British Airways
As well as being maintained at Gatwick, the A318s are also crewed from there and the SOP with the frequent fog at LCY is a divert to
LGW where onward arrangements would be waiting.
LGW where onward arrangements would be waiting.
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Yes, cabin crew are certainly Gatwick based but when I was fortunate to use the service a couple of years ago the flight deck were Heathrow based. There was then a small team of LHR based LCY certified crew who operated the flights and also flew out of LHR. Has this now changed as LGW is now all Airbus?
GAXLN
No the crewing is still the same and AFAIK the maintenance set up is still the same.
As others have said fundamentally LHR don't want inbound diversions from pretty much anywhere (capacity) so the default for the LCY flights is LGW.
No the crewing is still the same and AFAIK the maintenance set up is still the same.
As others have said fundamentally LHR don't want inbound diversions from pretty much anywhere (capacity) so the default for the LCY flights is LGW.
As well as being maintained at Gatwick, the A318s are also crewed from there
LGW have also given away the OpenSkies maintenance contract...... all part of the clear out before the rumoured LGW Engineering sell off
For what reason does the BA A318 from JFK to London City always seem to divert to Gatwick when there are weather issues at City??
Possible reasons are
No available slots at Heathrow?
Better connection from Gatwick to the City?
Southend not seen as posh enough for the executives?
Possible reasons are
No available slots at Heathrow?
Better connection from Gatwick to the City?
Southend not seen as posh enough for the executives?
This actually covers very efficiently a number of scenarios, but if LCY is fogged-in for the early morning inbound (not unknown
), the crew are already at Gatwick, their taxi is cancelled and they ferry the aircraft over to LCY later in the morning (when it usually clears up) and then go on to Shannon. There are no BA crew at Southend to handle this. The slip at Shannon helps as doing such the ferry to LCY, then flying to SNN, then on to JFK, would be outside flight time limits.Given that crews are (very simplistically) rostered and paid by the flying hour, the crew costs are not increased as some might think. The cabin crew work on a separate basis as they are not required for the ferry from LGW to LCY, and thus report to LCY and work through to JFK.
There is also a very efficient operation springs into action by Special services at Gatwick to whisk the inbound diverted pax by car to wherever they are going around London, to minimise their delay.
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LCY
errr. has anyone thought it might just be a bit more efficient to 'base' the JFK crews at LCY? So BA are paying duty time for four dead runs every day to and from LGW. Just another example of BALPA protectionist - insert your own adjective.
No, the Embraers are operated by a Franchise, (City Flyer?) and are not BA operated aircraft.
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And doing well by all accounts (if loads and prices anything to go by). Lets hope it doesnt flop like EDI-IBZ (whos idea was that?) and is back for W16. Even some BA advertising to be seen promoting the regional scheduled route for once.