Cant see 195's being ordered for LGW for 2 reasons
- Increase costs per seat at LGW lends itself to using larger aircraft
Do you have any idea what sort of difference we're talking about? I thought about this coming into DBV with BE, when all the other frames were of the 150 seat variants, but clearly they can still compete in a number of markets where they are using these smaller frames.
I would expect a natural saving through using newer frames, so I was thinking of relative costs versus a newer 320 family.
Easyjet continued focus on business and frequency and hence cost per per seat as above
Well one way to maintain frequency is to operate a smaller fleet on a more intensive basis. However, I can't see that being BA's real priority at LGW, where a lot of routes are more leisure based. Even with the "upgrade to BA" slogan, they still want to keep a tight control on costs, surely?
One other concern would be whether or not GIP would be too happy with one of their biggest clients suddenly operating routes with a c. 120 seat frame when the same markets could be served with 150-189 seaters. Of course, it isn't usually up to the airport to dictate to the airline what sort of fleet to use, but this is Gatwick after all.