Sabre Corporation has integrated British Airways’ New Distribution Capability (NDC) content in Sabre’s travel marketplace. Sabre-connected travel agencies worldwide can now search, book, and service NDC offers alongside traditional ATPCO/EDIFACT fare options. Sabre travel agents can now easily manage British Airways’ offers and orders via Sabre Red 360, Sabre Red Launchpad, and the Sabre Offer and Order APIs. British Airways’ Chief Commercial Officer, Colm Lacy, said: “We want to give customers a seamless digital-first retailing experience, so we’re pleased to extend access to our exclusive NDC content.” This will open up even more ways for agencies to search and book, all whilst providing a more personalised experience for customers.” Currently, thousands of agencies in over 150 countries use Sabre’s NDC capabilities for dynamic airline content. “Sabre is proud to continue leading the way in NDC adoption. Our partnership with BA demonstrates our commitment to building a modern travel marketplace,” said Kathy Morgan, SVP, Distribution Experience, Sabre Travel Solutions.

British Airways has formally unveiled its newest refurbished airport lounge at Sea-Tac. The Seattle lounge has opened its doors following an extensive refurbishment, becoming the latest to offer an improved pre-flight customer experience. It joins Singapore, Washington, Lagos and London Gatwick, which have all been given a new look and feel over the last nine months. Airport lounge refreshes were carried out in Edinburgh, London Heathrow Terminal 5B and Heathrow Terminal 3 in 2023. The airline’s lounge at Seattle Tacoma International Airport has been designed with Pacific Northwest touches. It now features a completely redesigned food servery area offering a comprehensive range of hot and cold items, a dedicated à la carte dining experience for First customers and work-friendly focus pods. A brand-new full-service bar has also been installed. British Airways also recently completed the refresh of its lounge in Singapore, with a brand-new à la carte Concorde Dining area, bespoke British furniture, locally inspired fabrics, and newly designed menus. British Airways’ Chief Customer Officer, Calum Laming, said: “We announced our £7bn transformation programme last year and promised to improve the customer experience both on the ground and in the air.” “Just like our customers and colleagues, each lounge is unique. Customers can expect to see nods to our British heritage blended seamlessly with features that celebrate the locality of the destination.” British Airways is opening new lounges in Miami and Dubai this year while Boston and Glasgow airport lounges will be refreshed.

British Airways is set to acquire the Boeing hangar facility and MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) business at London Gatwick. This will secure jobs at the site and expand BA’s presence at the airport, BA says. The airline says it will benefit customers by bringing additional skills, expertise and facilities into the business which support the BA operations at Gatwick. The acquisition will create a new wholly-owned engineering subsidiary called British Airways Engineering Gatwick (BAEG). BAEG will join BA’s existing engineering operations in South Wales (BAEW) and Glasgow (BAMG). Current Boeing staff who work at the facility will, subject to a consultation process, be transferred to the new subsidiary in Q2 of this year. Longer-term, BA says it expects to expand the new facility at Gatwick. British Airways Chief Technical Officer, Andy Best, said: “This will help us to be the very best in the business by bringing in the skills and expertise of former Boeing colleagues and adding a large, modern hangar to our portfolio of Engineering facilities.” “It will support the reliability of our entire fleet, which is good news for our customers and colleagues.” The Boeing facility will significantly boost British Airways’ engineering operation at Gatwick. This includes continuing minor maintenance on 777 aircraft and some scheduled heavy maintenance work on its A320/321 fleet. Additionally, it will enhance its capacity to carry out unscheduled repair work, as well as providing additional maintenance cover. It will reduce the need to ferry aircraft to other operational bases.

British Airways has unveiled its brand-new First seat. The new cabin forms part of the airline’s A380 retrofit plans, which is expected to take to the skies by mid-2026. The airline’s new First has been designed for a feel of a modern luxury hotel, BA says. The new seat is ultra-wide (36.5inches), with a bed length of 79 inches. It features a multi-purpose ottoman and stowable table, plus a 32-inch 4K TV screen and adjustable mood lighting. The seat can be adjusted. For customers in the centre of the cabin, the divider slides open to create a shared lounge space, and the stowable tables mean customers can enjoy ‘buddy dining’ in the seat with their travel companion. Customers can now simply wheel their luggage into their personal luggage space. The suite has window blinds, activated by buttons on the internal control panel for all three windows per seat. The soft panelling inside the seat also help with acoustics and absorbing sound. British Airways’ Chief Customer Officer, Calum Laming, said: “We’re incredibly proud to launch the next era of First that pushes the boundaries of comfort, luxury and modernity. The airline has taken feedback from colleagues and customers to help shape the design elements and specific features. British Airways is the only European carrier from the UK to offer a First product on transatlantic flights. Customers travelling in First enjoy access to lounges, fast-track security and use of the First Wing at Heathrow.  

A British Airways pilot has suddenly passed away during a layover between flights in the Caribbean. It happened during the BA crew’s layover at a St Lucia hotel. The 47-year-old Senior First Officer collapsed in a public area of the hotel in front of other guests. As a result, British Airways cancelled flight BA2158, due to depart from St Lucia to London Gatwick the next day. The pilot, who hasn’t yet been named, was 47 and a popular member of the BA flight crew team. “Our thoughts and condolences are with the family and friends of our colleague at this difficult time,” the airline said. 

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British Airways has again slammed the brakes on flights to Israel. It halted flights for an initial two days until Thursday due to the escalation with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The airline is monitoring the situation and will ultimately resume Israel flights when it is safe to do so. "We've taken the operational decision to cancel our flights to and from Tel Aviv up to and including Thursday, 26 September," the airline said. “Safety is always our top priority, and we’re contacting customers to advise them of their travel options.” AZAL Azerbaijan Airlines, Wizz Air and Poland based Lot also cancelled flights. "Due to the recent escalation, we've temporarily suspended our routes to Tel Aviv and Amman. We're in touch with customers affected by this change, and we're keeping a close eye on the situation," Wizz Air said in a statement. 

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With tensions continuing to escalate, more airlines have cancelled Israel flights again, including British Airways and Wizz Air. BA said it will halt Israel flights from London Heathrow until at least Wednesday this week. Wizz Air is also ‘temporarily suspending flights to and from Israel’. Both airlines reintroduced flights to Tel Aviv earlier this year. “We’ve been continually monitoring the situation in the Middle East and have taken the operational decision to suspend our flights up to and including Wednesday 28 August,” a BA spokesperson said. “We’re contacting customers to advise them of their travel options.” So far, Wizz Air hasn’t given a timeline when it expects to resume Israel flights. In both cases, booked passengers can rebook or apply for a refund. There has been tit-for-tat air strikes and missile raids between Israel and Hezbollah. Virgin Atlantic said after a ‘security and safety assessment’ its current pause on Israel flights has been extended to September 25. “We have taken the difficult decision to delay the restart of our Tel Aviv services.” “Our teams will be in contact with those affected to discuss options, which include rebooking or a full refund.” 

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British Airways will scrap Beijing flights after the summer, citing the increasing cost of being forced to avoid Russian airspace. The airline, as well as others in Europe, still have to detour and fly longer routes to get to the far east. This makes it more costly in terms of fuel and crew time on duty. Other airlines including those from China can fly over Russian airspace giving them a commercial advantage. British Airways resumed Beijing flights in 2023, although demand has remained ‘weak’ CFO Nicholas Cadbury told investors last month. The airline said Beijing flights will be halted until November 2025, but will be under review. In addition, BA is cutting one of its two daily Hong Kong flights but will continue operating Shanghai flights. Virgin Atlantic recently said it will scrap Shanghai flights in October for the same reason. 

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  Finnair and IAG Loyalty have expanded their partnership, offering customers the opportunity to link their airline loyalty programme accounts. The new relationship will, for the first time, allow members to link their Finnair Plus and British Airways Executive Club accounts. This will allow the transfer of Avios across the respective airline loyalty accounts. This move is the next step of Finnair officially adopting Avios as its loyalty currency. From today, customers will have the ability to transfer Avios between accounts by simply logging into their Finnair Plus account at finnair.com, and choosing to link their British Airways Executive Club account. British Airways customers will also be able to easily transfer their Avios to Finnair, by logging into their Executive Club account on www.ba.com. Members will be able to transfer Avios as often as they wish, up to any value. For example, BA members can upgrade their travel class on a Finnair flight, or vice versa. The new initiative will also give customers increased opportunities to collect and use Avios, with access to both Finnair Plus awards and partners, but also to those of the British Airways Executive Club. Pekka Antila, Finnair Head of Loyalty, said: "As we continue on our journey into a new era with Finnair Plus, we are excited to be joining forces with British Airways.” "Customers will also enjoy a new and expanded range of opportunities to collect and use Avios.” "We know it will prove popular with customers in the UK, Finland, and across the world." Customers will also now have the option to link their British Airways Executive Club account and Qatar Airways Privilege Club or Iberia Plus account. Finnair Plus is now spend-based and includes more collect-and-use opportunities with Avios partners and offers extra rewards when reaching certain point limits within their existing tier. 

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British Airways has launched a trio of new European holiday routes as it returns to London Stansted. Nice, Florence, and Ibiza flights are operated by BA CityFlyer on Saturdays and Sundays on Embraer 190 aircraft. The flights will offer Club Europe and Euro Traveller cabin service. The Nice, Florence, and Ibiza flights join the recently announced new route to Split in Croatia from September. BA also continues its weekly Sunday charter service between London Stansted and Calvi this summer in conjunction with Corsican Places. It is the first time that British Airways has offered scheduled flights from London Stansted since before the pandemic. It’s the fourth London airport to be served by the flag carrier. The first flights to each of the three destinations took off on Sunday May 19. Ciaran Brannigan, London Stansted’s Commercial Director, said: “These new services to Ibiza, Florence and Nice are strong additions to our route network, which now covers over 200 destinations across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.” 

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British Airways has released details of its next long-haul Avios-Only flight. It will jet off to the Caribbean sunshine for half term next year. The Barbados flight will depart from London Heathrow on 15 February 2025, with the return also an Avios-only flight seven days later on 22 February 2025. It comes as BA celebrates 70 years of flying to the Caribbean island. Customers can purchase seats on the flight from £150 + 70,000 Avios. World Traveller Plus seats are from £330 + 135,000 Avios, and Club World (business class) seats are available from £450 + 200,000 Avios. British Airways launched Avios-only flights last year, with the first long-haul flight to Dubai selling out across all cabins in less than nine hours after it went on sale. Avios-only flights are made up of 100% Reward Seats. For all other flights, British Airways guarantees a minimum of 12 and 14 Reward Seats on standard short and long-haul flights respectively. In addition to the Barbados flight, BA also published an Avios-only return flight from London to Geneva for February 2025. More than 30 Avios-only flights have been put on sale since the initiative launched last year, including to Corfu, Ibiza and Nice. 

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British Airways is set to resume two key nonstop routes to Southeast Asia. BA will restart Bangkok flights from October. The airline will operate three direct Bangkok flights a week from London Gatwick on Boeing 777-200ER aircraft. The following month sees the return of direct Kuala Lumpur flights on Dreamliner aircraft. This route will depart London Heathrow daily. British Airways is also returning to Abu Dhabi on April 20, as well as welcoming Agadir in Morrocco on March 31 and adding Izmir in Turkey to its network on May 18. At the same time, British Airways announced a comprehensive £7 billion transformation plan across many areas of the business. CEO Sean Doyle outlined the modernisation plan, covering the onboard experience, updated IT systems and focusing on sustainability. “We’re on a journey to a better BA for our people and for our customers, underpinned by a transformation programme that will see us invest £7 billionn over the next two years,” Doyle said. BA will overhaul its website and app offering more personalization. Initial changes will start to roll out by the end of the year. 

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