More choice for travellers as British Airways increases capacity in West Africa

Travelers from the United Kingdom to countries in West Arica now have more choice as Britain’s giant carrier, British Airways (BA) said it is increasing its West African schedule to four weekly flight to Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The announcement comes just nine months after the airline started operating on the routes and will add 33 percent more capacity between Freetown, Monrovia and London.

Gavin Halliday, general manager for Africa and Europe, said the flights will arrive at Terminal 5 at 16h00 on a Friday evening, allowing same-day connections to Washington; saving the need for an overnight transit and visa.

The flight timing also permits better connections to a host of other US and Canadian cities as well as UK domestic destinations.

The airline says the new service however starts on October 31 using Boeing 767 aircraft in a three-cabin configuration; World Traveller, World Traveller Plus and Club World adding that the flight will be on sale from June 11, 2013.

“It is unusual to add more flights so soon after starting a new route, but we’re responding to strong demand in these fast-growing West-African economies. In scheduling the flight we’ve taken into account feedback from our customers about onward connections and on which days they’d prefer to fly,” he said. He said British Airways has substantially increased its African network adding three destinations and 21 services since acquiring bmi just over a year ago.

It also recently announced an increase in its schedule to Marrakech from daily to 10 flights a week and a third weekly service to Agadir. These services start at the end of October.

In East and Southern Africa it has upped the Nairobi frequencies to eight a week. In South Africa it confirmed three additional frequencies to Johannesburg on top of the existing double-daily schedule.

“The acquisition of bmi has enabled us to expand our flying programme in Africa to serve 18 routes in 15 countries. We now fly to more places, more often than we ever have before in the 80 years we have served the continent. These flights link growing African destinations to London and provide onward connections to the world’s business capitals,” he added.