Poster advertising British Airways’ flights to Aruba from London per 2023.
ORANJESTAD/LONDON--British Airways will start executing flights from London Gatwick airport to Aruba as of March 26, 2023, it was announced on Wednesday.
Aruba Minister of Tourism Dangui Oduber, together with representatives of Aruba Tourism Authority (ATA) and Aruba Airport Authority (AAA), on Wednesday signed the agreement with British Airways.
The British national airline will fly to Aruba two times per week, on Wednesdays and Sundays, operated with a Boeing 777-200ER with a capacity of 336 passengers. On the way to Aruba, the flight will make a stop at Antigua’s V.C. Bird International Airport.
With this stop included, the flying time between London Gatwick and Aruba’s Reina Beatrix Airport will be 11 hours and 30 minutes. The flight will be operated throughout the 2023 summer season, and tickets can already be booked.
This is the first time that British Airways has added Aruba to its itinerary. The airline already flies to Antigua. In the past, there were already flights from London to Aruba, but these were only charter flights during the summer holiday.
According to Minister Oduber, the addition of Aruba to the itinerary of British Airways shows the great confidence that Aruba has in Europe. The British market is growing and is already important for Aruba with close to 11,000 British tourists visiting the island per year.
Minister Oduber anticipated that Aruba’s addition to the itinerary of British Airways will result in a big push, not only in the number of visitors, but also for Aruba as a destination in the British market. Oduber thanked the AAA and its Airlift Committee, and ATA for their work in getting British Airways to Aruba, as well as British Airways for its confidence in Aruba.
July was a good month for Aruba’s tourism as the island received almost 100,000 visitors that month, 5% more than during that month in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic. The vast majority of these visitors, some 87,000, came from North America. The rest were mostly from Europe (9,000) and South America (7,500). In the first seven months of 2022, Aruba received 637,000 visitors.
