British Airways

[Sherburnflyer92]

Maybe cynical here but i wonder if this is the perfect opportunity for BA to pull the plug on the LBA route.

 

[Bigman]

What with all this Coronavirus business and Extinction Rebellion, we might as well just shut the whole place down and have done with it!!

 

[AirBingley]

It did grow in January by 9% and achieved 104 pax per sector flown (assume 10 CE rows) then 133 seats available gives a load factor of 77% in what is a quiet month (on 3 flights a day in 2017 and 2018 it was only doing 10k pax in January so commercially this must be a big improvement) - also don't BA have obligations to use or lose slots at LHR which means they'd have to fly somewhere similar so it might not be quite so straight forward! Given the schedule times aren't great for point to point day returns then we must assume the majority of pax are connecting which is precisely what BA need in the current climate. I'd suggest the much more expensive long haul programme might be more of an issue?

 

[KARFA]

Maybe cynical here but i wonder if this is the perfect opportunity for BA to pull the plug on the LBA route.

BA have never needed excuses before to pull routes. If they wanted to pull LBA they would do so.

 

[KARFA]

assume 10 CE rows) then 133 seats

If it were 10 rows of CE that would be 143 - 20 so 123 seats. Tbh I think that's too high an assumption - you can only go to row 9 for CE on the A319 anyway - and my experience is 5/6 rows as an average is a reasonable basis to use for these rough load calculations.

It did grow in January by 9%

Btw if you are comparing Jan 19 to Jan 20 be careful. Passenger numbers did go from 8354 to 9146, but number of rotations went from 80 to 88. So in terms of % loads It hardly change at all.

Looking at overall loads in 2018 vs 2019 (using my assumption of 5 rows of CE) both years were 76%.[/quote]

 

[lbaspotter]

BA have never needed excuses before to pull routes. If they wanted to pull LBA they would do so.

Yeah it's all doom and gloom, I'm totally in agreement with you @Bigman.

Might as well close up shop because if you believe the gutter press everyone will be dead soon either because of Global warming or Crona Virus.

If British Airways wanted to go from LBA, they'll had left years ago.
As proven in the past they don't need an excuse like this to give up a route or reduce frequency.

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

BA have never needed excuses before to pull routes. If they wanted to pull LBA they would do so.

Of course they would even if they had full loads delivering profit. What i'm getting at here is the fact that they can hide behind "reduced" demand they have the perfect excuse to can it. As @lbaspotter as pointed out it's the gutter press that are doing the damage at the moment with provocative language, war language and scaremongering.

 

[ChurchFenton]

Looking from the alternative perspective, if they feel they need to cut frequencies in badly hit parts of Europe, but need to maintain slot usage at LHR, then a temporary increase in frequency on a short LBA hop might be a possibility?

 

[Finger66]

Always look on the bright side of life!

 

[LBA4EVER]

Looking from the alternative perspective, if they feel they need to cut frequencies in badly hit parts of Europe, but need to maintain slot usage at LHR, then a temporary increase in frequency on a short LBA hop might be a possibility?

I was thinking that myself, perhaps test run a night stop aircraft at LBA? If a success keep the service running filling up those long haul planes.

 

[paully]

Turmoil on the stock market, BA shares are down 40% from their January price.

Time to buy..This crisis won`t last forever and soon the media will become bored with it and move on. Everything will start to recover. BA/IAG must be worth a punt?

 

[AirBingley]

Norwegian are tipped to be another struggler - BA will have those Gatwick slots like a shot if they're allowed to so you can see them being winners out of this whole sorry affair. Similarly does anyone know what will happen to the LHR remedy slots that Flybe were using - do they revert to BA on the condition they are used for domestic travel?

 

[Heathrowflyer]

I feel sorry for BA as they are trying their best to keep routes going ....and two of their baggage handles at LHR hv just tested positive for coronavirus.

 

[Sherburnflyer92]

IAG shares, peak in Jan was 7.86, close on Friday 4.97...no brainer got to recover over the next 6-12 months.

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If the media leave off this for a few months or forever and go back to actual news such as Brexit, they will. Depends how long they keep peddling the boring coronavirus scaremongering headlines for.

 

[Heathrowflyer]

The one good thing to come out of this is a review of deep.cleaning of aircraft. BA say its once a month....I'd say it should be once a week, given the volume of traffic. It God knows how often other airlines do it. I've been on FR flights with food on the floor and seat....there should be minimum requirements.

 

[Jerry]

British Airways Flies 25-Minute Heathrow To Gatwick Ghost Flight

Did you know that British Airways sometimes operates flights between London Heathrow and Gatwick? Alongside many airlines that…

simpleflying.com

Or maybe they were just positioning to Gatwick to operate out of there?

 

[Jerry]

Why they have plenty of aircraft at LGW....

Aircraft go tech. Need maintenance that sort of thing.

 

[Coathanger16]

Aircraft repositioning between the airports is fairly common.

Recently most of the A319's at Gatwick have been re-based at Heathrow so have had to be repositioned.

Heathrow and Gatwick are often used as a diversion airport for the other. If a Gatwick bound aircraft diverts to Heathrow, sooner or later the aircraft will be repositioned back to Gatwick, and vice versa.

BA also has maintenance facilities at both airports with certain ones being better equipped for certain checks than the other, hence aircraft are moved around for maintenance.

 

[KARFA]

Or maybe they were just positioning to Gatwick to operate out of there?

Yes, this is the definition of a complete non story. Positioning between the two airports happens all the time, it has been happening regularly before CV, and will continue regularly after CV. There have been a large number of A319/A320 swaps between LGW and LHR as well recently with many of the exBMI being moved from LGW to LHR, and a few A320s being moved the other way.

 

[AirBingley]

This headline looks to have answered my question - could we see a night stop just to use the slots in the interim as I'm pretty sure they have to be for UK traffic? I wonder if this is our only bite at the cherry to get a night stop. I did read BA offered to run NQY but only as a summer service.

British Airways Picks Up 12 Heathrow Slot Pairs

British Airways has picked up 12 daily slot pairs at Heathrow from Flybe. Ordinarily this would be a blessing, but it will pose some short term challenges.

onemileatatime.com