British Airways Built a Triangle to Reach Kilimanjaro

British Airways is going back to Tanzania for the first time in about fifteen years, and it is doing it with an unusual shape. From 29 May 2027 the airline will fly London Gatwick to Kilimanjaro, continue from Kilimanjaro to Zanzibar, and then return from Zanzibar direct to Gatwick without calling at Kilimanjaro again. The service runs three times a week on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays through the summer season, ending on 31 October 2027, and it is timed to sit across the UK school holidays and the peak safari months.

The routing is a single flight number, BA2163, used for all three sectors, which is confusing on a booking screen and elegant on an aircraft utilisation chart. Gatwick departs at 9:05am and reaches Kilimanjaro at 8:20pm, with a one-hour turn before the short hop to Zanzibar arriving at 10:25pm. The aircraft then sits about three hours before leaving Zanzibar at 12:25am for a 7:55am arrival back at Gatwick. A Boeing 777 operates it, in the usual three-cabin fit of Club World, World Traveller Plus and World Traveller. Fares start from around £849 return including taxes and charges.

For anyone paying in Avios rather than cash, seats were loaded at announcement. British Airways released its standard full complement of redemption inventory, four in Club, two in World Traveller Plus and eight in World Traveller, but split it across the two destinations, so each of Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar shows roughly half. That halving is worth knowing before you go hunting: an apparently thin availability calendar may simply be the split rather than a sold-out flight.

One caveat for premium passengers. Because this is a Gatwick long-haul route, it gets the older yin-yang Club World cabin rather than the newer suites with direct aisle access, and Gatwick is not due to receive its Boeing 787-10 fleet until around 2029. A connection through Doha on Qatar Airways remains a cheaper Avios redemption in business class for a better seat, which is a strange thing to say about a brand-new British Airways route but is where the numbers currently land. Tanzania was announced alongside added capacity to South America, Africa and the Caribbean for summer 2027.

Sources: British Airways Media Centre, Head for Points