For obvious reasons, British Airways is the largest operator between Europe and the US by passenger numbers. Between March 2025 and February 2026, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) shows that it carried 7.4 million passengers and filled 84.4% of seats.

Compared to the prior 12 months, BA’s passengers fell by 2%, while the market as a whole rose slightly. The traffic reduction was driven by a 14% drop at London Gatwick Airport (LGW) due to ending routes to Las Vegas and New York JFK last October. The UK’s busiest airport, London Heathrow Airport (LHR), was not spared, as traffic fell by 1%. This was mainly because BA did not serve Dallas/Fort Worth last summer.

This Route Had The Lowest Load Factor

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DOT data was used to analyze the oneworld member’s entire US route network in the 12 months to February 2026. This process identified its worst and best performing routes by load factor (really, it’s seat factor), passenger traffic, and more. As usual, loads should not be considered in isolation, and it’s always critical to understand how they were achieved.

With only 68.9% of seats filled, LGW to Tampa International Airport (TPA) had BA’s lowest result (142,899 round-trip passengers were carried). BA has operated this route to Florida since 1985. It has always been served from the UK’s second-busiest airport. For most of the past 41 years, BA has had the nonstop market for itself, although some carriers have come and gone.

The most significant development was the arrival of Virgin Atlantic in 2022, which continues to fly from LHR to TPA. BA’s insufficient performance at LGW (half of the months in the examined period had fewer than seven in ten seats filled) and rising head-to-head competition probably led the carrier to announce the switch to LHR.

BA’s first LHR-TPA flight will take place in October 2026. But as the DOT shows that TPA is also Virgin’s US route with the lowest load, there is probably simply too much capacity. Cirium Diio data shows that BA will have the same winter frequency from LHR as it did from LGW (great for maining market share). However, swapping the 336-seat, LGW-configured Boeing 777-200ER for the 256-seat, Boeing 787-10 means nearly a quarter fewer seats are available. This will help to improve loads and yields.

These Routes Ranked 2nd To 5th

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The following table summarizes the routes with the second to fifth-lowest load factors. In second place overall was LHR to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). With a load of just 74.9%, one in four seats were empty to/from the world’s busiest airport for passenger traffic.

This result was ten percentage points lower than BA’s US average (84.4%), although it was even lower compared to the carrier’s full LHR-US network (85.1%). As always, many other things (passenger fares, yields, cargo revenue, costs, and more) would also need to be considered to more fairly evaluate performance. Loads are just one measure.

Delta Air Lines filled 83.7% of its ATL-LHR seats, while its equity partner Virgin was more modest, at 78.1%. Given that ATL is the world’s busiest SkyTeam hub, you’d expect them to have higher results than BA, and they did. And with four daily services against one for BA, you’d expect them to obtain a much larger chunk of the higher-yielding local, or point-to-point, market. In comparison, BA was more reliant on lower-yielding connecting traffic via its LHR hub.

These Were BA’s 6th To 10th Emptiest US Routes

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LGW-Orlando ranked sixth (80.1%; 302,493 passengers), followed by LHR-Boston (81.7%; 481,184 passengers); LGW-New York JFK (82.3%; 90,040 passengers; this route has now ended), LHR-Denver (82.7%; 178,395 passengers), and finally LHR-New Orleans (83.3%; 85,178 passengers).

Denver was among fellow International Airlines Group carrier Aer Lingus’ lowest US results, too. Lufthansa’s Munich-Denver route had that carrier’s sixth-lowest load, driven by the use of the Airbus A380. Other foreign airlines did not do well in Colorado either, such as Air France (79.9%), Turkish Airlines (76.9%), and Edelweiss (65.6%; this airline has ended flights to Denver).