British Airways will soon be serving Barbados with year-round, daily flights out of London Heathrow, Barbados tourism officials confirmed this week. 

The year-round daily flights will launch Oct. 17, according to Barbados Tourism Minister Lisa Cummins. “For more than 15 years, Barbados has been engaging British Airways on the re-establishment of London Heathrow as the gateway to Barbados, following the retirement of its Concorde service. We are thrilled therefore to see this finally come to fruition as it opens the door for us, quite literally, for growth opportunities in cities and continents that were once out of our reach.”

Cummins said the flights would also help improve connectivity across the UK. 

“Post-COVID-19, with British Airways seeing the contraction of various routes, the opportunity presented itself for this service and we were determined to secure it,” the Minister said. “Understanding the challenges currently faced by our industry, it is critical for us to be both smart and aggressive with our growth strategy, and this represents that.”

British Airways will be operating the route on Boeing 777-200 aircraft. 

The flights will supplement daily flights from London Gatwick, which will run from Oct. 2020 through April 2021. 

“The U.K. continues to be our primary source market. In 2019, Barbados reported record arrivals from the U.K.—234,658 arrivals of the destination’s overall 712,945. We therefore expect that this addition will bring us even more favorable results as we look confidently ahead to our future,” Cummins said.