Wondering Where BA Will Fly The A380 Next? It’s Probably Not Where You Were Expecting!

British Airways A380

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I recently flew on a British Airways Airbus A380 aircraft on a flight from the US to the UK (more on that in a few days) primarily so that I could try out the product and the service. I booked the flight when it occurred to me that I hadn’t yet flown on a BA A380 despite British Airways putting them into service as far back as 2013.

British Airways A380Image courtesy of Mohd Imran via Flickr

The problem has been that British Airways tends to fly it’s A380s to and from destinations served by airlines that offer me better options. The current A380 destinations list looks like this:

  • Hong Kong
  • Johannesburg
  • London
  • Los Angeles
  • Miami
  • San Francisco
  • Singapore
  • Washington

For flights from/to the US I’m almost always going to choose American Airlines over BA because of the 8 systemwide upgrades they give me every year – yes, even if it means making a stopover (that rules out half of the routes already!). I’m always going to pick Cathay Pacific over BA for a flight to Hong Kong (better service and better product) and I’d far rather fly Singapore Airlines to their home base for similar reasons. That leaves Johannesburg, and that’s a city that’s so way down on my list of places to visit that I may not get there this lifetime.

Well, today, British Airways announced a new route for their A380. Was it to be Sydney? Shanghai? Dallas? No.

The next British Airways A380 route from London will be to….Vancouver.

Who saw that coming?

The route will commence 1 May 2016 The new route flight numbers and times are (H.T. Business Traveller):

BA085 – LHR (17:15) – YVR (08:40)

BA084 – YVR (20:50) – LHR (14:00)

The A380 will replace the 747 that used to fly that route and the other 747 that currently flies the London to Vancouver route (BA086/BA087) is also being taken elsewhere (scrapyard?) in favour of a 777-200.

British Airways A380

While I’m happy for the people of Vancouver that they finally have an A380 flying in and out of their city (I believe this will be the first) I can’t say I’m particularly excited about the announcement. London-Sydney would have been something to get excited about (although I’d probably still favour Singapore Airlines or Cathay Pacific!)

On the positive side of things; award availability has traditionally been better out of Vancouver than out of Los Angeles (I’m not sure about San Francisco) so the addition of more capacity to the YVR-LHR route isn’t exactly going to do that any harm (you’ll still have those lovely surcharges though). And, for UK based flyers wanting to get to the West Coast, this may be a good option before connecting down into the US.

Taking a look at award availability right now, there’s quite a bit of it about – even on the inaugural flight (click to enlarge):

British Airways A380 Vancouver

Just the 62,500 Avios & $540 one way (anyone know how you type an emoticon for an eye-roll?)

British Airways A380 Vancouver

Fore more information on the British Airways A380 you can check out their dedicated page here.

 

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