Quote: "
GLA and EDI with both BA and EZY.
INV, ABZ, BFS with EZY.
INV, NCL, BHD with BE."
Blimey is that all, what happened to NQY, JER and IOM? No more flights from LGW?
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That leaves expansion elswhere in the UK, but where? Withdrawal from the MAN-LGW route suggests that LGW can be ruled out. So is BA going to challenge the growing presence of foreign carriers on long-haul routes from the UK regions?"
If there is to be a secondary hub in the UK, it would almost certainly be at MAN. Would be brilliant to see BA or
any UK carrier operating a longhaul hub, but BA have ruled it out. Why? Because they reckon they can't make money. No other UK airline has filled the gap. Why? Probably the same reason. BD attempted trans-Atlantic from MAN but abandoned it fairly quickly.
What can the Commission recommend? The conditions at MAN are already favourable for longhaul, and there's plenty of capacity. How's the government going to square the circle? Axeing APD would be a start!
Maybe it could subsidise longhaul MAN operations on some PSO arrangement? That is highly unlikely given (1) the economic situation and (2) it goes against their belief in free markets.
Additionally, there would be doubtless be some unwarranted interference from Brussels.
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It was interesting that when BHX threw its hat in the ring BA and VIRGIN told them where to go...
Funnily enough when this article appeared in The Independent, no such rebuttal.
Choose Manchester to improve UK's airport capacity - Comment - Voices - The Independent"
Is it just me or is that a really silly article? Maybe BA and VS thought so too? What wasn't mentioned is the
cost of getting to Ringway from Hackney (as opposed to Heathrow). Would also query the timings!
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BA is steadily building up codeshares with MAN airlines eg AA and is rumoured to be adding Boston and Miami.
This "may" be way fwd.""
Perhaps, particularly on trans-Atlantic, but it still needs other carriers to operating to/from MAN in order to do the codeshare, e.g. HKG with CX, HND/NRT with JL.
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It is said that frequency is everything. (Continental, now United, certainly seems to think so on the Newark route, those liking twin aisle aircraft might think otherwise.) BA's offer to certain middle east destinations such as Doha and Muscat does not appear attractive. Qatar operates four daily non-stops flights to Doha, BA a single one stop flight which cannot be attractive to the business traveller. Now that Qatar has joined OneWorld do you see this continuing? One problem with a codeshare is that T5 is full and a transfer to T4 is not ideal, but its probbaly liveable with."
Yes, maybe BA doesn't need the frequency, they're doing different things: both have their point-to-point pax, but their transfer pax are doing so through different hubs. BA's transfer pax therefore need to be at LHR-5, not at LHR-4 on a QR code-share.
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Heathrow - Muscat in an A321?"
Doesn't sound like a particularly good idea, the present arrangements are fine! Have done the trip, the short stop at AUH is really not a hardship!