BA new aircraft deliveries

[vctenderness]

Just heard that the first of BA's 787's will arrive in May 2013 followed by the first A380 in July.

I wonder what routes they will serve first?


Keith Williams apparently said they would have a working fleet by Winter 013.

[wiggy]

I wonder what routes they will serve first?


Might well be the likes of SIN, HKG, and LAX early on for the 380 but don't be surprised to see either type doing short hops to get the sector count/experience up.....FWIW it wasn't unusual to see BA's early 744's doing the likes of LHR-CDG.........

[gorter]

And AF's a380's did CDG-LHR, but SIN and JFK seem like safe bets too. BA aren't trying to prove anything with the 787 and the A380 they only need to train their crews.

[average-punter]

Would be great to see them on the JNB run :)

[wiggy]

BA aren't trying to prove anything with the 787 and the A380 they only need to train their crews.

True but the reason for the short sectors in the 744s early BA days was also only to build crew experience and train crews, most especially the trainers. FWIW I'm certainly hearing "rumours" ;) that BA's first 380s will be doing some European short haul work early on, for the same reason.

Strong contenders for BA 380 Long Haul routes for the 380 would be HKG and LAX (logical because at the moment those are routes where BA currently run 3 hulls a day, in fact in HKGs case it's three at the almost same time of day) and also SIN (to directly compete with the oppositions "product"). After that my guess would possibly be somewhere like JNB but since BAs 380 fleet will be quite small you're running out of further options. Unlike Mike777 and gorter I'm not convinced BA will rush to use the 380 on the JFKs (other then the odd flight early on to "show the flag" and prove you can get a 380 parked at BA's JFK terminal without hitting the blast fence and/or the Armco :hmm:) - BA's emphasis on that (LHR-JFK) route is high frequency, roughly every hour or two, so I think it'll be a 747/777 even 787 route for a long time

[Suzeman]

Doesn't actually take long to find out the facts using t'interweb thingy....:ugh:

From an article in Australian Business Traveller 02 March 2012

British Airways A380 & 787 routes: tops for London-bound flyers - Flights | hotels | frequent flyer | business class - Australian Business Traveller (http://www.ausbt.com.au/british-airways-a380-787-routes-tops-for-london-bound-flyers)

BA's A380s are heading for Hong Kong, Beijing and Singapore, as well as over the Atlantic to New York, while the 787s will be "opening new destinations in the east, in Asia specifically," the chief financial officer of BA's parent company IAG told Bloomberg.

Link to the Bloomberg article here which doesn't really tell you any more

British Airways to Target New York, Asia With 12 Superjumbos - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-01/british-airways-to-target-new-york-asia-with-a380-superjumbos.html)

[wiggy]

Suzeman..

Interesting, hadn't considered Beijing. Of course if the word from the top of IAG is that the 380's going to be going to JFK then we'd better believe it but with so much capacity it'll be interesting to see if it becomes a permanent fixture on the route - like Mike I reckon the 787 would make more sense, certainly on some of the services, and since BA won't be binning all it's 747's in the forseeable future I forsee it being a BA prescence on the Eastern seaboard for a while with the 380 doing the longer dense routes ( hence my comment about LAX).

Guess we'll only really start finding out next year:}

[BAladdy]

The plans for the A380 are to introduce it on MAD route initially. This will be used as crew training and fimiliarisation flights.

Then flights to JNB, LAX & JFK will be added

[Aksai Oiler]

Any idea when BA plan to put the 380 on the MAD route ?