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British Airways’ routes to the United States are from both 
London Heathrow Airport (LHR) and 
London Gatwick Airport (LGW). In 2026, data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, shows that LGW has 5% of the flights. However, things will change in the upcoming winter. Due to a route shifting to LHR, LGW will only have 2% of the services. Excluding the COVID-19 years, that’ll be the smallest proportion ever.
BA is doubling down on its core strength: LHR. The 
oneworld member has 27 LHR-US routes this year. This article excludes fellow alliance member and transatlantic joint venture partner American Airlines, which operates on a so-called ‘metal neutral’ basis with BA.
BA From LHR To The US: A Summary
This article will now focus exclusively on the UK’s busiest airport. As the figure above shows, BA has scheduled a record 4.4 million seats to/from the US in 2026. The North American nation accounted for 54.8% of BA’s total long-haul capacity. Excluding the pandemic years, that was comfortably the highest level to date. It was influenced not just by the growth to the US (+4.8% compared to 2025) but cuts elsewhere (-8.2%).
BA’s year-on-year growth of 4.8% year-over-year was influenced by the launch of service to 
Orlando International Airport (MCO), Lambert St Louis International Airport (STL) and Tampa (in October 2026). Multiple other routes have more flights in 2026, while service to 
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) returned, having not operated last summer. It is too early to tell what consequence, if any, this additional capacity had on the airline’s overall load factor or yields.
The increase in US seats meant that the carrier’s share of the ever-important transatlantic market rose to 40.3%. That was the highest level since 2020 but down from the 44.8% achieved 19 years ago, before various US carriers, including Delta Air Lines, could fly to LHR.
When BA’s LHR-US seats are added to American’s offering, the pair’s share of the critical market has risen to 68.9%. That’s the highest level since 2017, although the peak share was achieved in 2016 (74.2%). That was before JetBlue entered the transatlantic race and before Virgin Atlantic consolidated at LHR in the post-COVID world.
BA Has 27 US Routes In 2026
BA’s US routes are shown on the following map. For completeness, BA’s intentionally short-term service to MCO for the UK school holidays is included. Notice Missouri’s STL, to which the UK’s largest long-haul carrier began flying on April 19, 2026, ahead of the peak summer. London last had flights to STL in 2003, when American operated to LGW, having inherited the route from TWA.
BA serves STL four times weekly during the summer only, using the 204-seat Boeing 787-8. This is BA’s lowest-capacity widebody and it has been retrofitted with Club Suites. It has 31 Club Suites (1-2-1), 37 seats in World Traveller Plus (mainly 2-3-2; 38″ pitch), and 136 seats in World Traveller (3-3-3; 31″).
The low capacity and having fewer business seats than any other twin-aisle equipment help to reduce risk on what is a brand-new route for the airline. It’ll be good to see which comes first: the equipment upgauged, the frequency increased, or the link’s operating period expanded.
It is perhaps unfair to examine how a route is doing so soon after beginning. Nonetheless, UK Civil Aviation Authority data shows traffic results for April-June 2026. In April, 2,540 round-trip passengers were carried (remember: flights began on April 19), followed by 6,063 in May and 6,568 in June. 15,171 passengers were transported, with an average load factor of 88.4%. This says nothing about the fares needed to achieve that result.
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Where BA’s US Passengers Go
Unsurprisingly, London is the leading European city for travel to/from the US. The point-to-point or local market is enormous. More interestingly, booking data shows that approximately 3.1 million passengers connected to another BA flight at LHR in the 12 months to June 2026. Nearly 8,500 passengers did so daily.
The top 15 countries were the US via LHR to India, Italy, the wider UK, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Ireland, South Africa, Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Denmark. The top 15 airport pairs were New York JFK via LHR to Mumbai, JFK-Berlin, JFK-Delhi, Los Angeles-Rome, JFK-Rome, JFK-Glasgow, DFW-Hyderabad, LAX-Milan Linate, JFK-Manchester, JFK-Nice, JFK-Johannesburg, Miami-Manchester, Newark-Mumbai, JFK-Athens, and JFK-Tirana.
