British Airways will re-introduce three additional weekly flights to its twice-daily service between London Heathrow and Johannesburg in May, bringing total weekly services on the route to 17, confirms Regional Commercial Manager for Africa, Ian Petrie.
 BA last year had to reduce its services to twice daily on the route because of lack of aircraft availability.
On March 28 the airline scales down its seasonal twice-daily service between Heathrow and Cape Town to one service a day. Petrie says the Mother City proved to be BA’s third most popular long-haul destination worldwide during the past festive season. This is significant, he says, as only New York and Miami topped Cape Town, with Miami drawing huge tourist numbers due to Disney World.
Petrie says BA benefited from South African Airways’ withdrawal last year from the Cape Town/LHR route. As a result of this popularity, BA is now upgrading its lounge at Cape Town International Airport to the same standard as its Terraces lounge at Heathrow’s Terminal 5.
Meanwhile, BA does not expect a delay in the May delivery of the first four of its 24 B787 Dreamliners, despite recent safety concerns plaguing the aircraft. Says Petrie: “The safety and security of our customers will always be at the heart of our operation and all our business decisions. We are confident that any safety concerns will be fully addressed by Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration as part of their recently announced review into the aircraft.
We are not surprised that the new aircraft design experiences some problems; we anticipated and expected this but we remain committed to taking delivery of the aircraft.” 
Petrie says the airline also expects delivery in July of the first of 12 A380s. In autumn BA will announce the routes the new B787s and A380s will serve. 
The fleet renewal forms part of a £5bn (R70bn) investment programme focusing on upgraded aircraft, innovative technologies and customer services. More than 70% of all BA flights in South Africa already carry an improved product.