British Airways
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Now theres an idea... Longhaul from regional airports!
Why not allow Longhaul flts out of the 'regional' airports? In fact the only reason there are no flights presently (with the exception of MAN-JFK) is that British Airways - sorry London Airways, are greedy to the extreme and they are about to pay the price for this attitude with all their eggs in the one basket - Terminal 5 at LHR.
Fact - GLA-JFK did make good money, even though pax figures were not always high. The magic profit-making aspect to the operation was CARGO on the flight. Crew who flew this route confirmed that the cargo was making megabucks. BUT as usual BA claimed that passengers were not using the flight, so it was being withdrawn...
Fact - BA didnt promote the route properly with sales staff encouraged to offer alternative routes - and in some instances not even mention the GLA-JFK service! Former BA call centre staff have confirmed this.
EDI and GLA have (had until Monday) the skilled staff in place to handle Longhaul services from said airports. B757/767 aircraft ideally suited to USA, Canada and seasonal Carribean routes. The airports are big enough to operate the aircraft and there IS demand for these flights.
Why should pax fly south to catch a longhaul flight, then fly back up north over Scotland? Why cant pax fly north to join the service in Scotland?
The number of 'through-checked' pax from Scotland to North America is amazing. Pax from as far away as Newcastle come to EDI to fly out on holiday.
Continental, US Airways, American Airlines (BA partner no less), Delta and now Globespan are all jumping on the bandwagon, cashing in on flights direct to the USA. Now you can argue till the cows come home about how they structure the costs etc, but look at the evidence and the pax loads.
BA being the strongest UK airline should be ashamed at not flying out of Scotland on Longhaul routes. You want it all out of LHR so hell mend you when the fog comes down, your staff walk out on strike for no reason at all or your caterers give give you a bad bout of the sh**s!
Dont be greedy chaps. Spread the joy and create a truly British Airline by flying out of other airports. LHR will be your downfall. Slots and available airspace in the south is becomming a very scarce commodity... Maybe now the 'open sky' policy looks as though its going to be relaxed, you (BA) will come running with open arms to airports in Scotland, offering to fly longhaul routes as LHR looks to be shaking on its foundations with every man and his dog with an aircraft ready to jump in and start operating in competition with you
PS - Remember, Virgin are trialing a flight from GLA-MCO this summer (ok, it starts in MAN first, but at least they are testing the market)
Why not allow Longhaul flts out of the 'regional' airports? In fact the only reason there are no flights presently (with the exception of MAN-JFK) is that British Airways - sorry London Airways, are greedy to the extreme and they are about to pay the price for this attitude with all their eggs in the one basket - Terminal 5 at LHR.
Fact - GLA-JFK did make good money, even though pax figures were not always high. The magic profit-making aspect to the operation was CARGO on the flight. Crew who flew this route confirmed that the cargo was making megabucks. BUT as usual BA claimed that passengers were not using the flight, so it was being withdrawn...
Fact - BA didnt promote the route properly with sales staff encouraged to offer alternative routes - and in some instances not even mention the GLA-JFK service! Former BA call centre staff have confirmed this.
EDI and GLA have (had until Monday) the skilled staff in place to handle Longhaul services from said airports. B757/767 aircraft ideally suited to USA, Canada and seasonal Carribean routes. The airports are big enough to operate the aircraft and there IS demand for these flights.
Why should pax fly south to catch a longhaul flight, then fly back up north over Scotland? Why cant pax fly north to join the service in Scotland?
The number of 'through-checked' pax from Scotland to North America is amazing. Pax from as far away as Newcastle come to EDI to fly out on holiday.
Continental, US Airways, American Airlines (BA partner no less), Delta and now Globespan are all jumping on the bandwagon, cashing in on flights direct to the USA. Now you can argue till the cows come home about how they structure the costs etc, but look at the evidence and the pax loads.
BA being the strongest UK airline should be ashamed at not flying out of Scotland on Longhaul routes. You want it all out of LHR so hell mend you when the fog comes down, your staff walk out on strike for no reason at all or your caterers give give you a bad bout of the sh**s!
Dont be greedy chaps. Spread the joy and create a truly British Airline by flying out of other airports. LHR will be your downfall. Slots and available airspace in the south is becomming a very scarce commodity... Maybe now the 'open sky' policy looks as though its going to be relaxed, you (BA) will come running with open arms to airports in Scotland, offering to fly longhaul routes as LHR looks to be shaking on its foundations with every man and his dog with an aircraft ready to jump in and start operating in competition with you
PS - Remember, Virgin are trialing a flight from GLA-MCO this summer (ok, it starts in MAN first, but at least they are testing the market)
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Don't forget BA is first and foremost a business, whose principal aim is to maximise profit- BA feel they can do this most effectively from London. Yes, you may be right that BA could make a profit from flying from Edinburgh to New York (or whatever other prestige route you think), but they have decided that it is a better use of resources to concentrate on a single hub- And yes, other airlines are flying from Scotland, but BA would be entirely reliant on O&D traffic.
BA may lose a lot of passengers from the regions to other companies, but there is simply no obligation for them to fly from what are seemingly low yielding routes from the regions- they are not a government owned company. There is no doubt a reason that BA has been one of Europe's better performing legacy carriers in the last few years.
BA may lose a lot of passengers from the regions to other companies, but there is simply no obligation for them to fly from what are seemingly low yielding routes from the regions- they are not a government owned company. There is no doubt a reason that BA has been one of Europe's better performing legacy carriers in the last few years.
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All the airline examples you list operate to Scotland from their hubs. That is how the airline industry works in the vast majority of cases.
The fact that CO fly EWR-EDI is entirely different to BA flying that same route. CO will fill a huge amount of their plane with people connecting onto the flight from all over the US, the same with all the other US airlines that fly into the UK regions.
BA act in exactly the same way, feeding people down to their hub in London, and then flying them directly to their destination. If they operated a direct flight from Scotland to the US then they would be competing with their operations out of Heathrow. This is frankly stupid unless you have a very very strong independent business case, as is seen with the MAN-JFK flight.
The hub system is the mainstay of aviation, and despite cyclical trends detracting from it (poor infrastructure in places like LHR currently, or the advent of new aircraft like the 787) this method will prevail for many many years.
The fact that CO fly EWR-EDI is entirely different to BA flying that same route. CO will fill a huge amount of their plane with people connecting onto the flight from all over the US, the same with all the other US airlines that fly into the UK regions.
BA act in exactly the same way, feeding people down to their hub in London, and then flying them directly to their destination. If they operated a direct flight from Scotland to the US then they would be competing with their operations out of Heathrow. This is frankly stupid unless you have a very very strong independent business case, as is seen with the MAN-JFK flight.
The hub system is the mainstay of aviation, and despite cyclical trends detracting from it (poor infrastructure in places like LHR currently, or the advent of new aircraft like the 787) this method will prevail for many many years.
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BA Regional Longhaul.
Hi Tristar500 , I-d like to challenge a few of yr "facts"...1/Don-t think GLA/JFK ever made a profit , in fact I think the losses were a high ratio of the revenue earned.
2/Cargo didn-t make a mega profit.
Capacity on a LHL 757 is fairly limited.
Cargo yields are usually very low....cargo doesn-t complain if it gets trucked around so many Shippers will use whichever route offers ths lowest rates and are happy to truck hundreds of miles before and after the flight if the rates are keen e,g they will fly cargo to Detroit or Chicgo if thats where the lowest rates are and truck back to the East Coast.
Not up to date with currernt MKT rates but in the past a full belly hold
of 20tonnes wasn-t worth a lot more than 6 or 7 business class psgrs.
3/As a couple of others have already commented the US carriers are
not selling to point to point Mkt from the UK regions ..they are selling GLA-USA , BHX-USA ,MAN-USA vis their respective Hubs...
DL @ ATL , CO @ EWR ,US @ PHL ,AA @ ORD.
I would bet a large proportion os psgrs traveling to ATL or EWR from the regions are actually going to ORLANDO/TAMPA/LAS Vegas/Los Angerles/San Franciso....these are strong volume and very low yield journeys from UK regions. The US carriers basically give away the DOM sector to get the longhaul business and if the fares are prorated and properly allocated don-t make much money.
BA uses LHR as the US carriers use their hubs and I don-t see the diff
travelling GLA to US via LHR instead of ATL or ORD and don-t tell me transiting ORDS or ATL is a whole lot easier than LHR and LHR will get a lot better when T5 brings services into one terminal.
MAN/JFK is probably the biggest PT 2 PT City pair TO US outside of LON and BA operate thius because it has some hope of making money.
4/As part of their Bankruptcy Emergence plans many of these carriers
are reducing their exposure to LOCO Domestically they are shifting capacity ( 757/767 ) to Intl service....they are losing so much domestically that even a contribution to overheads from an Intl service is better.
5/BA has excellent Premium products ...years ahead of the American carriers and slots are hard to come by at LHR so it won-t be easy for a new entrant @ LHR to compete ...BA will have bifg frequency advantage on key routes such as LHR/JFK....US recently pulled LHR/JFK as they couldn-t compete either product or frequency wise and as JFK isn-t one of their DOM hubs they couldn-t bolster with connecting traffic.
I am sure BA will be delighted to op LHL fm the regions if and when it is profitable to do so !!
Last edited by BCALBOY; 9th Mar 2007 at 19:02.
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BA, Long Haul & LCY?
Ok here is an idea to think about. BA Long haul from London City? Could an A318 do it in business configuration? Say 40 passengers? Imagine the people queueing up from the US investment banks 10 minutes away at Canary Wharf! But would BA think like this or would AF or LH beat them to it? It takes around 2 hours from Canary Wharf to Heathrow (trust me I have done it on many occasions!!)so going 10 minutes in the other direction to LCY makes a lot of sense to me!
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BA empty flights to keep Heathrow slots!
Is this crazy or what?
From the Telegraph
(reproduced in full in case it disappears)
Eco fury at BA 'ghost flights' scandal
By Alex Berry
Last Updated: 2:19am GMT 12/03/2007
An airline has squandered £2 million flying empty passenger planes between Heathrow and Cardiff - to stop its landing slots falling into the hands of its rivals.
To keep landing slots airlines must use them regularly, or risk them being reallocated to other airlines. Competition for slots at Heathrow is so fierce that they have been known to change hands for £10 million.
But green campaigners have criticised the practice by British Mediterranean Airways (BMed) - which operates as a British Airways franchise, using its livery.
BMed has been running the empty Airbus flights between Heathrow and Cardiff and back six times a week since last October.
No tickets are sold, all 124 seats are empty, and the flights do not appear on arrival or departure boards.
It is estimated that by the end of this month the flights will have cost the airline around £2 million, with a fuel bill of £2,500 per flight, and £300,000 per month for the lease, insurance, crew and maintenance charges.
Each 140-mile flight is believed to produce more than five tons of C02.
A Friends of the Earth spokeswoman said: "It's mad to have planes flying with no passengers. It's why we've been calling for is aviation tax linked to each flight, rather than to each passenger.
"This calls into question some of the green rhetoric coming from the airlines."
The airline came up with the plan after it was forced to scrap flights to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, following civil unrest there.
David Richardson, its chief executive, said: "The Uzbek market collapsed, but we knew we would want to use those timings again this summer. It wasn't ideal, but we wanted to keep hold of it."
A spokesman for the airline said yesterday that its actions reflected "the way the flight regulations are".
Industry sources said it was an extreme and rare example of efforts made by airliners to maintain slots at heavily congested airports such as Heathrow and Frankfurt.
Other airlines have been known to operate half-empty smaller aeroplanes with seats at reduced prices.
From the Telegraph
(reproduced in full in case it disappears)
Eco fury at BA 'ghost flights' scandal
By Alex Berry
Last Updated: 2:19am GMT 12/03/2007
An airline has squandered £2 million flying empty passenger planes between Heathrow and Cardiff - to stop its landing slots falling into the hands of its rivals.
To keep landing slots airlines must use them regularly, or risk them being reallocated to other airlines. Competition for slots at Heathrow is so fierce that they have been known to change hands for £10 million.
But green campaigners have criticised the practice by British Mediterranean Airways (BMed) - which operates as a British Airways franchise, using its livery.
BMed has been running the empty Airbus flights between Heathrow and Cardiff and back six times a week since last October.
No tickets are sold, all 124 seats are empty, and the flights do not appear on arrival or departure boards.
It is estimated that by the end of this month the flights will have cost the airline around £2 million, with a fuel bill of £2,500 per flight, and £300,000 per month for the lease, insurance, crew and maintenance charges.
Each 140-mile flight is believed to produce more than five tons of C02.
A Friends of the Earth spokeswoman said: "It's mad to have planes flying with no passengers. It's why we've been calling for is aviation tax linked to each flight, rather than to each passenger.
"This calls into question some of the green rhetoric coming from the airlines."
The airline came up with the plan after it was forced to scrap flights to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, following civil unrest there.
David Richardson, its chief executive, said: "The Uzbek market collapsed, but we knew we would want to use those timings again this summer. It wasn't ideal, but we wanted to keep hold of it."
A spokesman for the airline said yesterday that its actions reflected "the way the flight regulations are".
Industry sources said it was an extreme and rare example of efforts made by airliners to maintain slots at heavily congested airports such as Heathrow and Frankfurt.
Other airlines have been known to operate half-empty smaller aeroplanes with seats at reduced prices.
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Probably another good reason why BMed is about to be no more.
The slots belong to BMed as do most of the routes which they operate under a BA franchise. Scheduling, routes (outside of agreed BA partner routes) and passenger loads are their OP's department responsibilities.
Can't think of any mainline BA flights that have been flown empty in the recent past except during the security scare!
Typical ill informed BA bashing where the headline reads 'BA shed unprofitable franchise partner who insists on flying empty aircraft to keep LHR slots'.
Guess that doesn't make good enough headlines tho.
The slots belong to BMed as do most of the routes which they operate under a BA franchise. Scheduling, routes (outside of agreed BA partner routes) and passenger loads are their OP's department responsibilities.
Can't think of any mainline BA flights that have been flown empty in the recent past except during the security scare!
Typical ill informed BA bashing where the headline reads 'BA shed unprofitable franchise partner who insists on flying empty aircraft to keep LHR slots'.
Guess that doesn't make good enough headlines tho.
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Has someone not done enough research into why this is being done?
Airlines dont fly for the fun of it there is always a reason.
This is how I see the picture correct me if I have not got it all correct.
Aircraft needs a check on a regular basis and aircraft go tech as well so here we go.
No room in the engineering facility at Heathrow so the aircraft needs to go somewhere else, where? the company has engineering facilities which at Cardiff.
Aircraft goes to Cardiff for a major check so it is empty, when the aircraft has finished and fit for commercial flying it postions back to Heathrow.
Or does the Governmint expect the aircraft with a full load of passengers on to drop into Cardiff on its last sector before going on check and then coach passengers down when the aircrafft is fit for its first flight again.
These things have been happening for a very long time, take good old Dan Air there major engineering facility was Lasham so they would position out of Gatwick and then postion back after the check so what is the difference when Dan Air did it and BA don,t say it is just to keep slots it is to do with costs.
So Tone and your No Ten colleagues need to understand the full ins and outs of how aviation needs to work to keep costs down.
Airlines dont fly for the fun of it there is always a reason.
This is how I see the picture correct me if I have not got it all correct.
Aircraft needs a check on a regular basis and aircraft go tech as well so here we go.
No room in the engineering facility at Heathrow so the aircraft needs to go somewhere else, where? the company has engineering facilities which at Cardiff.
Aircraft goes to Cardiff for a major check so it is empty, when the aircraft has finished and fit for commercial flying it postions back to Heathrow.
Or does the Governmint expect the aircraft with a full load of passengers on to drop into Cardiff on its last sector before going on check and then coach passengers down when the aircrafft is fit for its first flight again.
These things have been happening for a very long time, take good old Dan Air there major engineering facility was Lasham so they would position out of Gatwick and then postion back after the check so what is the difference when Dan Air did it and BA don,t say it is just to keep slots it is to do with costs.
So Tone and your No Ten colleagues need to understand the full ins and outs of how aviation needs to work to keep costs down.
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It's nothing to do with engineering, read the posts above.
Surely all it needs is a change in the political/admin system which demands this kind of behaviour and regulates how slots are distributed? I'm sure if they had asked nicely to keep the slots without pumping tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere BAA would have told them politely to **** off. Who'd be the baddie then?
Surely all it needs is a change in the political/admin system which demands this kind of behaviour and regulates how slots are distributed? I'm sure if they had asked nicely to keep the slots without pumping tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere BAA would have told them politely to **** off. Who'd be the baddie then?
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Qantas did same a couple of years ago with a BAe146 to Manchester to preserved slots
You could book on the flights but manny flights operated empty or with 1 or 2 pax
Ian
You could book on the flights but manny flights operated empty or with 1 or 2 pax
Ian
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Gary Lager is correct.
Firstly the blame is not with the airlines, it is with BAA who insist that airlines will loose their slot if 80% frequency is not conformed to. They know that the airlines have to continue to operate using this slot empty. They are quite happy to rake in the additional landing fees knowing that it is costing the airline thousands of pounds and contributing to the CO2 emmisions.
Secondly, there are plenty of other airlines that are forced to do this as well. With the 'Open Skies' policy upcoming these empty services are more and more likely to occur as airlines are forced to operate somewhere or loose the slot that will have doubled in value when the Americans arrive.
If the Government are to do something, they should first knock on BAAs door. Of course they are less likely to do this as BAA handle so many passengers of whom the Government creams off so much money in taxes. Many of which are tourists and not actually UK citizens.
Firstly the blame is not with the airlines, it is with BAA who insist that airlines will loose their slot if 80% frequency is not conformed to. They know that the airlines have to continue to operate using this slot empty. They are quite happy to rake in the additional landing fees knowing that it is costing the airline thousands of pounds and contributing to the CO2 emmisions.
Secondly, there are plenty of other airlines that are forced to do this as well. With the 'Open Skies' policy upcoming these empty services are more and more likely to occur as airlines are forced to operate somewhere or loose the slot that will have doubled in value when the Americans arrive.
If the Government are to do something, they should first knock on BAAs door. Of course they are less likely to do this as BAA handle so many passengers of whom the Government creams off so much money in taxes. Many of which are tourists and not actually UK citizens.
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I can understand if they want to keep the slots but does bring into question the whole "green" issue.
Blue up - sorry but if Cardiff can handle 744 and 777 surely it could stick in a few A320's if need be? Just a Q?
259
Blue up - sorry but if Cardiff can handle 744 and 777 surely it could stick in a few A320's if need be? Just a Q?
259
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Open thine eyes and thou shalt see!
Surely all it needs is a change in the political/admin system which demands this kind of behaviour and regulates how slots are distributed?
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Blue up - sorry but if Cardiff can handle 744 and 777 surely it could stick in a few A320's if need be? Just a Q?
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I can't help but thinking that FoE must have more important issues to talk about, but they instead choose to focus on trivia like this. Ok, so they can ram home the point about taxing the flight, rather than the passenger, which I think is well worthy of debate, but surely positioning flights would be excluded from such measures anyway?
What really bothers me is that virtually none of these groups, who claim to speak in the name of the environment, have given any kind of detailed thought to where all the APD is going. All they have done is whinge about it not being increased enough - as if doubling it was some kind of soft measure!
LHR must raise £1bn+ in APD each year. If I lived near Heathrow, I'd want to know where my portion of that was, and what Greedy Gordon was going to do to make my neighbourhood more liveable. Instead, all we get is more bleating. The aviation industry can hold itself up to scrutiny. Try asking anyone from FoE to explain their alleged £9bn aviation subsidy (unchanged despite APD rises), then let's have a debate about who's really hiding over these issues.
What really bothers me is that virtually none of these groups, who claim to speak in the name of the environment, have given any kind of detailed thought to where all the APD is going. All they have done is whinge about it not being increased enough - as if doubling it was some kind of soft measure!
LHR must raise £1bn+ in APD each year. If I lived near Heathrow, I'd want to know where my portion of that was, and what Greedy Gordon was going to do to make my neighbourhood more liveable. Instead, all we get is more bleating. The aviation industry can hold itself up to scrutiny. Try asking anyone from FoE to explain their alleged £9bn aviation subsidy (unchanged despite APD rises), then let's have a debate about who's really hiding over these issues.
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Firstly the blame is not with the airlines, it is with BAA who insist that airlines will loose their slot if 80% frequency is not conformed to.
A Runyonesque Character
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Slot allocation rules are laid down in an EU Regulation of 1993, and subsequently amended twice (once to stop airlines being unduly penalised by the cancellations they made during the SARS outbreak).
The introductory paragraph on the EU site states the following:
The introductory paragraph on the EU site states the following:
One of the main difficulties of the current system of slot allocation has been to find the right balance between the interests of incumbent air carriers and new entrants at congested airports so as to take due account of the fact that incumbent air carriers have already built up their position at an airport and have an interest to expand it further, while new entrants or air carriers with relatively small operations need to be able to expand their services and establish a competitive network.