British Airways World Cargo has announced the addition of Leipzig and Gothenburg to its European shorthaul freighter programme, and the launch of a new Bahrain service for its longhaul network. The changes, which form part of the carrier's winter schedule, take effect from October 28.

Leipzig will be served twice weekly from, and to, Luton on Saturdays and Heathrow on Sundays. The return routing on Sundays will operate via Munich to the East Midlands. These new flights will replace the carrier's current services to Prague and Cologne during the winter.

For customers using the Leipzig service, direct trucking services are available from Leipzig to meet strong demand into the developing east European markets, such as Warsaw, Wroclaw, Prague, Bratislava and Budapest. In addition, trucking services from both Leipzig and Munich are available to Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Salzburg, Linz, Vienna and Graz.

BA World Cargo has also added a stop in Gothenburg to its current
service between Luton and Stockholm every Wednesday, complementing its Stockholm trucking connection. The new service replaces one of the carrier's weekly Luton to Paris services.

Jude Winstanley, manager network and freighters, BA World Cargo, said: "Leipzig and Gothenburg make welcome additions to our extremely successful shorthaul freighter programme. Customer feedback tells us there will be strong uplift from Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the Leipzig service, while the majority of traffic on the Gothenburg service is anticipated to come from southern Sweden and Denmark."

The addition of Bahrain to BA World Cargo's longhaul network is a result of customer demand, and provides another outlet for Middle East traffic, especially north American originating cargo.

The flight, operated by a Boeing 747-400 freighter, will be offered as an additional stop on BA World Cargo's current service to Cologne and Hong Kong from Stansted and will provide significant extra capacity on the popular route.

BA World Cargo is also introducing an additional weekly service to Cologne on the Hong Kong route bringing its Cologne-Hong Kong services to two per week.

The carrier's winter schedule also includes twice-weekly services to Atlanta and weekly services to Chicago and Houston that connect to Frankfurt, Munich, Damman, Dubai, Delhi and Bahrain. It will also continue to operate six weekly flights to and from Hong Kong which return via Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai.