British Airways

[ridgeback]

Couldn't have put it better myself Bigman.

I still believe this route can do well.

I have been impressed with British Airways commitment to it re marketing, operational stability, uniformed ground staff, product on board and state of the a/c and especially price. I also think that the loads are steady and improving. So far so good.

I can't for the life of me understand the negative posters on here as I see this simply as a good news story that can get only get better IF we all get behind it.

Seems some people can't wait to get rid of it and say "I told you so" and then the moaning about the lack of LBA-LHR can commence again. C'est la vie.

 

[rmac]

I echo Ridgeback's comments and think this route will thrive in time, after all theres a big enough population in the Yorkshire region to support it. But there's always someone who wants to be negative.. not long ago critics of BA were saying they should be called London Airways not British Airways as their interest in the regions was zero. Now they come along and start a domestic/ regional service and the critics are out again. True -C'est la vie !!

 

[a300boy]

I agree they seem committed and the crews are doing a sterling job only one diversion so far and the weather has been a little difficult . They have made several Cat 3 approaches during the foggy periods and landed with strong crosswinds too so they seem to be keen to make the link reliable. Only negative comment is a few cancellations made and I suspect Cat 3 landing might not be possible with heavier loads. The Bmi B737s used to divert to Manchester when they were heavy then position back empty and make a Cat 3 approach plus auto land. However as Jet 2 seem to be able to use the system with the 737-300 most of the time maybe this wont be such a problem for the A319.

 

[ridgeback]

Absolutely correct, the one thing busier flights will bring is more restrictive landing capability re tailwind component. At light weights the 319's can autoland on 32 to Cat 3A with up to 6kts (wet) or 12kts (dry) tailwind. If it were to be full then these tolerances do decrease.

But so far so good and the crosswind practise seems to be going ok!

 

[leedsman]

Booked 2 return BA flights from LBA to Berlin for next month, and although served by Jet2, the BA service does offer greater flexibility of days/times. It makes a pleasant change to read the more recent posts of positivity. I am very much of the view this will work, fingers crossed the loads continue improving as we move into the spring and a more typical business travel period.

 

[48vanman]

Don't think you could have flown Jet2 leedsman,I believe their flights don't restart until late March.

Having visited Berlin this summer with Jet2,would have liked to revisit for the christmas markets,but no flights.Surely this could be a year round destination?.

 

[LBA787]

Don't think you could have flown Jet2 leedsman,I believe their flights don't restart until late March.

Having visited Berlin this summer with Jet2,would have liked to revisit for the christmas markets,but no flights.Surely this could be a year round destination?.

Jet2 will operate Berlin 2 x weekly through this winter 2013/14. It was mentioned on the jet2 thread not so long ago.

:crazy:

 

[ridgeback]

BA1342/3 today operated by A320 G-MIDS. Late a/c change.

 

[White Heather]

Thanks for that. How are the loads doing this week anyone?

 

[ridgeback]

All heading in the right direction, week on week it improves.

Real blow tonight as LHR had some ATC outage at about 1900 and 8 shorthaul flights canx inc 1344 which was on stand with pax on board ready to go. Also affected the late GLA/NCL/BRU /MAD so far from just LBA affected but real pain for a new route and with a healthy load too.

 

[White Heather]

Thanks Ridgeback = real shame about the 1344 but otherwise, encouraging.

 

[lbaspotter]

I agree that is great news to hear that the pax load are increasing on the new British Airways Leeds/Bradford – London Heathrow route after one month of operation and having to try and get up and running over the quite Christmas and New Years period which is normally a time of year when Business pax tend not to travel.

Ridgeback is it a case that the northbound BA1344 had a good load this evening but the later southbound BA1345 load was low, hence maybe the reason the Leeds flight was the one of the 8x services to be cancelled this evening due to the technical problems with Heathrow’s ATC.

Also out of interest will the effective northbound pax that were sat on the aircraft awaiting departure before it was cancelled be accommodated this evening and put on tomorrow mornings early BA1340/1341 rotations or will they be transferred over to T5 tonight and put onto one of later Manchester night stopping service’s and sent to Leeds by coach?

 

[ridgeback]

lbaspotter

The 1344 was 1/2 full, a good load. The 1345 was very quiet as it always is (and always will be but hopefully it will cease to exist and they will n/stop the 1344)

I don't think that had any part in the decision at all I think it was just unlucky timing. The outage was 1830 for 2 hours. The pax were on at 1845 and they sat and sat and sat and a decision had to be made. I am 99% certain that the pax will be offered hotel rooms and booked on the 1340/10 which has enough space as it is the other poor performer of the 8 services. Shd they wish they could rebook on a late MAN subject to space but the late NCL sufferered the same fate as the LBA did.

Tonight's canx included the NCL n/stopper which has led to the heavily booked early NCL-LHR tomorrow am being canx and causes crew rotation probs later in the day as the crew won't be there from the n/stopper etc. Similar story for BRU and GLA so LBA was not the easy way out.

Fortunately the ATC probs are resolved but the timing did for the 1344. I hope people are not too inconvenienced.

 

[lbaspotter]

Thanks for your quick and informative reply Ridgeback, The information you post on here is really much appreciated and I’m glad that you feel that you can share that with us all on here...

Well looking at the Airports arrivals board now it looks like the northbound BA1344 pax have either been flown to MAN and coached to LBA, Or been coached all the way up the M1 to LBA from LHR this evening.

 

[ridgeback]

As requested re posted from other section re Dec figs now released.

LBA-LHR total pax for Dec '12 5,580

My response:


LHR figures are as expected and reasonable imo.

As WH points out, sectors 1 & 8 are a drag and is there a worse launch date than Dec 11th?

Every week they improve, today is a record day (most sectors in 50-80 bracket) by a considerable margin (up 100 on last Wed fwiw) and we are yet to see the benefit of the pre-Xmas sales drive.

3 well timed flights in S13 (the timings are shortly to be announced and are different to those previously published) and some further good news to come gives me reason to believe that this route, whilst not pulling any trees up maybe, remains on track or maybe i am just an eternal optimist!

A night-stopper will not happen before W13 at the very earliest but i believe the revised S13 offering will leave only 1 dead sector.

 

[ridgeback]

Stewief1

No SSK's (self service kiosk's) at LBA yet I'm afraid but you can check in at home and print yr own boarding pass or if you have an iPhone check in on that.

Hope that helps.

PS sorry but I can't divulge much as would like to...

 

[Seasider]

Don't worry, just keep on posting what you can.

 

[EX9]

Stewief1

No SSK's (self service kiosk's) at LBA yet I'm afraid but you can check in at home and print yr own boarding pass or if you have an iPhone check in on that.

Hope that helps.

PS sorry but I can't divulge much as would like to...

Nor are we getting them, BA are said to hate them due to the loss of interaction with the passengers.

 

[User0001]

I flew down last night on the last flight south. There were 27 booked and I think 26 travelled. 61 got off of the inbound flight into LBA. My observations were;

- they were loading cargo pallets into the hold. I don't whether that is a one off or whether there is regular belly cargo demand on the services
- I hadn't realised they have BA ground staff on the gate at LBA. The dispatcher was Servisair, but there were 4 gate staff in BA uniforms - one to scan the boarding pass, one to hand me a free paper and two others (more senior) supervising. I wonder if these are servisair staff, given a BA uniform, or are BA really employing their own gate staff?
- We were straight in at Heathrow, giving a flying time of about 35 minutes. Via the Heathrow express, I was in Paddington 30 minutes after the seat belt signs came off at Heathrow and about 90 minutes after push back from LBA. Quick - but helped by the straight-in at Heathrow.

I can only imagine that most of the demand at the moment is business related - just as most of the pre-Christmas demand was lesiure related. The hope will be that come spring, when you have lesiure and business travel along side each other, you'll get a noticable uplift. Better connecting options will help, so if that is on the radar, all the better.

 

[EX9]

All Servisair staff in BA uniform. Only front of house staff wear it.