BA ops at Heathrow vs Gatwick
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BA ops at Heathrow vs Gatwick
Any British Airways buffs out there able to tell me a bit about the differences between BA ops at the 2 London airports ? Are they managed differently ? Why are certain routes flown from Gatwick ? Is there a separate department within BA that manages Gatwick stuff ?
Just doing a bit of interview prep and would like to know as much as possible about the company.
Thanks
Just doing a bit of interview prep and would like to know as much as possible about the company.
Thanks
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Why are certain routes flown from Gatwick ?
Google short haul and long haul travel. Maybe also the overall differences between Heathrow and Gatwick.
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T250, thank you for taking the time to write such a useful response. You are indeed one of lifes great thinkers. Now since I'm obviously not as educated as you, and my 12 years in the airline industry is probably insignificant next to your lifetime of experience, perhaps you could humour me and explain why the answers I seek are so obvious ? Otherwise, keep quite.
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Gatwick is a different market to Heathrow. In the case of long haul most, if not all, of Gatwick BA flights are to leisure destinations such as Caribbean, Mexico, Indian Ocean using the B777-200 whereas Heathrow concentrates more on the premium business routes using A380, B787, B747, B777-300 and 200 with different cabin seating layout. The short haul destinations from Gatwick are for similar reasons. Also Heathrow's runway capacity is full for virtually the whole flying day hence using Gatwick runway slots for other destinations not served from Heathrow or to add more frequency on existing destinations served from Heathrow. Gatwick's runway capacity is also constrained but they are permitted more night movements than Heathrow which gives some more flexibility and improved aircraft utilisation than perhaps some Heathrow short haul based aircraft. BA occasionally transfer Gatwick short haul destinations to Heathrow and vice-versa to make best use of the slots to make the best yield.
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My outside opinion is that Gatwick is Leisure, Heathrow more business. That is unless a leisure destination is so lucrative that it justifies taking up a slot at LHR.
Transfer opportunities have to be considered also. That is flying into LHR purely to transfer onto a long haul flight - considering of course IB flights with this. I would imagine BA have a very good feel as to exactly what long haul flights out of LHR complement their short haul/domestic feeder flights.
Good luck!!
Transfer opportunities have to be considered also. That is flying into LHR purely to transfer onto a long haul flight - considering of course IB flights with this. I would imagine BA have a very good feel as to exactly what long haul flights out of LHR complement their short haul/domestic feeder flights.
Good luck!!
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T250, thank you for taking the time to write such a useful response. You are indeed one of lifes great thinkers. Now since I'm obviously not as educated as you, and my 12 years in the airline industry is probably insignificant next to your lifetime of experience, perhaps you could humour me and explain why the answers I seek are so obvious ? Otherwise, keep quite.
The answers are obvious, they are available throughout the airport operators websites, CAA, airlines, wikipedia and other sources such as online newspapers.
P.S. 'Quiet' is spelt Quiet, if that is what you meant by 'quite'
Buzz - if you look up British Caledonian and Dan Air on Wikipedia (and also google the tribute sites for the two airlines) this will give you an excellent understanding of how the BA Gatwick operation evolved and came about its route network which still serves broadly the same sorts of places 25 years on. BA Euro Ops which is the Gatwick operational division is basically the old Dan Air.
The old Dan-Air operation at Gatwick was short-haul only, merged at a time when BA also had quite a number of short-haul ops from there, but nowadays there is a substantial long-haul operation out of Gatwick as well, with a semi-dedicated 777 fleet. Incidentally, BA bought Dan-Air for £1 (plus its huge debts), which gives you some idea of the value of that old network. There was a fair bit of acrimony at the time about the merger, so at an interview you might keep off the topic !
By no means all the destinations are just leisure ones there's no space for at Heathrow. Quite a number of points are served from both at high multi-day frequencies, such as Nice or Rome, both of which have substantial all-year business traffic, and traffic originating from the far end (not a common characteristic of leisure routes). There are also mainstream trunk domestic flights to Glasgow and Edinburgh. To some extent Gatwick serves a separate geographical area of London/South East, which can warrant this duplicate service to the busiest destinations. There's also a restart this year of a BA Gatwick flight to New York JFK.
By no means all the destinations are just leisure ones there's no space for at Heathrow. Quite a number of points are served from both at high multi-day frequencies, such as Nice or Rome, both of which have substantial all-year business traffic, and traffic originating from the far end (not a common characteristic of leisure routes). There are also mainstream trunk domestic flights to Glasgow and Edinburgh. To some extent Gatwick serves a separate geographical area of London/South East, which can warrant this duplicate service to the busiest destinations. There's also a restart this year of a BA Gatwick flight to New York JFK.
Hasn't the 777 fleet at LGW broadly replaced the old DC-10 fleet which was the old BCal long-haul operation? In the 1990s Gatwick extended its main runway to just under 11,000ft so that the DC-10s and (back then) 747s could operate to South America with full payload but since then a lot of the major destinations have been moved back to Heathrow. The long-haul destinations now are primarily leisure focussed and include places like Orlando, Bermuda and several points in the Carribbean but as WHBM points out there is a degree of its own catchment which has allowed some services to the busiest destinations like New York to re-start.
Not really because the routes are completely different. I think the recent New York restart is the only route that B Cal used to do, they were more a second operator to major points like LAX or Hong Kong, plus had their own niches in West Africa, mid-South USA and South America.
Just a little correction/exception to the leisure Gatwick business LHR model. That is Bermuda which while a sunny sandy island only reallye xists as a daily direct because of business. It is an extremely affluent place whose main source of income is international fiancial services especially insurance.
the execs and specialists in this industry travel A LOT all over the world and the BA 2232 and 2233 are frequently full in F and J while pretty empty down the back. Also being an extremely expensive place to holiday quite few people who do go there on hols will pay a premium.
Most of the premium pax on this route would like to go to LHR , and that was once the case but with the phasing out of the lovely Tristars and their replacement by the less lovely DC10 the route wnet to LGW because thats where the 10s were based. At varios times the flight went on beyond BDA to Nassau, Jamaica, Tampa where there was ample opportunity to fill up the Y cabin
I do wonder why it hasnt moved to LHR which has 777s as does Gatwick but I am guessing that in BAs mind the upheaval of moving and losing a LHR slot just outweighs Pax preferences. So its not quite a simple leisure /Business split
the execs and specialists in this industry travel A LOT all over the world and the BA 2232 and 2233 are frequently full in F and J while pretty empty down the back. Also being an extremely expensive place to holiday quite few people who do go there on hols will pay a premium.
Most of the premium pax on this route would like to go to LHR , and that was once the case but with the phasing out of the lovely Tristars and their replacement by the less lovely DC10 the route wnet to LGW because thats where the 10s were based. At varios times the flight went on beyond BDA to Nassau, Jamaica, Tampa where there was ample opportunity to fill up the Y cabin
I do wonder why it hasnt moved to LHR which has 777s as does Gatwick but I am guessing that in BAs mind the upheaval of moving and losing a LHR slot just outweighs Pax preferences. So its not quite a simple leisure /Business split
I understand that a key criteria for which routes go to Gatwick as opposed to Heathrow is the extent of connecting traffic, actual or anticipated. Bermuda may well be at the bottom of the list when it comes to the proportion of traffic which transfers onward to Europe and beyond on BA. A similar assessment determines which BA routes are not accommodated at T5 at Heathrow, which is full, but sent over to "the annexe" in T3.
WHBM, good point and one I meant to include because a fair proportion of the Premium pax were going onto European destinations especially Zurich, Munich Frankfurt Paris and Stockholm , the original move to LGW and the inconvenience of travelling to LHR for a 1 hr 15 flight meant a lot of them moved to a JFK connection so I think BA created the current terminal to transit ratio.
All thee with 52 thousand people is quite impressive but as i said there is a lot of premium including a lot of First as well
All thee with 52 thousand people is quite impressive but as i said there is a lot of premium including a lot of First as well
