Originally Posted by
Skipness One Foxtrot
The A318 was hardly a misfit, it's a smaller version of the A319/A320 of which BA have a substantial fleet. The costs of using the service were high and I understand it did well for a period, novelty value initially. You say "killing the competition" is a BA tbing, well I am amazed that news of a certain "Ryanair" never made it to the south side. They took out KLM uk and mutilated what remained of Buzz. When easyJet tried to fly LGW-Ireland the response from Michael O'Leary was vengeful and focussed like a laser beam, just as they had attacked Go when they entered GLA/EDI-DUB. It's what succesful airlines do, they defend their home markets. Ryanair defended STN/DUB, BA defended LON-NYC.
Your anger that BA launched LCY-JFK is misplaced, LCY is a core BA market, it has the highest % of Gold Card holders per flight on the whole network, proportionally more than LHR. And given New York and London are both key financial centres, a LCY-JFK operation was tempting in it's own right, regardless of anything going on at Stansted. And stop calling them "bean counters", it just shows you have no clue about how a business actually works.
You make some excellent points here Skipness One Foxtrot. BA are well within their rights to compete to protect their business.
There are vastly fewer airlines than there were say 15/20 years ago. The big guys are getting bigger, and we'll continue to see the bigger guys flex their muscle in their core markets.