British Airways expands West African services

British Airways is increasing its West African schedule, adding a fourth weekly flight to Sierra Leone and Liberia. The announcement came just nine months after the airline started operating on the routes and will add 33 per cent more capacity to between Freetown, Monrovia and London. The flight will arrive at Terminal 5 at 16h00 on a Friday evening, allowing same-day connections to Washington; saving the need for an overnight transit and visa. The flight timing also permits better connections to a host of other US and Canadian cities, as well as UK domestic destinations. The new service starts on 31 October using Boeing 767 aircraft in a three-cabin configuration; World Traveller, World Traveller Plus and Club World. The flight will be on sale from Tuesday 11 June. “It is unusual to add more flights so soon after starting a new route, but we’re responding to strong demand in these fast-growing West-African economies. In scheduling the flight, we’ve taken into account feedback from our customers about onward connections and on which days they would prefer to fly,” according to Gavin Halliday, General Manager for Africa and Europe. For Halliday, British Airways has substantially increased its African network adding three destinations and 21 services since acquiring BMI just over a year ago. It also recently announced an increase in its schedule to Marrakech from daily to 10 flights a week and a third weekly service to Agadir. These services start at the end of October. In East and Southern Africa, it has upped the Nairobi frequencies to eight a week. In South Africa, it confirmed three additional frequencies to Johannesburg on top of the existing double-daily schedule. “The acquisition of BMI has enabled us to expand our flying programme in Africa to serve 18 routes in 15 countries. We now fly to more places, more often than we ever have before in the 80 years we have served the continent. These flights link growing African destinations to London and provide onward connections to the world’s business capitals,” Halliday further stated. Culled from Tribune