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British Airways announced that it would be the first airline to operate a year-round direct flight from the UK to Portland, Oregon, almost exactly two years ago but because of a little thing called a coronavirus, the route never launched as planned. Now the route is back on the BA map and all things being equal, it will launch almost exactly two years late.
The British Airways Portland route
British Airways has confirmed that it will finally launch its route between London and Portland on 3 June 2022. As originally planned, the route will be operated 5x/week and this is what the schedule currently looks like:
BA267 LHR 15:10 – 16:50 PDX (Tue & Sun)
BA267 LHR 15:15 – 17:04 PDX (Mon, Wed & Fri)
BA266 PDX 18:45 – 12:10+1 day LHR (Mon, Tue, Wed & Fri)
BA266 PDX 18:50 – 12:15+1 day LHR (Sun)
No, I have no idea why all the departure times aren’t the same either!
The new BA route to/from Portland will be operated by a British Airways 787-8 Dreamliner which, unfortunately, means no First Class and, for the time being, no Club Suites either. On a more positive note, this route is bookable into December 2022 which suggests that it will operate as a year-round route as originally intended.
British Airways returns to Pittsburgh
After a hiatus caused by the pandemic, British Airways says that it plans to restart its route between London and Pittsburg from summer 2022. From 3 June 2022 (the same day the new route to Portland launches), British Airways will offer a 4x/week service between London Heathrow and Pittsburgh on the following schedule:
BA171 LHR 16:45 – 19:50 PIT (Tue, Wed, Fri & Sun)
BA170 PIT 21:50 – 10:10+1 day LHR (Tue, Wed, Fri & Sun)
This route will be operated by a British Airways 787-8 Dreamliner and at the time of writing, is set to operate year-round.
The British Airways 787-8 Dreamliner
The British Airways 787-8 Dreamliner offers the following 3-cabin configuration:
- Club World (Business Class) – 35 lie-flat seats
- World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy) – 25 seats
- World Traveller (Economy Class) – 154 seats
The Club World Cabin is still fitted with the incredibly outdated standard Club World seat…
…but that’s still a considerably better seat than anything you’ll find in the two cabins behind the frontmost cabin.
The World Traveller Plus (Premium Economy) cabin offer seats that are 18.5″ wide and which have 38″ of pitch (legroom) and that’s pretty standard for a transatlantic Premium Economy cabin (if you want the best Premium Economy transatlantic cabin fly with Virgin Atlantic on any aircraft other than its new A350).
The World Traveller cabin (Economy Class) offers seats that are just 17.5″ wide and which have just 31″ of pitch and while this is also pretty standard for transatlantic Economy Class, it’s also quite tight. Anyone of size will not be comfortable in these seats.
Portland Award Availability
British Airways long-haul awards always attract obnoxiously high surcharges but with its transatlantic partner (American Airlines) increasingly unwilling to release premium cabin saver awards, they’re often the only available option for those of us holding balances with oneworld loyalty programs.
At the time of writing, the British Airways Reward Flight Finder tool doesn’t appear to recognize that Portland is now on the BA flight map but a quick search using SeatSpy shows that there are at least 4 Club World (Business Class) seats available in each direction on a wide variety of dates between June and the end of the current booking period in December.
A few quick searches of individual dates on BA.com also show that Premium Economy and Economy Class awards are readily available too.
Bottom Line
Two years later than originally anticipated, British Airways is finally launching a new route between London Heathrow and Portland, Oregon. The new service will start on 3 June 2022 and bookings for this route are already being taken.
