St. Louis Lambert Secures First UK Nonstop In Two Decades

British Airways will launch nonstop service to St. Louis in April 2026, opening the city’s first direct connection to the UK in more than two decades and tapping into a European market of more than 350,000 annual passengers.

The service between London Heathrow Airport and St. Louis Lambert International Airport will start on April 19, operating four times per week with Boeing 787-8 aircraft. St. Louis will become the carrier’s 27th U.S. destination, adding a second nonstop option from the Missouri city to Europe alongside Lufthansa’s Frankfurt service that began in 2022.

Local stakeholders say the impact of the British Airways route could generate between $50 million and $100 million annually for the metro economy through increased business, tourism and convention traffic.

“This new flight is a game changer for St. Louis,” Explore St. Louis President and CEO Brad Dean says. “It connects our region to the world, making St. Louis more accessible to international visitors and businesses while positioning us as a global destination.”

According to Sabre Market Intelligence, two-way O&D traffic between St. Louis and Europe totaled about 353,000 passengers in 2024. St. Louis-London was the largest city pair, accounting for 44,000 passengers, followed by Rome, Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin. In the absence of nonstop flights to London, Chicago, Charlotte and Atlanta were the largest one-stop markets.

By introducing a direct UK service, British Airways aims to capture both point-to-point demand and feed connecting flows over London. The airline will also leverage its Atlantic Joint Business partnership with American Airlines to provide wider network access and coordinated schedules.

“St. Louis is a fantastic addition to our U.S. network,” British Airways Chief Planning and Strategy Officer Neil Chernoff says. “As the only direct route from the UK, this service will open up exciting new opportunities for our customers and further strengthen ties between the UK and the U.S. Midwest.”

The new service will compete with Lufthansa, which launched Frankfurt–St. Louis flights in June 2022 and currently operates three times per week using Airbus A330-300s. Lufthansa’s entry restored the city’s first nonstop connection to mainland Europe in nearly 20 years.

St. Louis briefly had a transatlantic link when defunct Icelandic LCC Wow Air operated a limited Reykjavik Keflavik service from May 2018 to January 2019, but otherwise the market had been without regular European flights since the early 2000s. The last nonstop to continental Europe before Lufthansa was TWA’s Paris Charles de Gaulle route, which ended in September 2001, while American Airlines discontinued its London Gatwick service in October 2003, U.S. Transport Department data shows.

Aviation Week Network’s aviation consultancy ASM worked to help secure the London Heathrow route for St. Louis. "I am absolutely delighted for the team at St. Louis Lambert International Airport and the city and community they serve,” says Aviation Week Network Managing Director for Strategy and Consulting Dave Stroud.

“The attraction of British Airways demonstrates the strength of the London, the UK and the beyond market opportunity from St. Louis. It is a wonderful result of positive collaboration between British Airways and the St. Louis stakeholders—congratulations to everyone involved.”

The St. Louis launch is part of a wider transatlantic expansion for British Airways. From summer 2026, the airline plans to restore double-daily service to Miami and daily flights to Dallas-Fort Worth—scaled back in summer 2025 due to capacity constraints—as well as increasing Las Vegas frequencies from 10 to 13 per week and operating 14X-weekly flights to both San Diego and Austin.