The final British Airways' jumbo jet flight from Seychelles will depart on Saturday March 27, with the future of the service expected to be secured by Kenya based Regional Air.

Following the last flight of the twice weekly 747 service BA will first fill the gap with a once a week flight by the smaller 767 aircraft. When the BA 767 service terminates in late June, Nairobi based BA partner Regional Air is anticipated to take up the route.

A BA press statement, released this week, says that the 767 weekly operation will be in effect from the start of April, departing from London Heathrow on Saturday 3 April 2004 at 18.20 and arriving in Seychelles at 10.30 on Sunday 4 April 2004.

The return leg will then leave Seychelles at 11.45, to arrive in London at 22.15 the same evening.

The press release goes on to state that passengers arriving at Heathrow too late to make a connecting flight will be offered hotel accommodation, courtesy of British Airways, until they are able to continue their journey.

The 767 scheduled service is then due to finish on 27 June, to be replaced by a Regional Air service, which Tourism Principal Secretary Alain Lafortune confirmed had, in principle, been agreed to by government.

The BA information says that Regional Air is looking at the possibility of operating two to three services a week between Nairobi and Seychelles as of July 2004, which will be made economically viable by using the much smaller Boeing 737-500 series aircraft.

The need to synchronise the Seychelles-Nairobi service with onward BA flights to London is sighted as the reason for the delay in finalising the proposed Regional Air schedule.

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