Route news: BA drops 8 short-hauls, Aer Lingus adds to Barbados, Air Canada starts Mumbai

Some route news worth sharing:

British Airways seems to have dropped eight short haul routes

It seems that British Airways will be dropping eight short haul routes for the summer 2024 season.

The following flights no longer seem to be on sale from April 2024:

• London Heathrow to Nuremberg
• London Heathrow to Bastia (flights now connect in Marseille to Air Corsica)
• London City to Jersey (image below)
• London City to Quimper
• Southampton to Alicante
• Southampton to Dublin (Aer Lingus Regional now flies this route)
• Southampton to Edinburgh (Loganair now flies this route as a BA codeshare)
• Southampton to Limoges

If you are booked on any of these services, double-check if BA is still selling tickets for your dates.

Hat-tip to @tofly_totravel on X.

Aer Lingus extends Manchester to Barbados

Aer Lingus appears to be happy with the performance of its direct Manchester to Barbados route, which is currently in its second year.

The airline has just announced that the season has been extended from April 2024 until 31st May. The route will then hibernate until the autumn.

You can read our review of the Manchester to Barbados Aer Lingus flight, which uses an A330, here.

The service operates three times per week. You can check timings and book on the Aer Lingus website here.

In other Aer Lingus news ….

The service from Dublin to Hartford in Connecticut has also been extended. The current season will now run until 5th January 2024 (it was due to end last week) and the summer 2024 season will now begin two weeks early. The first flight will be on 13th March 2024 instead of the planned 30th March, albeit there will only be three flights per week instead of seven during this fortnight.

Air Canada has restarted flights to Mumbai

We originally mentioned this back in June, but as flights started this week it is worth a reminder that Air Canada is now flying from London Heathrow to Mumbai.

For the past few decades, Air Canada has been operating direct flights between Toronto and Mumbai using the Boeing 777-200LR. This will no longer be the case. Air Canada has now reverted to the indirect service via London that it operated until 1991.

Instead of the Boeing 777-200LR it will fly a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner:

• AC856 will depart Toronto at 8:30pm and arrive in London at 8:30am the following day, before continuing its journey to Mumbai at 11:10am and landing in Mumbai at 1:35am the following day – two days after departing Canada

• AC855 will depart Mumbai at 4:25am before arriving in London at 9:20am the same day and continuing its journey at midday to land in Toronto at 2:55pm, the same day as departing Mumbai

The change has probably been driven by the closure of Russian airspace, which will have forced the direct Toronto to Mumbai service to operate with a major diversion.

Flights will only operate for the winter season, until the end of March 2024.

You can check prices on the Air Canada website here.

If you want to learn how to earn Air Canada Aeroplan miles from UK credit cards, take a look at our guide here, although you can redeem miles from any Star Alliance frequent flyer scheme for this service.