UK regional airline Loganair is to expand domestic services from London Heathrow following a deal with British Airways.
The Glasgow-based carrier has secured access to 30 extra pairs of slots per week at Heathrow through a lease agreement with BA, which will take effect in May 2023.
“The slots will enable Loganair to develop regional connectivity from UK domestic destinations to the UK’s premier hub, offering both point-to-point access into London itself and a broad range of new worldwide connections via Heathrow,” said Loganair in a statement.
The airline added that it would be announcing details of the routes it will serve using these slots in the “coming days”. Loganair already flies from Heathrow to the Isle of Man and has an existing codeshare with British Airways covering multiple routes.
Loganair also used the announcement to call for the UK government to take action to ensure that more slots are made available at Heathrow for domestic flights.
“We’re delighted to be growing our operations at Heathrow,” added Jonathan Hinkles, Loganair’s chief executive.
“Having taken these important first steps ourselves to provide new connectivity to and from the UK regions under this arrangement, it’s now essential for the UK government to initiate the process needed to reform competition remedies to provide access to Heathrow for the UK regions.”
Loganair wants the government to “initiate action” with the European Commission to repatriate control of remedy slots at Heathrow, which were previously made available for airlines to fly on domestic routes.
Heathrow has also just changed its tariffs for regional aircraft flying on domestic routes, which Loganair said was “critical” to the viability of its UK flights from the airport.