British Airways is resuming its flights between Islamabad and London from 2nd August after suspension of the operation for almost 2 months. Initially, BA will operate a schedule of 3 weekly flights and these will be operated from its London Heathrow base using a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. The flights will be operated on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. Departure from London Heathrow is at 21:30 and arrival at Islamabad International airport will be at 09:30.
In June when the airline stepped Pakistan flight operations it was flying out of Gatwick airport. This time as well the flights will initially operate from Heathrow but these will be transferred to Gatwick airport from October 30, 2022. The equipment is also scheduled to change from Boeing 787-8 to Boeing 777-200ER. There is no news about the resumption of Lahore flights as yet.
BA operated its last flight between Islamabad and London on the 14 of June as it announced the decision in February this year. The airline website is starting to book flights again. These days BA is using its codeshare with Qatar Airways to accommodate its passengers who were affected by this decision.
In September 2020 British Airways announced it will be expanding its flights to connect Lahore and UK for the first time ever. BA started its four-day-a-week BA 259, flight schedule on 14 October 2020. On 18 December 2018 British Airways announced that it will fly from Heathrow to Islamabad from June 2, 2019. Lahore flights were a likely outcome of this as well as the events that resulted in the termination of PIA’s TCO to Europe. In the absence of PIA and special support from the government, Virgin Atlantic started flights to Pakistan in a very short span of time. Virgin obtained all the permissions in a record time with special intervention from the Pakistani PM office. Virgin Atlantic operates flights from Lahore and Islamabad to Heathrow but it also operates a flight from Islamabad to Manchester.
