BA Cityflyer

[32SQDN]

What's the situation with crewing for these additional schedules and a/c? Reading further back in this thread it talked about flight crew giving notice to leave the airline. Are they still training pilots at FTE?

[ELondonPax]

The EDI-IBZ flights are loaded in Amadeus as A320. Basource also says it's A320. So mainline rather than Cityflyer?

[Georgeablelovehowindia]

Originally Posted by cornishsimon

Good plan if you ask me, as it will make use of an aircraft that would otherwise sit idle on the ground overnight.

I wonder if we might see the same or similar ex GLA ?


cs

It's been tried before, back in the days of the Trident, and out of GLA. The problem always was monumental slot delays at PMI/IBZ and the aircraft returning too late to make the schedule for its first shuttle of the morning.

If the slot situation has not improved, then I fear that yet another lesson will have to be re-learned.

"Palma Sequence, Speedbird XXX, why am I number forty-three for start?"
"Cause there's forty-two ahead of you mate" ... bored unidentified voice, not Palma Sequence.

[GayFriendly]

BA LHR Eurofleet crew doing night flights, that'll be the day!

Seeing as LGW crew are currently being trained up on the Airbus bet it will be them crewing this flight. In an ideal world the roster would be to operate LGW - EDI - IBZ - layover day then IBZ - EDI - LGW.........what a trip that would be in all senses of the word!

[Off Stand]

Or Mixed Fleet operating LHR-IBZ-EDI?

[High Energy]

As far as I know it will be LGW crew with an A320.

[BHD2BFS]

Any chances of BACF making an appearance at BHD?
BA seem to dominate the LHR route, when i fly with them now compared to BMI their flights seem more full
With the amount of traffic to London each day from Northern Ireland and lots of business men, I would have that London City was a no brainer?

[BCALBOY]

BA systems are showing A320 , so doesn't look like BACF.

Current timings and aircraft types loaded ,would indicate it isn't the LGW nightstop as it arrives too late to op to IBZ @ 2235hrs ,also certainly on some dates the LGW a/c is an A319 not an A320 which is on the IBZ.

There are 3nightstops from LHR the earliest of which gives a good turnaround time to the IBZ dep, and it is also an A320.

It looks like its LHR crew,presumably mixed fleet .
I do however doubt this will involve crews laying over in Ibz.
The same crew would op EDI/IBZ/EDI having either operated or positioned LHREDI the previous day and returning the day after the IBZ rotation.

[Skipness One Echo]

Could it not be a LGW crew on the LHR aircraft? That would kill two birds with one stone.

[Habana2118]

Likely to be Eurofleet then, mixed fleet do v little short haul and EDI is defo not one of their routes

[aeulad]

We won't have the manpower to take on the EDI route, unlikely to be Mixed Fleet. I would think Eurofleet.

Can be done

Day 1
LHR-XXX-LHR-EDI
Nightstop

Day 2 into 3
EDI-IBZ-EDI
Nightstop

Day 4
Early EDI-LHR-XXX-LHR

Kind regards

aeulad

[towser]

I can tell you that at the moment it is definitely not Cityflyer operating these flights.

[goerring]

BA said the move was to make use of underutilized aircraft and crew, but while admitting it was a change of strategy, downplayed the possibility of developing a wider European route network from Scotland.

The Scotsman.

Underutilized ? Do they mean asleep, on Minimum rest ?

[indie cent]

Interesting development....

I guess it could be possible to speculate that this could be a union busting move...

With BACF waiting in the wings on a low-cost-base (mixed fleet accepted)...

Wearing a business head, BA are clearly looking to drag airbus short-haul into profitability.

Perhaps there will be no resistance, if there is... See above. And IAG also have Vueling....

Just saying, as EDI is also the only non-London BA crew base...

Some smart moves taking place (it seems) from BA management.

ic

[cornishsimon]

I think that the crew bases in Scotland closed several years ago ?

Suggestion on other sites is that this will be London based night stopping crew covering this service.


cs

[Skipness One Echo]

is also the only non-London BA crew base...

It's a BA CityFlyer base I think, the mainline bases are long gone sadly.

[towser]

EDI is a Cityflyer base but not a mainline one.

[EK77WNCL]

I was wondering, with passenger numbers on NCL-LHR dropping (sorry OT, just background), what would be the viability of perhaps replacing 1/2 of the NCL-LHR flights with 2/3 daily NCL-LCY flights to cater for the majority of O&D traffic and leave the LHR ones to cater for people travelling onwards.

See schedule here: (adfd2988d264b755873f36be59611749.png)

Perhaps, if BA1336/7 was to be cancelled, BA1321 was to be rescheduled to the 08:15 slot and made 3 weekly (Wed, Fri, Sun) Thus also reducing BA1338 to 3 weekly night stopper and a few other changes made, i.e cancelling a few of the slightly "anomalous" then would there be potential? Say 15 weekly?

Mon, Wed x3 daily
Tues, Thurs, Fri, Sun x2 daily
Sat x1 daily

So that would equate to a loss of 12 weekly A32x's to LHR and a gain of 15 E170's from LCY (maybe E190's or even the Saab on some flights?). Capacity decrease, frequency increase, just what the businessmen want.

[Skipness One Echo]

I was wondering, with passenger numbers on NCL-LHR dropping

Can you quantify the drop? What's the % drop rolling 12 months?
Your three weekly idea causes a nightmare around slot usage at the LHR end. LCY becomes an attractive option if numbers are too many for LHR not too few.

If we're being honest you're really asking as a spotter for LCY-NCL? Not likely given the last time when Eastern had a go, and if BA's London traffic is falling out of NCL, they need to keep it all via LHR to make the connection / P2P balance in kilter.

[EK77WNCL]

Tiny bit spotter yeah but I also know a couple of people who travel to london with work quite a lot and the last 3 times my mam was down she's been in the vicinity of LCY, and flights have been cheaper than the train, but they always go for the train because of the trek into London.

I can't quantify the drop but I don't remember the last time they went up and I think BA just got rid of 1 daily flight for Summer 2014 anyway.

After I posted I thought, same principal, could they introduce LCY flights, then rearrange LHR flights around it?

I know Eastern didn't do too well but did they not have terrible schedules? I don't remember them but I'm sure I read an archived a.net thread about dreadful timing, constant delays on their D328, terrible maintenence, high costs, lack of advertising etc etc etc... British Airways is also very very well known at both ends so similar adverts to the anti BA campaigns that East Coast has on the radio for example could work. 30 minute check in at both ends (no baggage) and free fast track at NCL, lounge access, 1 hour flight, 10 minutes plane to kerb at LCY and straight on the DLR into London. Then again what do I know... I just figured there must be somewhere between 304-456 passengers per day NCL-LCY-NCL that this could appeal to... Those E-jets are pretty fuel efficient too...

Cheers for your feedback anyway, I guess it explains why NCL doesn't have a LCY service.