British Airways to use A380 on London

British Airways, the last European airline flying to Australia, will give customers the option of flight on a new A380 on the London-Singapore leg of the trip from October, in a move to enhance its offering.

The decision by the British flag carrier, which uses a Boeing 777 for direct flights from Sydney to London with a stop in Singapore, comes after Virgin Atlantic Airways this month said it would pull out of the Sydney-Hong Kong route from May.

That will leave British Airways as the only European airline flying all the way to Australia. Qantas Airways is the only Australian airline that offers flights all the way to London, but now via a stop in Dubai rather than Asia. Qantas uses an A380 all the way to London both from Sydney and Melbourne.

British Airways will begin A380 flights on the London-Singapore route three times a week in October, with the remainder of the days being flown with an older Boeing 747.

The A380 will feature on the BA11 London Heathrow to Singapore service operating on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and the returning BA12, operating on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

British Airways regional commercial manager for the south-west Pacific Nicole Backo said the service would increase capacity on the route by 4000 seats a month, creating more availability and options for passengers.

'The A380 operating from Singapore further enhances and aligns our offering for all markets across Australia,' she said. 'With our codeshare options to both Singapore and Hong Kong from the major Australian gateways we have created more choice than ever before on stopovers or connections onto our newest aircraft.'

British Airways offers customers the option of flying from Australia to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific Airways and then onward to London via the British flag carrier.

Customers on British Airways 777 flights from Sydney-to-Singapore will need to change aircraft if they want to use the A380 option.

A test booking on the carrier's website for November showed a passenger flying from Sydney to London would arrive 30 minutes earlier in Britain by switching to the A380 due to a shorter stopover in Singapore.

On the return flight, the passenger would need to leave London 2.5 hours earlier on the A380 and would have a longer stopover in Singapore before arriving in Sydney on the 777.

Ms Backo said British Airways was seeing a year-on-year increase in passengers from the Asia-Pacific region, largely due to the alternative route it provided to Europe and the rest of the world.

British Airways now has four A380s and is taking delivery of another four later this year as part of an overall fleet expansion of 20 aircraft.

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