Air Transport

British Airways has fixed a 29 September date to open its London City-New York JFK all-business service.

The carrier will open bookings tomorrow for the route, which will be operated by 32-seat Airbus A318s. It will conduct the flights daily but switch to a twice-daily rotation from mid-October.

It is pitching the fares at £5,625 ($9,246) for a fully-flexible business ticket, down to just over £1,900 for a weekend lead-in leisure trip.

BA will designate the outbound and return flights with the BA001 and BA002 code which were previously used for its transatlantic BAC-Aerospatiale Concorde services.

"In the harshest trading environment airlines have experienced, we believe it is more important than ever to embrace the future and innovate," says BA chief Willie Walsh.

"That is what this historic new route is all about. There is real enthusiasm from our customers for this project.

"This is BA at its best - stylish, British and ahead of the game. Reviving the BA001 flight number for the first long-haul route out of London City could not be more appropriate."