British Airways is shaking up its long-haul schedule for 2027, and the headline change hits Chile. From the start of the Northern Summer 2027 season, the airline's London Heathrow–Santiago service — currently a nonstop of roughly 14 hours 35 minutes covering about 7,227 miles — will instead route through Buenos Aires. The first leg to Ezeiza takes around 11 hours 35 minutes, followed by a stop of just under two hours, pushing the total scheduled London-to-Santiago journey to 18 hours 5 minutes. The upside: Santiago goes daily, up from three to four nonstop flights a week today. Outbound flight BA245 departs Heathrow at 7:25 PM and lands in Santiago at 8:30 AM the next day; the return, BA244, leaves at 10:10 AM and reaches London at 8:30 AM the following morning.

There's a dose of nostalgia here, too. BA flew to Santiago via Buenos Aires with Boeing 747-400s until 2000, and for years afterwards travellers connected through Madrid or São Paulo. The airline only restored a nonstop in 2017, using the 787-9 Dreamliner. From March 2027 the new routing gets the 777-200ER, and it's a decent cabin: 48 Club Suites with sliding doors in a 1-2-1 layout (21-inch seats, 79-inch flat beds), 40 World Traveller Plus seats in 2-4-2, and 184 economy seats in a tightish 3-4-3.

The Santiago change sits inside a bigger Latin American push — capacity across the region rises 25% for Summer 2027 versus 2026. Buenos Aires, which currently shares a routing with Rio de Janeiro, gains nonstop service, freeing up more direct seats to Rio as well. San José, Costa Rica, becomes year-round at three flights a week (Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays) rather than winter-only. Gatwick–Barbados continues through the summer with onward tags to Grenada, Guyana and Tobago, and Gatwick–St. Lucia runs four times weekly.

Beyond Latin America, BA is also returning to Melbourne via Kuala Lumpur from January 2027 and launching a new triangular Gatwick route linking Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar from May, while adding frequencies to Las Vegas, Baltimore, Houston, New Orleans, Cape Town, Tokyo Haneda and Punta Cana.

So who should care? If you're flying London–Santiago, a daily service is a genuine win, but you'll now need to weigh the extra three-plus hours and the stop against more frequency and a better business class cabin. Anyone preferring a nonstop should book before the 2027 switch. And if your plans involve Argentina rather than Chile, there's simply more capacity than ever. For safari-and-beach types, the new Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar link-up makes a two-stop Tanzania trip from London far easier to plan.