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British Airways adds flights to Tbilisi

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At 9.29am yesterday morning, we received a press release from easyJet entitled “easyJet announces brand new route to Georgia with UK’s only direct flights to Tbilisi“.

It didn’t have the monopoly for long.

On the dot of noon, British Airways announced its own services to Tbilisi.

British Airways adds flights to Tbilisi

Coincidence? The fact that BA’s press release includes a quote from the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of Georgia suggests not. Implicit or explicit underwriting of the route was presumably on offer.

British Airways will operate four flights per week from Heathrow from 31st March, departing every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

I should warn you that the flight times stink. You leave Heathrow at 9.25pm and fly overnight, landing at 5.30am. Remember that this is an A320neo service, not a long haul aircraft. The return flight leaves Tbilisi at 7.10am or 7.30am depending on the day.

The easyJet flights will be from London Luton and will operate twice per week, on Tuesday and Saturday. It is only scheduled to operate for the summer season, to the end of October.

Flights times with easyJet are more civilised on the outbound. You leave Luton at 11.25am or 1.40pm, depending on day, landing in Georgia at 8.25pm or 10.40pm. The return leaves at 8.55pm or 11.20pm, landing back in Luton at 10.15pm or 0.30am.

Your best bet is potentially an easyJet flight outbound, with your return flight depending on whether you fancy getting up very early (for the BA return) or staying up very late (for the easyJet return).

On the upside, the British Airways flights will earn 160 tier points return in Club Europe.

Both BA and easyJet flights are now bookable.

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Comments (63)

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

  • Oviplokos1 says:
    19 Sep19 September 05:16

    What I noticed with ej flights is that outbound are 6 hrs long and inbound are 4.30, presumably to minimise chances of paying out delay compensation when flying out of uk (obviously, no compensation when delayed flying from Georgia, so no need to inflate scheduled flying time).

    • Ken says:
      19 Sep19 September 05:38

      Why no EU261 flying back from Georgia on Easyjet?

    • John says:
      19 Sep19 September 05:56

      They are still a UK airline. Compensation would be due no matter where the flight departs.
      The most likely reason is Winds and Higher confidence in airport/ATC related delays ex-UK.

      • Oviplokos1 says:
        19 Sep19 September 09:54

        You are of course right and I am wrong. Not sure why 6 allocated hours for flying east.

  • Colin says:
    19 Sep19 September 05:33

    I’ve just completed my first SLH hotel, via Hilton.

    It’s a great addition but I did disappointedly learn that points are only earned on actual hotel spend and not on food, beverage or other incidentals.

    I actually didn’t believe the hotel manager so followed up with diamond and this was confirmed to be the case.

    • Rich says:
      19 Sep19 September 10:25

      Hi, that is annoying, I have a booking at the Bahamas coming up, will prob eat out a bit more then as spend isn’t included!

    • Barry says:
      19 Sep19 September 10:27

      What a strange policy. I am due to stay in two different SLH’s in the next fortnight. May well have eaten in the hotel restaurants as it is a good way to clock up points. Without that incentive I will almost certainly look elsewhere for somewhere to eat. Bearing in mind the prices (& profit margins) in these places it seems a very short sighted policy to me.

  • HampshireHog says:
    19 Sep19 September 05:35

    Georgia is GMT +4, with no daylight saving time. UK will be on BST then ie GMT +1. EasyJet return flight times have to be wrong

    • Ken says:
      19 Sep19 September 05:38

      That’s what I thought

    • AJA says:
      19 Sep19 September 08:27

      Or the arrival times stated are wrong. I can’t see how EasyJet can turn the plane around in 30 minutes.

      • Bervios says:
        19 Sep19 September 16:00

        The Milan flights have 35 minutes and the Geneva 40 minutes scheduled turnaround for Tibilisi.

      • Lady London says:
        19 Sep19 September 18:00

        Oh yes they can and do.Sometimes a bit of padding on expected outgoing journey time is there and helps. But normally very small.if so.

    • John G says:
      19 Sep19 September 08:43

      This. easyJet seem to have assumed Georgia has DST in the summer (or forgotten we do!) BA timings are correct. I assume the arrival/departure times in TBS will be amended in due course.

  • Pawel says:
    19 Sep19 September 05:40

    Interesting at this hotel is:
    Fees and charges
    Return seaplane transfer is included in the Total Price.

    As redemption should be charged any fees

  • Scotty665 says:
    19 Sep19 September 06:31

    Didn’t BA used to service Tblisi about 10 years ago? I’m sure there used to be a LHR-Baku-Tblisi route that was axed? I’m sure that was at a more civilised hour of the day as well as don’t remember flying overnight to Baku when I used it!

    • John G says:
      19 Sep19 September 08:46

      I took this when still a bmi route. Recall getting into TBS in the evening and the return departing the next morning so presumably it night stopped there. Business class was much more comfortable then!

  • KevMc says:
    19 Sep19 September 06:32

    Are you sure about the Tier Points only being 160 for a return? BA’s flight calculator says it’s 140 each way…

    • Stuart says:
      19 Sep19 September 06:50

      Just to add that the BA Flight Calculator marks the distance as 2,228 miles.

      • Rob says:
        19 Sep19 September 08:42

        Tel Aviv moves to short haul tier points soon and that is further.

        • Londonsteve says:
          19 Sep19 September 10:45

          Rob, is it certain that TBS will be an 80 TP destination? I was hoping to book a BAH for double TPs on the basis it’ll net 560 for the round trip.

  • Dan says:
    19 Sep19 September 06:32

    I was in Georgia for work earlier this year. Having also just been to another former Soviet Republic, and not enjoyed it, I wasn’t expecting much. I was completely wrong, Georgia was super and I found myself wondering why there didn’t seem to be any British tourists. Great food, nice people, very interesting history (turns out it’s the home of viticulture with a unique traditional way of making wine). Tbilisi felt a bit like a theme park with the cable cars and funicular railway. I would recommend.

    • Paul says:
      19 Sep19 September 12:36

      I am sure it’s lovely and I’d love to go…
      But an overnight flight on a BA airbus would require days of recovery and quite possibly medical intervention.

  • Matthew says:
    19 Sep19 September 06:34

    12.30am or 00.30, please don’t mix up the 12 and 24 hour clocks!

    • RussellH says:
      19 Sep19 September 10:02

      The Germans do this constantly when writing stuff for UK or American readers.
      “Tour starts at 14:00pm” is typical.
      It annoys me far more than it really ought to.
      🙂

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