LONDON- British Airways (BA) will expand its long-haul network with six new routes between July 2026 and January 2027, spreading fresh services across London Heathrow Airport (LHR) and London Gatwick Airport (LGW). The oneworld carrier plans an average of 94 daily long-haul departures from the two London airports across the July 2026 to March 2027 period.
That schedule marks a 5% increase over the same months a year earlier, a notable rise for a mature airline that contends with severe slot shortages at Heathrow. By reworking its network and adjusting frequencies, BA has managed to grow long-haul flying from LHR by 6% despite those constraints, Simple Flying reported.
British Airways Six Fresh Long-Haul Additions
Three of the new routes will operate from Heathrow and three from Gatwick. Two of them simply move between London airports rather than opening entirely new city links: the San José and Tampa services shift from Gatwick to Heathrow. Nothing changes at the city level, but both become brand-new to BA’s network at the airport level.
The full list of additions is as follows:
- LHR to Orlando (MCO) launches July 21, 2026, with three weekly Boeing 777-200ER services. The route was last served in 2022 and complements BA’s existing Gatwick-Orlando operation.
- LGW to Colombo (CMB) begins October 23, 2026, with three weekly 777-200ER flights. BA last flew to Sri Lanka in 2015, when services were tagged with Malé. They will now operate as fully standalone flights.
- LGW to Barbados (BGI) starts October 25, 2026, with daily 777-200ER service. BA last flew this route in 2024. Combined with LHR-Barbados, the airline will offer up to three daily flights, the most in more than 30 years. Gatwick flights will be extended to various Caribbean airports, replacing the role of St. Lucia.
- LHR to San José (SJO) opens October 25, 2026, with five weekly Boeing 787-8 flights, switching from Gatwick.
- LHR to Tampa (TPA) begins October 25, 2026, with five weekly Boeing 787-10 services, also switching from Gatwick. The Gatwick-Tampa route holds the worst load factor of all BA US routes.
- LHR to Melbourne (MEL) via Kuala Lumpur (KUL) launches January 8, 2027, with daily 787-9 flights operated under fifth freedom rights. BA last flew to Victoria in 2006, when the 747-400 routed via Singapore.
Orlando Returns After A Four-Year Gap
BA will reintroduce Heathrow-Orlando flights this month following a four-year absence. The route will operate only during the UK school holidays.
Added to Virgin Atlantic’s LHR-MCO service, the airport pair will offer up to three daily departures in July and August 2026, the joint-highest number on record.
Heathrow Gains Its First Central America Link
The San José switch is the most significant change in the group. Moving to Heathrow means the UK’s busiest airport will have scheduled flights to Costa Rica, and to Central America, for the first time. That is a notable development given Heathrow’s well-known slot constraints and its high fees and charges.
Last year, BA mainly served San José three times weekly from Gatwick using 332-seat LGW-configured 777-200ERs, which carry few premium seats and heavy economy capacity.
From Heathrow, the airline will fly five weekly departures on the 204-seat 787-8, its lowest-capacity widebody. That aircraft holds 31 Club World suites featuring the latest product, 37 World Traveller Plus seats, and 136 World Traveller seats. Business class makes up 15% of the capacity, against less than 10% on the Gatwick 777-200ER.
In 2025, UK Civil Aviation Authority data shows BA carried 34,701 round-trip passengers between Gatwick and San José. Cirium Diio figures indicate the airline filled only 79.2% of available seats on that service. Across all carriers, BA captured about a third of the wider London-San José market of 104,000 passengers.
Heathrow was a much larger market than Gatwick, at roughly 60,000 passengers. The airline aims to secure a price premium on its nonstop Heathrow service while offering competitive five-weekly flights.
Because Gatwick traffic revolves largely around local demand, the move to Heathrow will also capture far more connecting passengers, helping lift what had been a relatively low load factor.
Sri Lanka Also Returns To The Network
Colombo is a large local market from London. Some 362,000 round-trip passengers traveled last year, more than 900 people daily. The route revolves around leisure demand and passengers visiting friends and relatives, which makes it a lower-yielding market.
More than half of those passengers flew indirectly, many via Gulf hubs. With the ongoing war in Iran, confidence in connecting through Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Doha, or Dubai (DXB) has dropped. If that sentiment continues, BA and SriLankan Airlines should benefit from greater willingness to fly nonstop.
The two carriers plan 12 weekly nonstop services from London in the upcoming winter. BA will operate three weekly flights from Gatwick on the 332-seat 777-200ER, while SriLankan will fly nine times weekly from Heathrow using the 297-seat A330-300. Cirium data shows this matches the joint-highest-ever number of nonstop flights on the route.
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