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BA Cityflyer launches two new routes from Edinburgh

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British Airways has announced two new routes from Edinburgh for summer 2024.

Flights will be operated by BA Cityflyer, the subsidiary which operates from London City Airport during the week.

These flights allow it to use its aircraft during the weekend closure of London City. What’s odd is that the Cityflyer pilot and crew base in Edinburgh was closed during the pandemic so there is no logistical benefit for launching here.

BA Cityflyer launches two new edinburgh routes

The two new routes are to San Sebastian in Spain and Olbia in Sardinia, Italy.

San Sebastian

  • Flights start on 25th March May and end on 30th July
  • Services will operate on Tuesdays and Saturdays

Timings are not the greatest for a short break. The Saturday flight leaves Edinburgh quite late (5pm) whilst the return on Tuesday is 2.50pm. It may be better to fly out on a Tuesday at 10.40am and return on a Saturday at 9.10pm.

Olbia

  • Flights start on 25th May and end on 10th August
  • Flights will operate on a Saturday, with the outbound leaving Edinburgh at 7am and the return departing Olbia at 11.45am

As this is Cityflyer, you will be flying on a Embraer 190 aircraft with 98 seats. There will be both business and economy seats available, but both have the same 2×2 seating. That said, the British Airways lounge at Edinburgh is decent (and currently being refurbished – our 2022 review is here) so it may be worth the extra to upgrade on the outbound.

Seats are bookable for cash or Avios at ba.com. (EDIT: it seems that due to technical issues seats are not currently bookable.)

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Category

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Comments (31)

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

  • Daniel says:
    9 Dec9 December 07:55

    You say that these flights are bookable online on ba.com.

    Just tried to book EDI – EAS and getting this message:

    “Sorry there is a problem with booking this journey online. Try selecting other flights”

    • Erico1875 says:
      9 Dec9 December 08:05

      I tried last night too. I also tried by phone. Very helpful agent did his best but couldnt book them.

    • BJ says:
      9 Dec9 December 08:06

      See comment from @Erico on related forum thread yesterday. Hopefully it will be sorted soon.

  • Linda says:
    9 Dec9 December 09:05

    Thx for featuring this. It’s usually difficult to find details of these summer flights from Scotland.

  • Alex says:
    9 Dec9 December 09:29

    Cutting LCY – DUS though which leaves LHR as the only good option to get to that part of Germany

  • daveinitalia says:
    9 Dec9 December 11:33

    After seeing IAG planning to roll out Avios only flights across the board I thought the current BA ones must be selling out very quickly but I noticed that the BA CityFlyer ones to FLR and IBZ still have good availability so obviously these are not selling out immediately.

    Do you know how successful it’s been so far?

    The problem with the BA booking engine is if you search for a cash booking the Avios only flights don’t show up as you can’t book them for cash so if you need to travel on the day this is offered but you don’t know about the Avios only flights you might not think that flight exists and go off to a competitor airline. BA needs a booking engine that shows the cash and Avios flights together when logged in

  • Chris says:
    9 Dec9 December 12:38

    Your article states “The Cityflyer fleet is actually based in Edinburgh …” – what makes you say that? The base is LCY.

  • Richie says:
    9 Dec9 December 14:12

    My guess is that these new routes are possible because of the weekend Southampton cancellations.

    • Bernard says:
      9 Dec9 December 14:58

      Bit of a poor deal for Southampton. Loss of BA cityflyer but gain the grotesquely unreliable and untrustworthy easy chavjet instead!

  • Dev says:
    9 Dec9 December 15:15

    Wonder if BA Cityflyer will go for Bomba…sorry Airbus A220s. Whilst I like the E190s, A220s would elevate the Cityfler operation without sacrificing their ability to fly into and out of LCY.

    • Richie says:
      9 Dec9 December 16:11

      ITA Airways is now operating A220 flights LIN-LCY-LIN and with the A220s from GVA and Zurich the A220 compatible gates at LCY may be getting busy, BACF may be a bit slow with A220 opportunities at LCY.

    • dougzz99 says:
      9 Dec9 December 19:44

      Isn’t there an agreement with the pilots union in regard < 100 passengers. That’s why the E190 fleet is a specially modified version with 98 seats I thought.

      • Rob says:
        9 Dec9 December 22:06

        Tom Stoddart discussed this at The Aviation Club lunch. Under CAA rules it’s not enough to only sell sub-100 seats, they must not be there at all. This required the entire aircraft to be recertified at a chunky cost because of how the weight balance etc changed.

  • Billy says:
    9 Dec9 December 15:44

    The CityFlyer fleet is being densified so at some point there may be a bigger difference on board between J and Y…

    • Bernard says:
      9 Dec9 December 17:17

      Really? What source for?
      Any configuration above 100 seats requires an extra crew member*. It is high doubtful that the few extra seats, even when they can be sold, would cover that extra cost of crew – plus the £ms on reconfiguration.
      So, odds are it wont be happening on the E190s.
      * you’ll recall the badly run easyJet had to take seats out of their dilapidated A319s to bring seats under 150 to save on employing an extra crew to cover 6 extra people carried about 150.

    • Bernard says:
      11 Dec11 December 17:13

      This fiction originated on Twit/X and PYK echo chamber has now been deleted.
      This comment claiming this as a fact should now be removed too.

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

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