BA BFS
Srry chaps , but I beg to differ.
The 1989 BA Shuttle schedule to BFS was 7/day ( 6 on Sats).
LHR/BFS 0830,1030,1230,1430,1630,1830,2030. (no 2030 on day6)
BFS/LHR 0715,1030.1230,1430,1630,1830,2030 (no 2030 day 6)
Due to loses on the route and the particulary abysmal performance of the 2030 service from BFS to LHR , a revised schedule was introduced.
W96/7 SCHEDULE
LHR/BFS 0830 ( not sun),1030,1300,1500,1705,1900.
BFS/LHR 0700(M-F) ,0815 (sa,su),1030,1300,1500,1700,1900(not sat)
This revised schedule reduced flying by c 14%.
It allowed the 2030 BFS/LHR to be scrapped.
The afternoon revised afternoon schedule meant BA operated 30mins in advance of the BD dep. on the 4 flts with potential to pick up businessmen on fleible tickets who arrived earlier. (BA/BD both optd fm BFS at this stage).
The 2100 dep on Fri was introduced later . Fri from LHR was always the busiest day and there was enough traffic to get a decent load at least on LHR/BFS sector but it was mainly lower yielding VFR traffic going home to BFS for the weekend.
It has been said both of this forum and others that you can-t judge the profitability of a flight by the loads.Yield is the critical factor.
Both carriers to a greater or lesser degree used Inventory Management to direct the low yield traffic to the weaker flights.The 2120 LHR/BFS on BD may have had ok loads ,particularly when BA withdrew the 2030 ,but it wasn-t high yield traffic
The best BA service LHR/BFS was the 0830 with Mainland based business travellers going to N.I. The 1700 was good.The 2030 when it operated
was towards the bottom if not the bottom.
Fm BFS the first dep in the morning was 1st or 2nd altho it also carried a lot of psgrs connecting transatlantic and the prorates pulled the average yield down.The 1700 was good with the mainland based business traffic returning altho again it was a good connector for the evening flts to OZ/FAR EAST/S.AFRICA . The 2030 BFS/LHR was the worst segment with loads of 30-40 psgrs not uncommon. ( eception being Sun nights with the weekend VFR returning for work on Mon).