BRITISHMidland is axing Heathrow flights to Frankfurt, Prague and Warsaw and replacing them with its first flights to Italy and Madrid.
The three services will be dropped before May 2 when four daily Heathrow flights start to Rome, Milan and the Spanish capital.
British Midland chairman Sir Michael Bishop said the Prague and Warsaw flights are being dropped due to difficulties in building up traffic to non-European Union, less-liberalised, countries.
He said Frankfurt was going because the route is already served by Star Alliance partner Lufthansa.
“It is better for British Midland to focus its short-haul operations within the European Union, on major cross-border routes,” Sir Michael said.
The airline is keeping its daily Heathrow-Budapest flight.
Sir Michael did not reveal fares on the new routes but did pledge they would be 35% lower than existing economy and business tickets.
While unveiling the new routes, Sir Michael attacked the impasse in open-skies talks which is blocking British Midland from launching transatlantic flights from Heathrow.