British Airways celebrated ten years of non-stop flights between Austin and London today as AUS prepares for the influx of attendees for the SXSW festival. (CBS Austin)
A global air carrier is celebrating a decade of putting Austin, Texas on their world map. British Airways (BA) is marking ten years of non-stop service between Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and London’s iconic Heathrow Airport.
BA says in the ten years it has served Austin they’ve filled 1.25 million seats in their direct flights between Austin and London and they’re now flying larger aircraft to meet the demand. Hubert Frach, the Austin-based head of sales for BA says, “Today we offer 331 seats daily which is more than 50% growth. All in all on an annual basis we offer more than 240,000 seats back and forth to and from Austin.”
As part of their anniversary flights, British Airways passengers got commemorative bottles of Franklin’s barbeque sauce or as they call this special batch, BABQ sauce. They’re also promising to serve Texas-style brisket and barbeque chicken on their flights this month.
But Austin Airport doesn’t have much time for a party. They’re going to be extremely busy soon.
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SXSW EDU, the education portion of the annual spring South by Southwest Festivals is already underway, and the “Southby” crowd for their music, film and interactive portions will be here before long.
The airline says it’s seen growth in the number of business travelers and the leisure sector as well. And BA is not alone. More than 20 million people now fly through the Austin Airport every year. Spokesperson Sam Hanes explains, We really equate that to two things that are happening. Number one is so many people have moved to Austin within the last years, lots of families but businesses as well The second piece to that is people are ready to travel.”
The global COVID-19 outbreak put a lot of travel plans on hold, but now British Airways is among the carriers noting they are carrying more passengers now than before the pandemic.
