British Airways UK head of sales Richard Tams and colleague Andrew Solum, who plan a round-the-world charity trip, have increased their fund-raising target to £15,000.
Tams said the pair have been overwhelmed by the support in the industry for their attempt to fly around the world on the network of Oneworld airline partners.
He and Solum, a management consultant and frequent flier, initially set a £10,000 target. They plan to donate the cash to joint BA-Comic Relief charity Flying Start.
They depart on September 15 from New York to Chicago on an American Airlines flight before joining a Japan Airlines service to Tokyo.
Tams and Solum then fly on to Hong Kong with JAL, from there to Kuala Lumpur with Cathay Pacific and on to Singapore with Malaysia Airlines, which is due to join Oneworld at the end of this year.
From Singapore, the pair fly to London with Qantas, arriving early on September 18. BA then carry the pair to Amman, from where they fly to Frankfurt with Royal Jordanian, then with Air Berlin to Berlin and back to Frankfurt.
Tams and Solum then join a LAN flight to Madrid and fly to Moscow with Iberia before transferring to an S7 flight to St Petersburg.
September 22 should see the final leg of their journey with a Finnair flight to Helsinki, then on to Heathrow to connect to the final flight: a BA service to New York.
Tams said: “I’ve done a lot of flying in my time at BA, but never so many destinations in such a short period. We’ll be going through 16 airports, flying on ten different aircraft types and visiting 11 countries on 12 airlines.
“The travel trade has been really supportive and we’ve already hit £8,000 of our target, but we want to reach at least £15,000 so we’re asking everyone to dig deep.”
You can pledge money at http://donate.ba-flyingstart.com/funraiser/roundtheoneworld