BA puts the Boeing 787 on eight more Heathrow routes this winter
Johannesburg swaps its A380 for the 787-9, while San José and Tampa move across from Gatwick.
British Airways is deploying the Boeing 787 on eight additional Heathrow routes through the winter schedule, according to OAG data comparing services from January to September 2026 with what is planned from October 2026 through next year. The airline operates all three Dreamliner variants.
BA is one of very few carriers flying every version of the 787. Ch-aviation records 44 Dreamliners in the fleet: eighteen 787-9s in 215- and 216-seat layouts, fourteen 787-10s with 256 seats, and twelve 787-8s carrying 204 passengers each. The entire subfleet is stationed at Heathrow.
The first changes land on October 25, 2026. Johannesburg goes up to daily through the end of March 2027 and replaces the A380, with the 787-9 flying around ten per cent of the route's rotations. The 787 last served Johannesburg in 2024, San Francisco in 2023, and Bahrain in 2025.
San José in Costa Rica also starts on October 25 at up to five weekly. The service switches from Gatwick, where a 777-200ER had flown it, and moves entirely onto the 787-8 with a single 787-9 appearance. It is the first time Heathrow has hosted the route, which Gatwick had run for a decade.
The Costa Rican capital is becoming an important gateway for higher-end nature tourism. Moving the route to Heathrow should lift yields and, somewhat counterintuitively, sharpen the focus on connecting traffic alongside the point-to-point demand the 100 per cent 787 operation serves.
Tampa switches from Gatwick on the same date, rising to daily on the 787-10 with one 787-8 rotation, and the 787-8 appears once. It had been a 777-200ER route at Gatwick and now becomes fully Dreamliner, as BA works toward eventually replacing its Gatwick-configured 777-200ERs with the 787-10.
On January 9, 2027, BA returns to Melbourne via Kuala Lumpur after a twenty-year absence. The daily service flies the 787-9 throughout and is entirely new to the route, which had no 787 operations in the earlier schedule window examined.
Bahrain resumes on March 28, 2027 as a daily 787-9, replacing the 777-200ER on a route that has been suspended. Rio de Janeiro switches the same day from the 777-200ER to the 787-8, which now covers 57 per cent of rotations; the 787 last appeared there in 2023.
San Francisco also moves over on March 28, with the 787-9 taking 24 per cent of flights in place of the 777-200ER and 777-300ER.
The Madrid rotation returns
One more route beyond the eight additions switched back on October 28, when BA reintroduced the 787 on the short hop from Heathrow to Madrid. The type links two of IAG's critical hubs and had been off the route since 2022, having flown it between 2017 and then.
Madrid sees all three 787 variants this winter, the only one of six current routes to do so, though usually one variant appears only on a handful of flights. The pattern reflects aircraft availability and slotting whichever version is free rather than a deliberate product choice.
The widebody's presence on the Spanish route is largely about freight. BA has flown big jets to Barajas for years, from the 767-300ER to the 777-200ER, because the belly hold adds capacity for cargo onward to South America. Iberia does the same with its A330s and A350s.
The 787 has more or less replaced the Triple Seven on Madrid this winter, though the 777-200ER still appears occasionally and will take the route back next summer. The A380 had also made appearances on it for crew familiarisation and training purposes.
Every Madrid 787 flight is operated as BA460 outbound, leaving Heathrow at 8:45 or 8:50 in the morning and reaching Barajas at 12:15 or 12:20 local time. The return is BA461, departing at 1:55 or 2:00 and arriving back in the UK at 3:20 or 3:25.
Occasionally BA swaps the 787 for an A320 or another narrowbody, but Flightradar24 data shows the widebody has kept to its planned rotations so far.
The wider picture is that BA has now pulled the 787 from six other routes even as it adds these eight. The timetable is recorded as known on November 12 and may still change through the winter, and the airline has not stated when the Gatwick 777s will fully give way to Dreamliners.
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