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News: BA leasing Boeing 757s from Titan for Gatwick, Cathay resumes daily London flights

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News in brief:

British Airways resorting to Titan charter aircraft at London Gatwick

British Airways has quietly leased charter aircraft from Titan Airways to operate flights from London Gatwick. This is on top of the aircraft which are being leased from Iberia Express at Gatwick, and the aircraft which have been leased from Finnair to operate short haul flights from Heathrow Terminal 3.

It appears that Club Europe will still be offered if Titan Airways is operating your flight.

There is some novelty in this for anyone who finds themselves on a Titan Airways aircraft. It has lent British Airways at least one Boeing 757. The final Boeing 757 rolled off the production line in 2004 so many of our younger readers may never have flown on one.

What is interesting is that Titan allows the operating airline to configure its preferred seating configuration. One option is for ‘proper’ business class seats, as you can see below.

Will BA opt for this? We’ll let you know, as I am on a Titan aircraft next week …..

Titan Airways Boeing 757

Cathay Pacific is resuming regular London flights

With Hong Kong now reopening – albeit still requiring seven nights of hotel quarantine – Cathay Pacific is restarting regular services from the UK.

There are a few ad hoc flights during May, but from 8th June a daily service will resume from London Heathrow. It will use an A350-1000.

There will also be ad hoc services from Manchester during May and June.

It isn’t yet fully clear how easy it will be, if at all, to use Cathay Pacific to transfer in Hong Kong to other destinations in Asia.

You can check times and prices on the Cathay Pacific website. If you want to collect Cathay Pacific Asia Miles from UK credit cards, our guide on how to do that is here.


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Comments (47)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • points_worrier says:

    What is interesting is the available configurations. You can either do all 202Y, through to all 80J seats. Space-wise only, this puts business class seats at a 2.5x premium to Y. Costs are far more than this.

  • LST says:

    757 has the best take off of any commercial plane IMO, pure power!

  • Tom R says:

    That huge gap between J and Y in that photo is crazy. You could throw a party in there :’D I presume this isn’t how they are actually configured?

  • Matarredondaaa says:

    Titan service in my experience is always if a high standard.
    Not the first time they have flown on a long-term basis for BA as one was operating so, 3 years ago
    If I am not mistaken these 757’s originally flew with BA
    Titan provide 757’s to Jet2 as flew one back from Malaga 3 years ago and easyJet some years ago had one painted in their colours as worked complete summer season as Stellios insisted this happened to protect his ‘brand’
    Titan have new Airbus LR 321’s in fleet and one operates, as required for Government.

  • Steve in Croydon says:

    I flew weekly on the BA 757s years ago – lovely planes. Being 6″5′ I’d rather fly the Titan B757 than the BA A320. More legroom in Y and certainly in J. A proper J seat like QF and AA domestics.
    So now we have the “BA” LGW setup operated by: Vueling, Iberia Express, Titan and even possibly BA occasionally. What next – Wilbur and Orville Wright sub-charter?!?!

  • Gary says:

    Would the 757 already show on ‘Manage my Booking’? We’re flying out of Gatwick in June and it still says it’s an A320, as it has since I booked it. If I knew it was to be swopped for the 757 I’d consider upgrading into those massive seats!

    • Rob says:

      Yes, it would show as ‘Titan Airways for British Airways’ and the aircraft type would show 757.

  • Sam says:

    I really don’t care how old the aircraft is, all that I want is a REAL Business class seat compared with a economy class seat sold at premium.

  • Robert Brooks says:

    Is there a list of the flights Titan are operating? Never flown a 757-200, so don’t want to miss my chance as they get increasingly rare on scheduled flights.

    • Rob says:

      No. Tenerife and Venice next week, amongst others. They do show in ba.com though.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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