British Airways is reducing its flight schedule between Seychelles and London, the airline has announced.

The airline will conduct only one service to Seychelles a week as from March 28, down from its previous two-flight schedule per week.  The flight will depart London Heathrow Airport on Saturdays and depart Seychelles on Sundays.

Flights will continue to operate via Nairobi, Kenya, but will be operated by a Boeing 767 aircraft. British Airways has traditionally used a Boeing 747 for its London-Seychelles flights.

The announcement by the British airline coincides with Air Seychelles' move last month to introduce a second direct London-Seychelles flight beginning this April.

Air Seychelles currently hosts two London-Seychelles flights – one direct flight and one with a stopover in Zurich – but the airline decided to drop the Swiss leg to accommodate a second direct London flight.

Air Seychelles spokesman Glenn Pillay said the airline was not in a position to comment on whether there was a connection between the second direct flight and British Airways' decision to reduce its operations, but said that "whatever void is left by this, Air Seychelles will do its best to fill it up."

British Airways' area commercial manager for East Africa, Neil Steffen, said the decision to reduce the London-Nairobi-Seychelles flight was a matter of efficiency in the airline's overall network.

"We are making these changes because we can utilise the (747) aircraft more efficiently on other parts of the network that need the extra capacity," he said.

Mr Steffen added that British Airways was in discussions with its franchise partner, Regional Air, to take over the Nairobi-Seychelles sector starting in July.

"We are working closely with our African airline partners to determine how they can operate scheduled flights to and from Seychelles that could connect our customers to British Airways scheduled flights from other destinations in Africa," he said.  "We hope to make a further announcement in the near future."

The revised schedule for Seychelles-London flights between April and June will see Flight BA089 depart London Heathrow on Saturdays at 5.20 p.m., arriving in Seychelles at 9.30 a.m. on Sunday. Flight BA088 will depart Seychelles on Sundays at 10.45 a.m., arriving at London Heathrow at 9.10 p.m. that evening.

"We apologise to all our customers affected by these changes and are doing everything we can to minimise the disruption to their travel plans," Mr Steffen said.

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