British Airways launches flights to Puerto Rico for the first time since the late 1990s today following its first direct service to Buenos Aires on Sunday.
The new services came as a host of new routes and increased frequencies marked the start of summer flying schedules. BA now flies daily from Heathrow to Buenos Aires – a city it previously served via Sao Paulo – with the Brazilian city also enjoying its own daily service.
The carrier shrugged off concern about the level of Air Passenger Duty on fares to the Caribbean to increase the frequency of flights to the region as well as adding a twice-a-week Gatwick service to San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Mondays and Fridays.
The San Juan flight is operating via Antigua, with BA increasing its operation to the latter from five to six services a week. The airline has also increased services from Gatwick to Barbados from 10 to 12 a week, added a third weekly flight to Cancun, and increased services to Tampa from Gatwick to seven a week – up from five.
However, the number of weekly BA flights to Orlando has been cut from nine to seven. Elsewhere, easyJet began services from Gatwick to Amman in Jordan, flying three times a week on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. The carrier also launched Gatwick flights to Bologna.
BMI added services to Marrakech and Casablanca from Heathrow, while Swiss carrier SkyWork began flying between London City and Bern six days a week – excluding Saturday.
Ryanair launched additional routes from Birmingham, Bournemouth, Bristol, Doncaster, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds Bradford, Liverpool, Luton and Stansted. Flybe’s summer schedule offers seven new routes, including a weekly Belfast City-Guernsey service.