Reading #11 by D120A I am reminded that during the VC10 era BOAC management became concerned at the number of occasions on which inbound flights were missing out the scheduled European stop and proceeding directly to LHR, with the resulting impact on reputation for reliability and perhaps implications on traffic rights.
Early in my career I was the junior P3 on one such VC10 flight. The planned schedule was BAH-DAM-ZRH-LHR starting in the early hours of the morning. The very senior captain decided on the pretext of the ZRH weather received shortly before TOD to omit the ZRH stop. The actual weather was well above limits, though it was not a pleasant morning. I do not recall how many passengers were involved - probably very few, but their considerations did not appear part of the decision making process.
I gained the impression there was a general feeling among the crews that these European stops had become a waste of time and interfered with the primary objective of getting the crew home quickly after an overnight sector.
