British Airways launches new route to Kefalonia – Avios seats now bookable

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• MD says:

  30 Nov30 November 05:49

  Would be useful to state the flight times as well as the days of operation.

  • A says:

    30 Nov30 November 05:55

    You’re welcome.

    Yes, times might be useful, but if you’re interested in the route, you could always look up the times yourself.

  • Mike says:

    30 Nov30 November 06:54

    Rob – thanks for alerting us to this. If i need any more information I will consult ba.com for the fine detail.

  • RTS says:

    30 Nov30 November 10:18

    Lol… How dare he not state flight times or provide a flight booking concierge service !!!!!! Travesty.

• David. says:

  30 Nov30 November 06:17

  Flying from which cities please?

  I assume LGW.

  • David. says:

    30 Nov30 November 06:18

    Oops.

    I see LHR Terminal 5.

• James A says:

  30 Nov30 November 06:28

  Odd article that doesn’t mention departure airport. Sort of important fact missing no?

  • Mike says:

    30 Nov30 November 06:56

    It does appear to be listed under key facts “Services will operate from Heathrow Terminal 5”

  • Rob says:

    30 Nov30 November 08:22

    Ahem …

    • Gill says:

      30 Nov30 November 09:19

      slightly OT but is there a list of destinations from LHR, LGW & LCY anywhere? Starting from MAN its only practical to do short breaks from Heathrow.

      • Rob says:

        30 Nov30 November 09:40

        It must exist but I am not sure where ….

      • Anna says:

        30 Nov30 November 10:05

        I know, it’s a real pain they cancelled the Gatwick shuttle, I had thought that by now BA would be feeling the reduction of Northerners booking to go to the Caribbean and other holiday destinations with them!

        What I do is look at my preferred destinations on the Timetables page of the BA website; all flights are listed together with their departure airports.

      • Steven Partridge says:

        30 Nov30 November 10:27

        Sometimes it’s easiest to just go to the Wikipedia page for the airport and scroll down to ‘Airlines and Destinations’.

      • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

        30 Nov30 November 10:27

        The wikipedia pages have pretty good lists.

      • pauldb says:

        30 Nov30 November 10:32

        Wikipedia is pretty accurate, though not the easiest presentation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathrow_Airport (Kefalonia missing for now, but up to date for Almeria and Figari).

      • Cate says:

        30 Nov30 November 11:28

        If you want it from the horses mouth so to speak just go to an airport’s arrivals/departures page and see what’s flying with times on the days you want to fly.

      • Mark says:

        30 Nov30 November 23:13

        I normally go to https://www.oneworld.com Interactive Network Map

        Hit destinations, type MAN, choose British Airways, untick Include connections, tick Non-Stop flights only.

        It’s a pain in the wotsits to casually find out schedule details for each of the routes but it is possible.

      • Mark says:

        30 Nov30 November 23:19

        Actually, probably tick “Include Connections”, I think that’s what you’re after :-).

• Jack says:

  30 Nov30 November 07:28

  Sort of OT: can you only book Avios reward tix for people who appear in your household account? I Can’t book a Avios reward for my parents (HH account already has the max number of people). Thanks!

  • Kilburnflyer says:

    30 Nov30 November 07:31

    No, you can add them to your “Friends & Family list” instead, once you have done that it will then be possible to book them tickets using your avios

    • the real harry1 says:

      30 Nov30 November 07:33

      or book them from avios.com

• Michael C says:

  30 Nov30 November 08:00

  Very bizarrely, I’ve never been to Greece: recommendations for a 4-5 day trip in May for hubbies’ 40th? preferably with direct flights from LON? (Kef. seems to fit the bill and looks lovely, but I was wondering if there’s a “…but it’s nowhere near as nice as…”!!). Cheers!

  • Aspirational Flyer says:

    30 Nov30 November 08:12

    It’s stunning. It was a stop on a Med Cruise I did in September. I would happily have spent a week there. It’s often easy to ‘Island hop’ in Greece on various ferries – have you thought about a multi centre holiday?

  • Peter K says:

    30 Nov30 November 08:29

    I’ve never been to Kefalonia so as to make a comparison but Rhodes has everything. History, shopping, amazing beaches, a castle etc. One of the few places I’ve been back to twice!

    • Alan says:

      30 Nov30 November 09:07

      Yeah, we loved Rhodes. The old town is simply stunning.

  • pauldb says:

    30 Nov30 November 09:52

    Greece, especially over to Rhodes, is quite a long way for 4-5 days. You probably lose your first day travelling, whereas to Provence or Tuscany (MRS/NCE/PSA/BLQ) you’ll be there for lunch.

    • Anna says:

      30 Nov30 November 10:08

      Agreed, a 4+ hour flight is too long for anything less than a week IMO!

      • roberto says:

        30 Nov30 November 10:44

        I did three days in Costa Rica once on a BA business mistake fare. A change is as good as a rest sometimes.

      • Gavin says:

        30 Nov30 November 11:01

        I did several 30 hr weekends in Cyprus last year to visit Mrs Gavin when she was working there, 7am flight to LCA on Saturday morning, arrive at 2pm, quick swim in the Med and dinner in Limassol in the evening. Lazy Sunday and then back on the 7:30pm evening flight, home by midnight UK time.

    • @mkcol says:

      30 Nov30 November 10:43

      You’ll have hated my 2 nights in Vancouver 17 years ago (next week) for £99 return then 😉

      • Anna says:

        30 Nov30 November 15:02

        Just the thought of it makes me feel faint! Though if you have pressing business or personal reasons for short trips, that’s different.

      • EvilGazebo says:

        30 Nov30 November 17:48

        Years ago we had some expiring free tickets so went to Rio for the weekend. In Varig economy mind. Not something I would repeat in middle age……

    • Michael C says:

      30 Nov30 November 15:25

      All great ideas, thanks! Just did PSA/BLQ, and yes, perfect. NCE looks ideal.

      • pauldb says:

        30 Nov30 November 16:37

        Don’t ignore MRS – I found it a more interesting city than Nice or Cannes, and you have Aix, Avignon, Cassis and the Luberon nearby which trump most of the places further east for me.

        • Rob says:

          30 Nov30 November 17:21

          The new InterCon in Marseilles is meant to be very impressive.

  • Brian says:

    30 Nov30 November 10:49

    You have hubbies? I thought you were only allowed one in this country… 🙂

  • Tim Millea says:

    30 Nov30 November 10:55

    I first went to Greece in 1976 and seem to have spent half my life there, sleeping on beaches, renting rooms at £5/night from the ferry etc.. I now have a house there! I have visited a couple of hundred of the ‘2,000’ islands sailing by yacht.

    For BA routes, I would fly to Kalamata and venture an hour south into the Mani: Stoupa or Kardamyli as a base.

    The more obvious destinations including Rhodes, Mykonos, Santorini, Corfu and Kefalonia have been terribly commercialised for decades. They are very ‘bucket and spade’ by comparison.

    Greece has an inner depth and beauty but it requires some effort to find now.

    • Roger I* says:

      30 Nov30 November 12:57

      Oh, yes, Tim. Greece as it used to be!

      We never managed 200 islands (eek!) but managed several smaller islands in the 70s and 80s. I’d love to get back to small islands, simple accommodation, great food, unspoilt beaches, but guess we’d stick out like a sore thumb these days.

      Do I get brownie points for visiting Kavos (Corfu) on my scooter – really unspoilt, well before the 18-30s found it?

      • Tim Millea says:

        1 Dec1 December 05:25

        Ah Kavos, yes points for that. I visited Kavos from Benitses before there was a road there – the only way was by boat and it was just a beach with a few seasonal shacks. I was horrified to see the ‘Kavos’ TV series showing that there is now a hospital there to deal with all the alcohol-related incidents.

        I went back years later, also by scooter. Never again!

  • mark2 says:

    30 Nov30 November 11:01

    Very unbizarrely I have never been there either.

    • the real harry1 says:

      30 Nov30 November 12:20

      you’ve missed out – Greece can be absolutely fantastic & the food is so delicious in situ

      a very different experience to much of the rest of Europe

  • Cate says:

    30 Nov30 November 11:31

    Cobalt also fly to LCA now from LGW if you want to try an alternative island 🙂

  • Leo says:

    2 Dec2 December 10:18

    I’ve been going to Greece since 1985. Love it – including Athens. However after a week on Kefalonia 4 years ago I felt like finding Captain Correlli’s mandolin and disemboweling myself with it. Manages to be dull and overly touristic at the same time. Not a fan. I did rather like Ithaca which is just off the Kefalonian coast. Small but beautiful. Beaches on both are pebble not sand.

• Roger I* says:

  30 Nov30 November 13:19

  short trips? This is when Mrs Roger (i) realised I was bonkers and (ii) recognised the benefits of strategic travel.

  November weekends on the 5th/10th (?) anniversary of *A:
  Sat to EWR with UA o/n in airport hotel
  Sun back to LHR
  Mon-Fri work

  Next weekend
  Sat to YYZ with AC, o/n in airport hotel
  Sun back to LHR
  Mon+ work

  All in Y with manageable jetlag. I needed to fly on each of the original Star Alliance members and had already got credits on LH, SQ and TG. I now qualified for 2 tix on each of the original *A airlines. We got to Oz, NZ, the US, Canada, Peru and Bangkok and Vietnam. IIRC no taxes or fees.

  For me the greatest promo ever. Not for nothing was *A my favourite alliance until the demise of BD. Oh, and Mrs Roger trusts me when I want to book. 😀

• flyforfun says:

  30 Nov30 November 14:33

  Kefalonia is a lovely Ionian island that doesn’t have the same heavy tourism that some of the other Aegean get. There are some very nice villages (Friskado in the north for example) that have a very traditional village feel with a few mod cons. There are some more touristy strips near the airport beaches, and loads of villas through out the isle to hire if you don’t want a hotel experience.

  Next to Kefalonia is the historic Ithaca, home to the story of Odysseus of the trojan horse fame. It can be accessed by a ferry service from Sami that takes about 30 mins. There are a few services every day, but the current BA arrival time doesn’t tie in with the current timetable, nor the ones likely to be around in Summer. It’s about 2 hours from landing to Sami by a taxi (€60) drive. Sami has plenty of waterside cafes where you can wait for the ferry. There are day trips from Kefalonia to Ithaka if you fancy a change from Kef. Ithaka is much more relaxed as it’s only 14km long and about 2 klm at it’s widest point.

  Kefalonia airport isn’t a luxury small airport. Last time I was there just after the bank holiday weekend 3 flights were leaving to the UK about the same time, 2 charter flight and Easyjet. It was standing room only once you passed security. It only has 3 gates. No lounges I believe.

  Charter flight pax are made to queue outside until their flight is ready to start the check in process. I’ve flown Easyjet, Ryanair (once only!) and BMI (operating as a charter, but selling surplus seats) and generally these airlines check in queues aren’t too long, unlike the full on charter airlines. There are a couple of hotels with restaurants attached with views of the water and terminal where people go either after check in or before depending on how much time they have. One has a pool if you still have your bags handy!

  All in all, a good move by BA, but a shame it’s not earlier in the day as you loose a day trying to get there and possibly useless for the connection to Ithaca. Coming back it may be ok.

  • Graham says:

    30 Nov30 November 16:21

    Yes, I’d echo this – Kefalonia Airport is basic to say the least! When I went 2 years ago, they would only let you airside 45 mins before departure as there simply isn’t enough room – and even then it was standing room only. Just grab a beer and stand outside the front of the terminal!

    I believe the current terminal was built in the 1980s though you would be forgiven to think it was built in the 1950s.

    Quite a long and interesting walk from the terminal to your aircraft too. No buses!

    Nevertheless, a welcome addition to
    BA’s route network and a really beautiful island if you get off the beaten track.

• dicksbits says:

  30 Nov30 November 16:04

  The BA website is showing June not May on it’s front page.

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