British Airways has just announced its latest long-haul route schedule for the Summer 2027 season, and the headline news is that the airline is relaunching flights to the East African country of Tanzania with a direct flight from London Gatwick to Kilimanjaro and then onward to Zanzibar.
Tanzania hasn’t been on BA’s route map since 2012, and at that time, the airline only served the capital, Dar es Salaam. With the new services slated to launch in May 2027, it will have been 15 years since British Airways last served Tanzania.
The service will operate three times per week on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, first flying from London Gatwick to Kilimanjaro, before continuing on to Zanzibar.
The new route is aimed squarely at holidaymakers, with two very different types of vacation on offer. Kilimanjaro is the gateway to the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park, and Lake Manyara, while Zanzibar is world-renowned for its pristine white sand beaches and coral reefs.
British Airways’ ability to expand its long-haul network has been constrained ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, when it decided to retire its fleet of Boeing 747 jumbo jets years earlier than planned.
Not only did that assumption turn out to be incredibly wrong, but the mistake coincided with another problem that has been plaguing the airline industry – major delays in receiving new widebody planes to replace or increase capacity when airlines prematurely retired older jets.
Add into the mix continuing issues with the Rolls-Royce engines on Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, and you see why British Airways can only afford very modest long-haul route expansions… for the time being, at least.
With any luck, beleaguered aircraft manufacturer Boeing will have its next-generation 777X certified next year, of which British Airways has 24 on order. Delivery delays with Boeing 787 Dreamliners are also now being resolved, which should start to allow British Airways to add further capacity in the coming years.
What we often see with BA’s route announcements is that it favors destinations where it can get as much utilization out of its existing fleet as possible. For this reason, the airline has pulled back from Southeast Asia because the lengthy flight times, made even longer by the closure of Russian airspace, dramatically slash aircraft utilization potential.
For the foreseeable future, expect British Airways to continue feeding passengers looking to fly to Southeast Asian destinations through Doha and onto connecting flights with Qatar Airways.