British Airways’ newest route from Cape Town over the Christmas season, adds extra seats to the popular & much-in-demand route to London.
The UK winter 2016 season will see British Airways add a fourth three class Boeing 777 aircraft to its Gatwick fleet, bringing the total number of Boeing 777s at the London airport to 12.
Starting November 25 2016, BA’s customers from the Garden Route will have access, via their closest international departure airport, Cape Town. These three extra direct flights a week are probably the savvy flier’s best kept secret, due to Gatwick’s state of the art public transport links.
Gatwick has grown over the past 80 years, ever since the first flight to Paris in 1936. Today it has become the World’s most efficient, single-runway airport and serves over 41 million passengers a year. The airport is south of Central London with excellent public transport links, including the Gatwick Express, and is part of the Oyster contactless payment network.
The launch of the new fleet of Gatwick Express trains marks the start of a step change in rail services at the airport – with two new fleets of trains and digital technology – doubling capacity and allowing a train to leave the station for London every 3 minutes by 2018.
Gatwick is already the best connected airport by rail in Europe – linking 129 stations directly – and the improvements will see up to 175 stations directly connected to the airport. This will bring 15 million people – almost a quarter of UK population – within 60 minutes of Gatwick by rail.
The new UK winter only Gatwick flights will increase choice for customers who can already choose to fly from Cape Town to Heathrow, where the airline offers two flights a day. Cape Town is one of four long-haul destinations British Airways is launching from Gatwick this year, with flights to Costa Rica, a daily service to New York’s JFK and flights to Lima having already commenced.
Lynne Embleton, British Airways’ managing director at Gatwick said: “We are incredibly excited to be the only airline to offer direct services from both Gatwick and Heathrow to this hugely popular destination (Cape Town), while adding another long haul route to our rapidly growing network.”
The three BA2065 Cape Town bound flights depart Gatwick on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 18.00, arriving at 07.50 the following morning. The Gatwick bound flights BA2064 depart Cape Town on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 19.10, touching down at 05.05 the next morning.
Bookings can be made online at ba.com or your local travel agent.