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New BA celebrity safety video
British Airways has finally updated its rather dull safety video to something a lot more fun. The video stars a host of celebrities including Gordon Ramsay, Rob Brydon, Sir Ian McKellen and Thandie Newton. The video will launch in September.
The new film has been designed to help customers understand the safety points easily, while enhancing fund-raising for ‘Flying Start’, the charity partnership between British Airways and Comic Relief. Last year BA generated £16.5 million for Comic Relief. BA hope the new video will allow them to exceed their goal of raising £20 million by 2020.”
In the video, 10 celebrities are seen auditioning in front of comedian Asim Chaudhry, as his People Just Do Nothing character Chabuddy G, for a part in the safety video.
You can see a behind the scenes look at the video here or below.
Or if you want to watch a shortened ‘director’s cut of the actual video you can watch the clip below or here.
British Airways announced more new routes & changes
British Airways has announced more new routes in addition to the routes announced last week. As usual this means that there is likely to be good Avios availability and plenty of cheap fares on the new routes.
New Manchester routes
Last week BA announced that there are launching two new winter-only ski routes from Manchester and extending the weekly service to London City Airport in December.
Flights to Salzburg in Austria and Chambery in France, close to some of Europe’s top ski resorts, will operate every Saturday from December through to April.
London City-Manchester service will resume on December 15 along with flights to Salzburg and Chambery.
- Flights to Salzburg will operate every Saturday departing Manchester at 1.05pm, arriving in Salzburg at 4.20pm, with the return flight at 5.10pm, arriving in Manchester at 6.30pm
- Flights to Chambery will operate every Saturday departing Manchester at 7am arriving in Chambery at 10am, with the return flight at 10.55am, arriving in Manchester at 12noon
- Flights to London City will operate every Sunday from Manchester at 1.30pm and from London City to Manchester every Thursday at 8.30pm
New London City routes
British Airways is launching new routes from London City Airport to Paris Orly, Prague and Reykjavik, in October. There will be three flights a day to Orly during the week and one a day at weekends, six flights a week to Prague and two a week to Reykjavik. Reykjavik will be a winter-only service, replacing flights to Granada, Spain which will continue as a summer-only service resuming next year.
However, as a result BA are cancelling all the Heathrow to Paris Orly flights from 29 October. If you are booked on these flights you can either cancel and receive a refund or transfer to the London City service. Although not specified by BA, you could also try asking to be transferred to the Charles de Gaulle service from Heathrow which will continue to operate.
Flights will operate on Embraer E190 jets with a choice of Club Europe and Euro Traveller cabins. The seats are in a 2-2 configuration in both cabins. This means you will need to think carefully about whether it is worth paying for Club Europe. Bear in mind that there is no BA lounge at London City and two-abreast seating in Club which removes 2 of the key benefits for Club Europe. You do get a meal and champagne, wine etc though. You can read my review of Club Europe from Dublin-London City here.
Hand baggage only fares to Orly start one way from £49, to Prague from £49 and to Reykjavik from £59 and are available to book on www.ba.com/londoncity
