Tampa.  In December the airline will also start flying to Nashville and New Orleans once again, both of which proved to be a hit with customers when they first launched.

Looking ahead to Christmas, BA is adding extra services to winter sun destinations including the Caribbean islands, Maldives and Mauritius.

This October the airline has added 13,000 additional seats to short-haul family leisure destinations and has increased flights to popular European cities.

Closer to home, BA has increased flights to a number of short-haul destinations by adding 13,000 more seats to holiday hot spots for families to get away this October.

Popular leisure destinations Dalaman and Marrakech will appear on flight schedules again in time for the half-term, and brand-new services to the Turkish resort of Antalya will also be launching. Looking ahead to the winter, BA will be restarting a number of ski destinations including Grenoble, Innsbruck and Salzburg from December.

Elsewhere across its short-haul network BA will be increasing flights year-round to key European cities with 48 weekly services to Amsterdam, 35 to Dublin, 33 to Geneva, 28 to Milan and 21 to Berlin, Paris and Rome.

BA’s franchise Cityflyer, based at London City Airport, is expected to operate a schedule of 43 flights a week to Edinburgh, 33 to Dublin, 25 to Glasgow, 18 to Belfast, 16 to Amsterdam, 15 to Rotterdam, 15 to Berlin, 12 to Frankfurt, 12 to Dusseldorf and 11 to Zurich. The airline is also set to launch a new route from Belfast to Birmingham, as well as ski destination Salzburg, from London City and Southampton.

Also see British Airways long-haul in this week's BTN.

www.ba.com

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All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum

John Davidson, France

"As part of the pilot and cabin crew familiarisation programme some of the aircraft will be used on short-haul European service but BTN has been unable to learn which flights and whether the First Class will be used." Indeed, a one CDG-LHR flight it was a pleasant surprise to find my business class seat was in fact in an A380's first class. BA needed to give cabin crew more hours on an A380 so they could be certified. A first-class seat on short haul? Very pleasant.

John Davidson, France

The A380, which started service at about the same time as the B787, is great obviously for hub-to-hub service, and the Boeing for point-to-point. The latter is personally more attractive. My A380 experience with BA was from Dulles, and there was a technical problem. As I was in first class, there was an opportunity for banter with the cockpit crew, where the captain assured me that the ground crew was completely licensed to service the plane's engine. Yes, but like back surgery, wouldn't you want a doctor who'd performed the operation several times rather than just having learned it in medical school? In any case, and this is personal, the large size of the A380 is a bit overwhelming, everything from gate side to inside. And Airbus has stopped production of it hasn't it? Another sign of its lack of popularity.

Jim James, Dubai

I can’t say I am going to rush to change to British Airways for Dubai. They got it really wrong with the A380 layout. Emirates is much better, and I might even use Qatar now that one can fly between the two Gulf States.