The schedule for the familiarization flights of British Airways’ first A350-1000 have been leaked in an avgeek forum. The airline looks to be planning to operate the A350 daily between London and Madrid between 6th August and 28th September. Simple Flying bring you all the details.
If you’re as excited for the arrival of the British Airways A350-1000 as we are, hold onto your seat because we have some awesome news for you. The training flights schedule for the A350 is out!
As you’ll know if you’ve been reading along, the first BA A350-1000 will be heading off to serve the Toronto route from October 1st. Subsequent planes are earmarked to serve India, Israel and Dubai. But before any of that happens, BA will be running some crew familiarization flights between London and Madrid.
Well, now we (probably) know when.
The BA A350 London to Madrid schedule
Although not fully confirmed yet, BotB shared a potential schedule in FlyerTalk this week. This provisional schedule indicates that British Airways will operate the A350-1000 daily from August 6th to September 28th, 2019.
The flights operated will be BA464 and BA465, and on Thursdays and Sundays it will run the route twice, operating the additional BA456 and BA457 flight. There are a few days when it won’t operate at all, which are marked as 13th August, 31st August, 7th September and 8th September.
In terms of flight times, they are as following:
- BA464 departs London 16:45, arriving Madrid 20:05 daily
- BA465 departs Madrid 21:20, arriving London 22:25 daily
- BA456 departs London 06:20, arriving Madrid 09:40 Sundays and Thursdays
- BA457 departs Madrid 10:55, arriving London 12:15 Sundays and Thursdays
At this time, the A350 is not showing on the schedules for booking, so there is a real risk that you could book these flights and end up on an A320 or similar. However, it’s looking fairly positive that these could be the training flights BA will use.
BA’s A350-1000
As if it needed any introduction, the British Airways A350-1000 is looking to be the crown jewel in this 100 year old airline’s line up. It took its first flight just this week, and is the first of 18 the UK carrier is expecting from Airbus, four of which will arrive this year.
The feature that’s really got everyone hot under the collar, however, is the stunning new Club World suite. Featuring direct aisle access and privacy doors, the new suite is set to be a market leading business class product. However, it has come at a cost of first class, which is absent from the A350 altogether.
Aside of the super cool business class product on board the A350, British Airways have snagged just about the coolest registration possible for the aircraft. Their first A350-1000 will sport the registration G-XWBA, combining both the XWB of the A350 and the BA of British Airways – genius!
Equipment could change at any time
Of course, we must present this information with a disclaimer that all airline schedules are subject to change. As such, you book a seat on these flights absolutely at your own peril, as the equipment could be changed at any time. In fact, they aren’t even showing as A350 flights at this time.
Simple Flying reached out to British Airways, who were reluctant to confirm anything officially, but did issue us with the following statement,
“We're excited to welcome the first A350-1000 into our fleet this summer and it will operate to and from Madrid for several weeks. It will start to appear in our schedules soon, however as with any flight the aircraft type planned to operate could change at any time.”
This could be a gift wrapped opportunity to experience the amazing A350-1000 with that gorgeous new Club World suite, without the commitment of flying long haul. However, it might be wise to hold off until the schedules are update at least, unless of course you’re planning to head to Madrid on those dates anyhow.
Will you be trying to get a seat on these Madrid A350 flights? Let us know in the comments!
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