BRITISHMidland is axing its daily flights from Heathrow to Copenhagen, Oslo and Bergen on March 28 to free up slots for new services with Star Alliance partner Lufthansa.
The current flights are operated under a codeshare agreement with SAS, which also serves Copenhagen and Oslo but does not operate its own service to Bergen. British Midland is to start thrice-daily flights for the German carrier to Hanover and Stuttgart on the same day it ends its Scandinavian routes (Travel Weekly January 27).
Under the alliance, British Midland is expected to operate more Lufthansa routes later in the year from Heathrow, Manchester and Birmingham. A spokeswoman said British Midland and SAS are talking to each other about new agreements to run alongside existing links from Manchester which route passengers through Heathrow.”We are still in discussions with SAS, but have no plans to go back on these routes.”
In the meantime, SAS is to make up for the loss of flights at Heathrow by increasing services from Stansted. British Midland is also understood to be looking at starting Stansted flights, which are likely to be in co-operation with SAS.
The ending of Heathrow flights to the three cities mean British Midland only serves Scandinavia with daily flights to Copenhagen from Edinburgh and on the oil route between Aberdeen and Denmark’s Esbjerg.