British Airways will resume a year-round direct daily service from London Heathrow to Barbados on October 17, following a 15-year hiatus. In recent times Virgin Atlantic has been the only airline to offer a daily direct service from London Heathrow, with British Airways offering a seasonal daily service from London Gatwick. BA’s new Heathrow service will be operated by a four-class B777-200 aircraft and is expected to boost traffic to the Caribbean island. British Airways recently announced the launch of another new route to the Caribbean, with London Gatwick to Montego Bay flights starting from October 13.

British Airways has extended its flexible booking policy in the light of ungoing uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. It means that all customers making bookings for flights or holidays up to September 30, 2020, for travel due to be completed by August 31, 2021, will benefit from the carrier’s Book with Confidence commitments, which include:

Changing bookings

You can change the dates and destination of your booking without incurring a change fee, although you will need to pay any difference in price (applies to bookings made from March 3 until September 30, 2020 for journeys that are due to have been completed by August 31, 2021).

Cancelling bookings

If you decide you no longer want to travel, you can cancel your booking and we’ll give you a voucher to the same value for a future booking (applies to bookings made from March 3 until September 30, 2020 for journeys that are due to have been completed by August 31, 2021).

BA will hope that the extension will encourage customers to book in the coming weeks, with current deals including return flights from Gatwick to Barbados, and seven nights at the four-star South Beach Resort, from £819 per person, travelling between October 1 and October 31, 2020.

“We know how hard people work and how much they look forward to their holidays, so we want to give them the confidence to book, safe in the knowledge they can change their booking should they choose to,” said Andrew Brem, BA’s chief commercial officer.

“Anyone booking this September who plans to travel all the way up to the end of August 2021, can now take advantage of amazing deals and be reassured their precious holidays are well protected.”