British Airways launches new winter schedule for Saudi Arabia

In addition the flight will be retimed and services will arrive at Heathrow in the early morning, enabling customers to land in time for a full working day in London, and increasing opportunities for connections.

Following customer feedback, British Airways' Jeddah service will now operate from Jeddah to London on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

bmi's Riyadh and Jeddah flights will stop from September 16 as British Airways already serves these routes and due to poor revenue performance, bmi's services to Dammam will be suspended from September 16.

In addition to the new timetable for Jeddah and Riyadh, from October 28, British Airways will operate a new timetable to former bmi routes Almaty, Amman, Baku, Beirut and Freetown. Tbilisi, which will now become a direct flight, will move over to become British Airways route from October 13. All of these routes will be operated by British Airways aircraft and crew, offering the airline's service style.

The carrier also revealed further changes to its flying programme with the announcement that new routes will be launched during its 2012 winter schedule from Heathrow to Alicante, Leeds Bradford, Rotterdam and Zagreb and Gatwick to Las Vegas and Barcelona.

Due to the volume of changes being made to British Airways' network for winter 2012, these schedule changes will be amended on ba.com in stages over the next few days. The airline is recommending that customers re-check their flights on ba.com/managemybooking to ensure they have the latest timing and terminal details.

Paolo De Renzis, Regional Commercial Manager, Middle East, said: "Our new winter schedule brings over 1000 additional seats from Riyadh as we will now use a larger Boeing 747 on the route, rather than a smaller Boeing 777. In addition we have retimed our Riyadh flights to arrive at Heathrow first thing in the morning, enabling customers to make the most of their day. For Jeddah we will now operate on days that make better commercial sense for our customers flying into London. The new Thursday departure has been introduced following customer feedback so this will be a popular service.

"The increased capacity and new timetable gives business and leisure customers the opportunity to connect with British Airways' extensive global network from Heathrow. Plus, our customers can benefit from a generous 23 kg luggage allowance, free online check-in and seat selection 24 hours before departure and complimentary food and drink on board.

"Saudi Arabia continues to be a strategically important market for British Airways and we are committed to flying from Saudi Arabia."