Beijing Capital Airlines

[Ray Finkle]

New route to Qingdao, 3x weekly from summer.

Heathrow has today confirmed that Beijing Capital Airlines will launch a new direct service from the UK's hub airport to Qingdao, the home of Tsingtao beer and one of the fastest growing cities in China. The new route will connect passengers and cargo directly from Heathrow to Qingdao for the first time, providing three direct services every week starting this summer.

http://mediacentre.heathrow.com/pressrelease/details/81/Corporate-operational-24/8462

 

[Brum X]

New route to Qingdao, 3x weekly from summer.

Heathrow has today confirmed that Beijing Capital Airlines will launch a new direct service from the UK's hub airport to Qingdao, the home of Tsingtao beer and one of the fastest growing cities in China. The new route will connect passengers and cargo directly from Heathrow to Qingdao for the first time, providing three direct services every week starting this summer.

http://mediacentre.heathrow.com/pressrelease/details/81/Corporate-operational-24/8462

So again and again when we are told that LHR is full, Chinese airlines manage to keep putting flights into that airport.

One question, Is LHR really full ??

 

[Ray Finkle]

One question, Is LHR really full ??

It's a question that I keep asking myself?

 

[David_itl]

It's all about when the flights are scheduled. There'll be a modicum of slots at "not commercially attractive" times which they could tap into or maybe one of the incumbent airlines sold some slots.

 

[Coathanger16]

As was mentioned in the article, Heathrow and Beijing Capital Airlines/Hainan have been working on this route for 7 years - puts Qatar at BHX into perspective.

Heathrow is essentially full, and even if its not technically "full", its a damn site harder to get slots there than at pretty much any other airport in the UK.

As mentioned above, the slot for this route was probably bought from another airline - the only option for airlines without a large presence at LHR. BA on the other hand can say switch a 3x daily A319 to a 2x daily A321 and use the 3rd slot for a new route.

In essence, just because an airline is launching a new route from Heathrow doesn't mean the airport isn't full.