BA brings Hoppers to Club World: the new Colombo menu, and what it costs in Avios

I'll be honest - when an airline press release lands about a new menu, I usually skim it. This one made me hungry. British Airways has teamed up with Hoppers, the London Sri Lankan and South Indian restaurant group, to put a special menu in Club World on its brand-new Gatwick to Colombo route. It starts on launch day, 23 October, and it is only around for a couple of months.

Here is what is on the menu, how the route works, what it costs in Avios - and one catch that I don't think enough people will notice.

WHAT // From 23 October to 30 December, Club World passengers on the Gatwick to Colombo flight get a three-course menu built around Hoppers' best-loved dishes:

Before you board, the British Airways Club Lounge at Gatwick will also serve a Hoppers cocktail called the Ceylon Pearl, made with Tanqueray Rangpur gin, lychee and pink citrus tonic.

The menu was created by BA's Executive Chef Mark Brega with Hoppers founder Karan Gokani. Hoppers opened in Soho in 2015 and won a Michelin Bib Gourmand in its first year. It now also has restaurants in Marylebone, King's Cross and Shoreditch.

WHY IT MATTERS // This is a brand-new route, not a menu refresh on an existing one. BA flies BA2045 from Gatwick to Colombo three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It leaves at 16:40 and lands at 08:35 the next morning. The return, BA2044, leaves Colombo at 10:35 and gets into Gatwick at 17:00. The route is winter-only, with all three cabins - World Traveller, World Traveller Plus and Club World - on a Boeing 777. BA quotes return economy fares from £524.

That timing matters for the food. A late-afternoon departure means dinner is the main event before you sleep, so the Hoppers meal is not something you'll be tempted to skip for extra rest.

Read the notes at the bottom of BA's release and you'll see the menu is on flights from Gatwick to Colombo. The flight home is not mentioned. So if Hoppers is the draw, it is the outbound you need in Club World.

Second, the window is small. If the schedule runs as published, there are about 30 outbound flights between 23 October and 30 December. Flight Seatmap shows 40 Club World seats on the aircraft, so by my maths only around 1,200 Club World seats will ever get this menu. When I pulled up the launch flight on Flight Seatmap, every Club World seat was showing as taken. That is one flight, not the whole run, but it tells you demand is there.

Colombo sits in the same BA price band as Malé, Mumbai and Barbados. These are one-way prices from London:

These are BA's 'most Avios, least cash' options - ba.com always offers other mixes of Avios and cash. You can check any route with our how many Avios do I need tool, and BA prices long haul by distance, so our Great Circle Mapper is handy if you want to see why a route lands where it does.

Remember that late December is peak season, so a Christmas run to Sri Lanka will usually price at the higher figure. If you hold a BA Amex Premium Plus 2-4-1 Companion Voucher (I don't at the moment), it works on BA-operated flights like this one - you pay the Avios for one seat and the taxes for both.

Not sitting on 99,000 Avios? Our Avios balance booster calculator shows whether it is cheapest to top up through BA, Qatar or Finnair. The better long-term fix is card spend: American Express Membership Rewards points convert 1:1 to Avios, and if you run a limited company, Capital on Tap earns points that convert to Avios with no annual fee on the standard card - I use two of them for my own business spend.

I like this, and not just because Pollichathu cod sounds a lot better than the usual 'chicken or beef'. Airline food at altitude is hard - your sense of taste drops in a dry, pressurised cabin, which is a big part of why bold, spicy, acidic dishes tend to travel better than delicate ones. Tamarind, chilli, lime and curry leaf are exactly the flavours that should survive at 35,000 feet. On paper, Sri Lankan food is a smart match for a plane.

It also feels like BA trying to give a route a personality. Most of us choose a flight on price, schedule and Avios availability, and that is right. But when two options are close, a menu that tells you something about where you are going is a nice tiebreak. BA put a lot of noise behind restoring its full Club World dining service in 2022. A named, destination-led menu is a natural next step, and I'd love to see it become the norm on new routes, not a two-month special.

The flip side is that it is a lovely detail on a route most people will only fly once. Three flights a week, winter only, and a menu that ends before New Year - this is marketing as much as catering. That's fine, as long as you go in with the right expectation: it is a fun bonus, not a reason on its own to spend 99,000 Avios.

For a points collector, the bigger story is the route itself. Sri Lanka is now bookable with Avios on a direct BA flight at the same price as the Maldives or Mumbai. SriLankan Airlines is also a oneworld member - I wrote about my first SriLankan flights a while back - so mixing BA one way with a partner the other way is worth a look if BA's return seats are tight.

On the ground, I'm BA Silver, which gets me into the Club Lounge at Gatwick - here's what else Silver gets you. If you're flying in World Traveller without status, a Ceylon Pearl is off the table. You can check other options with our lounge access finder.

If you were already thinking about Sri Lanka this winter, the Hoppers menu is a genuine reason to put the outbound in Club World and book it before 30 December. If you weren't, it probably isn't enough to change your plans - but the route is a welcome new use for Avios, and it is worth watching for off-peak reward seats.

Before you go, a few things worth sorting: a Sri Lanka eSIM from Airalo so you have data when you land, a check of estimated Gatwick security queues on the day, and your seat on the BA2045 seat map. If you do fly it, send me your photos on Instagram - I want to know if the vadai survives the trip. I'll update this piece if BA extends the menu or adds it to the return.

That's all from me for now. Any questions, just hit reply - I read every email.

Safe travels,
Jack