BA needs to feed its hub. Quite sensibly they have used some of the BMI slots to help them do that more effectively. Leeds route will grow over time. BA must also be of the view that they need to encourage more to use their hub at Heathrow from Leeds than the KLM one at Amsterdam.
Nice is a strong route, remember they also serve it up to 3 times a day from Gatwick too.
BA seems to be following the sensible approach of keeping higher yield traffic routing via the main hub. Gatwick is being developed to cover those routes that can fill Club and economy cabins with mainly leisure traffic that prefers to travel BA. Of course business traffic is also carried on some Gatwick routes. Much of this traffic is point to point with some limited feed via BA Domestic flights and Flybe. Destinations that can support services from both airports such as Las Vegas, Barcelona and Nice allow BA to carry more business/transfer traffic on LHR services and keep/improve their share of the leisure market without diluting yield at Heathrow.
Thankfully they now realise that the economy cabin can be useful to the bottom line especially in these difficult times.
V.
Last edited by vectisman; 21st Dec 2012 at 18:44.
Reason: Remove second V!