CAA Provisional Statistics Update

[Coathanger16]

Basically you have ruled out most of the departing long haul and short haul flights because we have such a late firsts arrival.

Yes you'll miss some departures but I wouldn't have thought it would be anywhere near most. Is it a case of without an early morning flight you either have an unrealistically short stopover or a rather long stopover? By the time the first shuttle arrive at LHR, even with a 90min connection, you're only about a third of the way through LHR's "operating day". Having done some dummy bookings on Google Flights its not hard to find connections via LHR to major US and Asian destinations.

I'm not saying LBA shouldn't get an night stopper, just questioning how essential it is - if it's not essential how likely is BA to do it?

Sorry if this sounds harsh or cruel. Just trying to question the situation to better understand it.

 

[Finger66]

Nothing harsh about it. We are all entitled to our opinions and that is what this forum is for. Any LBA night stopper for BA would not massively increase connecting traffic for long haul but it may do so for the higher density short haul where it could just improve the chances of doing a day return. Something that isn't currently possible. What it would massively increase though is the point to point traffic, especially on the early southbound. It's probably still not likely to happen soon though due to the additional operating costs this will bring.

 

[airforced]

I have sympathy with those who avoid connecting through Heathrow as you never know what is going to happen to your outbound/return flight with BA's tendency to cancel seemingly on a whim. Couple that with the few scheduled flights from/to LBA daily (I know this is a chicken and egg situation) makes LHR an unattractive proposition as far as I am concerned. I'm sure that I'm not the only one thinking this and this is probably one factor which is stifling growth and load factors on the route. a300boy referred to this uncertainty in another thread recently and was shot down for it for some reason.

How this problematic situation is improved is open to debate but I can't help feeling that these problems are of BA's own making and their success or not on the route will be very much down to them and them alone. They do need, if they want the route to work in the long term and increase in popularity, to build more reliability in and this will probably need a night stopper too. 'Till then, on the odd occasion I need to book connecting flights these days it will be KLM and Schipol for me as has been the case since the 80's.

 

[a300boy]

Anything negative about Lba is normally shot down but I am a big boy and been around this place for ever so can give as good as I get.
However its better to be positive when we can.

 

[Finger66]

Its easy for strong opinions, especially in the written form to be easily misinterpreted by others and equally we will all say things from time to time that upset others. However LBA has more positivity than negativity just now. Human nature does like to focus on negativity too. You cant please all the people all the time. Apologies for cliche mode today

 

[Tarn Spotter]

BA have few destinations where the only departure is before then, so whilst yes adding a night stopper would help with some connections, how would it drastically improve things?

Have to say we only use LHR as a feeder service to somewhere else and we find on every trip we have missed an earlier connection flight out of LHR. On our last trip we flew via Dublin in to Europe as via LHR we would not have reached our destination until 8pm, via Dublin we arrived 6 hours earlier, important when on a city visit and time of the essence. Previously this year we have gone via Amsterdam, again to ensure we arrive at a sensible time, so as not to lose the day.
My daughter flies via Dublin early morning so she can be in New York early afternoon enabling her to do basically a full days work on arrival. She uses the midnight return flight to sleep allowing her to do a full day in Europe on her return.
Time is vital, you can never get it back.

 

[Bigman]

Just as an aside, although our LHR was down 5%, the LHR figures were also down from Glasgow (-5%), Newcastle (-6%) and Manchester (-11%). Might not be an LBA 'thing' after all.

 

[Seasider]

I have not used this service this year but have used it about half dozen times since it started.

I am not sure of the benefits for point to point traffic that a based aircraft would give, Train is still more convenient for Central London and it would be West of Heathrow places that would be more convenient. How many pax - BA should be able to work this out.
They are competing with Dublin and Amsterdam for transfer pax. The Dublin option has been around a little longer now and more people will have tried it and found it to be OK.
Service level has dropped - people expect catering on a "legacy" carrier and it has been said, last minute cancellations do not give people confidence to book.
Connections - there are very few destinations served by BA that depart only once per day before 11.30am. Yes, you may be able to do a "European return" if there is earlier depart/later arrival.

I believe that BA will have been conducting a strategic review on this route as it is nearly 5 years since it started (for the second time) and hopefully they feel they are in a strong enough position to develop with a based aircraft, still 3 flights per day - Dep 06.30; 10.00; 17.00; Arr 09.20; 16.15; 22.00;

 

[airforced]

As there is still a relatively small number of European destinations served from LBA an early southbound flight would open up the European connection possibility and would be very welcome. Earlier in this thread I mentioned my preference for KLM/Schipol over LHR. This is till the case but now with KLM being effectively Air France this preference isn't the automatic choice it once was.

A night stopper at LBA would make me think long and hard and I would probably go with BA and hope that they wouldn't leave my bags behind as they did the last time I connected after a flight from NCL.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

A night stopper at LBA would make me think long and hard and I would probably go with BA and hope that they wouldn't leave my bags behind as they did the last time I connected after a flight from NCL.

BA have always had a woeful record on hold luggage. In the 80's my partner and I were arrested at Nairobi airport, they used to have separate mens and women lanes and all cases inspected. Mine was found to have ladies clothes in and my partners mens. Because clothing basically the only barter available in the country we were seen as breaking the very strict currency regulations. No internet to tell you the rules in those days
My defence was I was flying with BA with two cases, rule of thumb was that BA would only deliver one, so we always broke down our cases.
My partner in another room was telling the same story and in the end we were put in a room together were we were made to repack all male together etc, before we were allowed to fly onwards to Mombasa with Kenya Airways.
I gave up totally flying with BA when leaving Dublin for Manchester a full security alert and we were not able to take anything in the cabin but paperwork or books, I still await my brief case as do many others on this flight.
My OH only gave up last year with BA when her hold case failed to arrive in Malaga from London city airport, not really one of the countries busiest airports and then BA deceided Marbella to far to take, (would have been a 180 euro taxi fare if my OH had gone to collect), so they would leave at Malaga airport, for her to collect when returning home.

 

[airforced]

Yes Tarn Spotter. I quite understand your story. Not only did BA leave my bags at Heathrow getting them back down route was a real trial and cost me money. When approached for compensation - just to cover my costs I would add - they prevaracated before eventually 'awarding' me with a quite derisory sum which was miles away from giving me back what it had cost me to recover my effects. I didn't try and claim any additional costs incurred by having to change my itinerary or holiday plans completely.

I decided then to revert to KLM who were then very good indeed and apart from one instance where they substuted a very cramped and uncomfortable Garuda flight for the usual DC10 I have never had any complaints about them or Schipol. Maybe not so good now that Air France have arrived though.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

airforced: My real concern was that the case turned up at Malaga 4 days before my partners return and BA aware that my partner needed wheel chair assistance, she was not in a position to easily retrieve, especially as they assured, the case would be delivered to the address in Marbella. On being contacted that her case now in Malaga, advised that due to the short period before her return, not financially viable for BA to deliver, however, it was available for collection at any time.
As you state the compensation was derisory and no apologies and a huge fight to justify all the items bought, including suitable attire to attend the wedding of her godson, the reason for the visit.

 

[Seasider]

October's pax figures on the CAA website - 358 565 +5%.

 

[White Heather]

Novembers were up 8.01% too, despite the loss of Monarch. Impressive.

 

[Seasider]

Novembers were up 8.01% too, despite the loss of Monarch. Impressive.

Can you tell us what they were?

 

[White Heather]

Seasider, I will be able to provide the figures after the Consultative Committee meeting which is scheduled for this coming Thursday morning.

 

[White Heather]

OK, as promised, now that the quarterly Consultative Committee meeting has been held I can confirm that the November passenger figures through LBA were 212,678, compared to 196,904 in November 2016. As I previously stated, this represents an increase in 8.01% year on year. Total passenger figures since April 2017 now total
3,250, 752 with 4 more months to come. This compares to 2,874,661 for the same 8 month period last year, an increase of 13.08%. It was stated today by David Laws (LBA Chief Executive) that LBA will definitely surpass 4m passengers by the end of March - highly likely given that we need less than 750,000 passengers spread over the next 4 months. The figures are excellent and even more so given the loss of Monarch airlines. The fact LBA have been able to replace 75% of the lost Monarch seat capacity within 1 month is quite remarkable and Mr Laws was quick to praise all his LBA staff today for working so hard with the airlines to make this happen.

 

[White Heather]

Fantastic figures WH and to have clawed back 75% of Monarch capacity is exellent. Did Mr Laws indicate if he thought the remainder would be filled? Any indication of any new routes?

Not yet xboy 999. What was stated also was that Jet2 have added 100,000 seats for winter 2018/19, which more or less covers the loss of the winter based Monarch A320. Chris Sanders (Airport Aviation Development Exec) also stated that the uncertainties caused by Brexit are making it doubly difficult to get airlines to expand into new airports not already served or add routes and this is likely to continue until the Brexit 'deal' is signed off. I took this to be an indication that securing new carriers and new routes at the present time is a difficult task. It remains to be seen how much success Chris Sanders has in securing either new carriers or new routes until there is more certainty.

 

[ChurchFenton]

November stats route details out from the CAA. Mixed bag, but mostly positive:

DOMESTIC
Heathrow - 14673 +5%
Belfast City - 14673 (identical to LHR - bizarre!) +11%
Aberdeen - 535 +53%
Newquay - 1422 -7%
Southampton - 2989 -15%
Glasgow -100% (1165 in 2016)
Guernsey -100% (384 in 2016)

INTL (highlights)
Paris CDG - 3956 +15%
Dublin 24634 +3%
Malta - 3786 +28%
Amsterdam - 21410 +7%
Funchal - 2674 +125%
Barcelona - 4441 +100%
Murcia - 2572 +1313%
Arrecife - 10060 +12%
Fuerteventura - 5856 +37%
Gran Canaria - 6567 +36%
Tenerife - 15889 +19%
Prague - 2503 +8%
Budapest - 2371 +7%
Riga - 3144 +16%
Vilnius - 2797 +7%
Gdansk - 5613 +9%
Krakow - 6023 +2%
Warsaw Modlin - 3029 +6%
Wroclaw - 2628 (NEW)
Bratislava - 2729 +14%

INTL (negatives)
Dusseldorf - 2893 -36% (but much smaller aircraft Flybe vs Jet2, so may be OK)
Faro - 5966 -22% (Monarch effect)
Alicante - 18820 -10% (Monarch effect)
Malaga - 10508 - 6%
Palma - 1401 -15%

 

[Seasider]

What's happening at the CAA? They've managed to publish November pax figures within 3 weeks. It's only 2 weeks since October's were published.