We always hear how poor long haul routes perform out of Lgw. Yet for decades American carriers operated, in some cases, multiple frequencies per day to some destinations. Leave aside this argument that they had to use Lgw, which was the case, if those routes had been loss making, why would they have done that? Emirates runs 3 A380 flights a day out of Lgw and has done for years, if the economics were that poor, why would they continue with these flights? Vietnam Airlines moved from Lgw to Lhr. Before this crisis, they were running the same number of flights as they had been at Lgw. What did they gain? Who would have used them because they are now operating from Lhr but would not have used them from Lgw? Is a better reason for this Lgw vs Lhr story that for those who operate from both, Lgw can take pax from Lhr and in turn weaken Lhr? With some airlines there seems to be an obsession to use Lhr for bragging purposes as opposed to sound financial reasons to do so.
Both BA and Virgin have stated they are/may leave Lgw completely. The role of the current management is to manage through this current crisis. But good management also has to be involved in long term strategy thinking. We are told by various that pax numbers will take between 1-3 years to recover to pre crisis levels. So BA and Virgin leave Lgw and in 3 years time we are back to 2019 levels of traffic. Both these airlines are at that point constrained at LHR due lack of slots. But he, there are at that stage no Lgw slots either. Wizz have them! What do they do then? Start from Southend?
It will be interesting to see if they really carry through with the threat to abandon Lgw, especially BA with Wizz waiting patiently.