Originally Posted by
JW95
No doubt that BA are in expansion mode at LGW, which is brilliant to see, considering there was speculation just under 2 years ago that the airline could have ditched LGW entirely like Virgin did. Luckily, it didn't and have signalled a clear intention to focus more on LGW going forwards. In saying this, I do think expansion will be more gradual. As has been mentioned, the early retirement of the 744s in 2020 has now resulted in a shortage of long haul aircraft for the airline, meaning that any additional LHR hand-me-down 777s destined for LGW will have to wait until the delivery of more 787s, A350s and the new 777-9. I wonder if in addition to the 772, we will eventually see some of the 77Ws at Gatwick? BA have never to date provided a clear answer as to what the eventual fleet replacement of the LGW 772 fleet will be.
I'm actually surprised that they haven't been a bit more proactive on this up until now. Almost the whole 777-200ER fleet is over 20 years old, so I thought they'd have got in long term orders by this point. I would suspect these would be replaced by variants of the 787 longer term.