British Airways started four new weekly services between London and Johannesburg on Sunday (October 28) increasing the number of direct flights between the cities to 18 a week.

The additional flights will depart London Heathrow at 16h20 in the afternoon, arriving at OR Tambo at 05h40 the following morning. The return flight will leave Johannesburg at 07h40 in the morning, landing at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 at 17h50 that evening.

BA will operate the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner one these services, alongside the existing 14 weekly A380 services.

BA also opened its new route from Durban to London on October 29, offering three weekly services using Boeing 787-8s.

BA will also increase its Cape Town schedule to provide double-daily summer flights from London Heathrow as well as offering three weekly flights between Gatwick and CPT next month.

“In total we’ll be operating our largest schedule ever between the UK and South Africa; 38 flights a week to three destinations,” says Sue Petrie, BA Commercial Manager for Southern Africa.

The schedule increase comes as BA rolls out a £4.5 billion (R84bn), five-year customer investment plan.