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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.

  • Nick says:

    Should really say ‘relaunch’ rather than ‘launch’.

    It’s an awkward part of the world to schedule non-stop at decent times… but the network team really won’t be happy with easyjet’s announcement. Luton not having nighttime operating restrictions will help them of course, but I suspect they just went with ‘it always used to be like this so we’ll do it again’ and have been caught out.

    Ironic though that BA expands eastwards for once and still the whingers whinge.

  • Throwawayname says:

    AF seem to offer some more civilised timings. I’ve always wanted to visit Georgia, but there’s always other destinations and things in the way so I don’t think I will manage to do it soon.

  • NFH says:

    Why have LON-TBS flight times nearly always been at such unsociable times, mostly involving overnight travel in at least one direction?

    In contrast, when Wizz was operating LTN-KUT flights in 2018, I flew:
    16:05 LTN – KUT 00:10
    13:20 KUT – LTN 15:35

    TBS is only 131 miles further east than KUT. This small extra distance doesn’t justify flying overnight on a shorthaul route.

    • Londonsteve says:

      It’s for the airline’s convenience, not yours. And for those of the transit passengers they anticipate carrying in the main so that they can meet their connections.

    • Richard M says:

      I think a 5 hour flight plus a 3 hour time difference is probably not a good mix for scheduling, assuming BA probably wants the aircraft to fly at least 3 sectors in a day.

    • John says:

      Assume the plane went to somewhere else in Europe rather than stay parked at KUT for 13 hours – as we were still in the EU too.

      BA won’t be able to do that

      • NFH says:

        There’s no need to keep an aircraft on the ground in Georgia for 13 hours. And nobody wants to return from a destination on an early morning flight, as you lose an entire day there.

        The following flight times would be far better for everyone:

        09:00 LHR – TBS 17:00
        19:00 TBS – LHR 21:30

        • HampshireHog says:

          Indeed, which is why I’ve booked the easyJet Tuesday flights for a civilised week away

        • Bervios says:

          Well apart from any Georgians wishing to connect at LHR of course …

      • Londonsteve says:

        The plane will have departed from BUD to KUT, flown to LTN, back to KUT then back to BUD.

  • Wally1976 says:

    Anyone got any experience of the Twinpalms SLH hotel in Phuket? Booked on points next summer 😁

    • Wally1976 says:

      That’s Twinpalms Phuket not Twinpalms MontAzure (which is also in Phuket!).

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