British Airways announced its latest additions for summer 2027 on 10 November, with a press release titled “From fjords to the French Riviera”. The headlines are simple. Heathrow gains a new route to Bergen in Norway. Skiathos moves from London City to Heathrow, while Perugia moves the other way. BA Cityflyer, the airline’s London City based subsidiary, adds weekly flights from Glasgow to Nice and from Edinburgh to Split.
Neil Chernoff, British Airways’ chief planning and strategy officer, framed it as “new routes and convenient airport moves” that give customers “greater choice and connectivity”.
That is true, but the timetables at the bottom of the release say more than the quotes at the top. Read together, they show British Airways doing three different jobs with five small routes.
Bergen Is a Transatlantic Route in Disguise
On paper, Bergen is a leisure route to the fjords. The most revealing line in the release, though, is not about scenery. British Airways cites research showing that traffic from North America to Bergen has grown by almost 50% compared with 2019, “despite having no direct transatlantic services”. It names New York, Boston, Miami and Chicago as key source markets.
That tells us who this route is really for. British Airways is not just selling Bergen to Londoners. It is selling Heathrow as the connection between North America and western Norway.
The schedule supports that reading. Flights leave Heathrow at 07:45, 08:25 or 08:40 depending on the day, a time that suits passengers arriving on overnight flights from the US. The return leaves Bergen around lunchtime and lands back at Heathrow between 13:00 and 14:00, in time for afternoon onward connections.
The terminal choice is telling too. Bergen will operate from Terminal 3, and the release ends its Bergen section by mentioning a new check in experience for First customers at Terminal 3, developed with American Airlines. That placement looks deliberate, putting the route alongside British Airways’ transatlantic partner.
The flying itself is efficient. On our reading of the timetable, the outbound flight takes about two hours and five minutes, the return about two hours and 25 minutes, and the aircraft turns round in Bergen in 45 to 50 minutes. Five weekly flights from 15 April to 30 October add up to 142 return trips across the season.
Heathrow Slots Go Where the Network Needs Them
The swap between Skiathos and Perugia is the second strategy, and it is about Heathrow capacity.
Skiathos moves from London City to Heathrow Terminal 5. British Airways says the move “will provide greater capacity on the Skiathos route, alongside access to British Airways’ extensive global network”. It will run three times a week from 20 May to 11 September, a total of 50 return trips. At about three hours and 35 minutes outbound, it is the longest flight in the announcement.
Perugia goes the other way, from Heathrow to London City, with increased frequencies. British Airways says Perugia will benefit from “the conveniently located London City Airport”.
The logic is clear even though the release does not spell it out. Skiathos needs more seats and benefits from connecting passengers, so it gets Heathrow. Perugia serves Umbria, where demand looks mostly point to point from London, so it moves to an airport that suits Londoners and frees up Heathrow capacity for routes that feed the wider network.
The Perugia timetable has a detail worth noting. The release says five flights a week from 1 May, but the schedule shows only a Saturday service until 21 May. The Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday flights start after that. Across the season, that adds up to 97 return trips.
Scotland Gets Tour Operator Style Flying
The third strategy is in Scotland, and here BA Cityflyer is behaving more like a holiday airline than a scheduled one.
Both new routes are once a week. Edinburgh to Split runs every Saturday, leaving at 12:15 and returning the same evening. Glasgow to Nice works the other way round, with the first flight of the season arriving from Nice on Saturday 15 May and the outbound service leaving Glasgow every Sunday morning at 07:15. That means a Scottish holidaymaker flying to Nice would leave on a Sunday and return the following Saturday.
That pattern matches the holidays in the notes to editors exactly. The British Airways Holidays package to Nice is for six nights, and the package to Split is for seven. Weekly flights with fixed stay lengths are how tour operators plan their flying. British Airways appears to be building these routes around its own holiday business.
The Split timetable has an unusual gap. Flights run from 15 May to 19 June and then again from 4 September to 2 October, with nothing from late June until September. That gives just 11 return trips in the whole season. The release does not explain the gap. The most likely reasons are that BA Cityflyer needs the aircraft elsewhere at the peak of summer, or that it sees better returns from Split in the shoulder months. Either way, Edinburgh’s Split service is a spring and autumn product, not a summer one.
The Packages Show Where the Confidence Lies
The holiday prices in the release are a useful signal of how British Airways expects each route to sell.
Bergen has the cheapest offer, a fly drive package from £349 per person in May including flights from Heathrow, a checked bag and a car. For a brand new route with five flights a week, that looks like a price designed to fill seats early.
Perugia fly drive packages start from £429 in June. The beach holidays, which include hotels, are priced higher. All prices are per person, based on two sharing. Seven nights in Split start from £1,099, seven nights in Skiathos from £1,359, and six nights in Nice from £1,959 per person. All of the offers require booking by 1 December 2026.
What the Release Leaves Out
The release says nothing about which aircraft will fly these routes, how often Perugia ran from Heathrow before the move, or what flight only fares will cost. It also gives no source for the research on Bergen’s North American demand, and no reason for the Split gap.
Those gaps matter for anyone trying to judge the size of the move. Five routes at between one and five flights a week are a modest change to British Airways’ summer network. What they show is the airline’s thinking, not its scale.
The Bottom Line
This is a small announcement with a clear pattern. Bergen uses Heathrow to capture North American demand for Norway. The Skiathos and Perugia swap moves Heathrow capacity to the route that benefits most from the hub and gives London City a leisure route that suits it. The Scottish routes turn BA Cityflyer into a weekend holiday operation built around British Airways Holidays packages.
The real test is Bergen. If North American passengers fill those morning departures, expect British Airways to look for more routes where it can do the same thing.
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