Originally Posted by
WHBM
St Petersburg just a few years ago ran to a daily A321. Furthermore, returns within the working week would price up to £900 (Y) or even more. A significant proportion of the pax also were through connections from the USA. How did BA just lose that market. They're not going to get yields like that on Palma/Ibiza.
The trouble with LED is that since there is only one flight a day, this results in a number of connecting options facing a nightstop in LHR on either the inbound or outbound. Both KL and LH have an aircraft night stopping in LED, giving an early departure to connect with the first wave of connections at AMS and FRA, which will be well timed for transatlantic travel too. Also, to add insult to injury is that Rossiya price their LED-LGW route very competitively for point to point traffic, with an example being that a Business class ticket with Rossiya often costs similar to what one would pay to travel with BA in Euro Traveller.
As an aside, BA actually do well on PMI with there being a generous uptake for Club Europe, especially in the summer. On the rarer occiaions when it is operated by a 320, it's not uncommon for half of the cabin to be Club.