It sounds like Willy and his mates will be celebrating when they finally dump BA Connect. Firstly, they give BA Connect away. Secondly, before it's gone they stem further losses by cancelling 1000 flights.

It's not surprising you folks in BA Connect don't feel any loyalty to BA.

In the short-term the BA share price has gone down. In the long-term BA profits will go up because they've dropped the dead donkey.

Groundbum - how do you know the MAN-JFK is dumped? It is still bookable, the BA1503 right through the summer - operated by BA mainline.

Pretty sure that they are not cancelling the Man JFK flights. These have always been operated by mainline crews, BA Connect cabin crew. Now it will be BA cabin crew as well.

Groundbum,
If your source of information was the BBC website then look again because they've changed it.

MAN-JFK was never part of the deal and is as far as I am aware to continue as normal

Ian

Quote:
so when will BA change their name to London Airways?

Maybe one of you guys who is a British citizen could add a petition to the Downing Street site to have BA change it's name to London Airways as it certainly no longer serves the British public outside of London :suspect:

That should mess up their marketing!!:}

When I was a lad....
BA flew long haul from Scotland and Manchester, flew regional turboprops and regional jet services. ( BAC111s and Viscounts / 748s). BA lost money, these flights got axed and BA retrenched to Heathrow, leaving the Shuttle and a few flights from the regions. "Reorganise!" went the battle cry.
Later they look at the market and see that it has "changed". This creates opportunity for people to make a career out of changing things. They decide after a few years to return to regional long haul and gift ex LHR B737s to the regions. "Reorganise!".
They then have all the little airlines painted up as BA Express and these franchises make money on the back of the BA name until GLA and MAN become mini BA hubs with loads of BA shiny planes.......''Reorganise!''
They then buy all the little airlines who used to make money and put an end to "profit". "Reorganise!''
BA the loses money(again), these flightsget axed (again). BA retrench to Heathrow(again),leaving the Shuttle and a few flights from the regions(again). Reorganise.
*prediction*
5 years down the road someone realises that those money making flybe shiny planes would look better in BA colours. "Reorganise!''
Anyone who has ever seen the Dilbert "Bungee Boss" cartoon knows the type. Charges in "Reorganise!" and buggers off. That is how they make a career...in a cyclical industry.

Maybe all the PR team left in the job cuts last year, keep going like this and Terminal5 may be to big, the BAA would then have to make Terminal3 bigger, happy times for all the airlines in T1,2 and 3 at LHR???:)

whilst browsing through one of the broad sheets whilst on nights over the weekend i came across a little right up right at the bottom of the page it went something like this (if memory is correct)

BA are to start flying forom london city with a new franchise called british airways city express flying to one or two cities in europe and it went on to say dont be suprrissed to see them at manchester within a year and make it there main base

now was i dreaming whilst i was on nights or did i read that if so BA are such a bunch of :mad: ... ill not carry on before i upset someone

:ok: rampman

Perhaps I am being over-sensitive here - but as a member of the BA Exec Club, I have just received a personalised "Welcome to flybe" email, signed by a very happy looking Jim French.

I have never had any dealings with flybe. So who gave BA permission to release my personal details to them?

Not impressed. Can't believe that this is legal somehow.

TA

Rampman;
BA have been flying in and out of London city for quite a while now to several European destinations. These operations will now be done by a new wholly owned operation called BA Cityflyer. ( not cityexpress) And the MAN-JFK route definately not stopped.

Legal
 

TA -

If FlyBE have bought the company BA Connect, they own its records.
If they have only bought the assets, it will depend on whether you authorised disclosure of your details when you signed up. Mailing lists are bought and sold daily...

Interesting thoughts, LG - but as I understand it I am a customer of BA, via the Executive Club - not of BA Connect per se.

I am still miffed if my records have been passed on like this.

TA

MAN-JFk still on, hurrah
 

aha, yes I did get the info from the BBC website earlier today, and it has now been updated to say main BA will operate MAN-JFK, great news! All happy again. But I still want those LHR slots reserved for the regions.

S

Can't help feeling open skies concerns are misplaced - High Heid Yins can plug competition all they like, but the value is in the slots - as far as I know, BA aren't being required to give them up? Not "talking my book", btw - it's a long time since I owned any of these!

Also see BA is talking to Go Ahead group about giving ground handling to Aviance in Scotland and MAN.

The BBC website had a poor sentence construct that appeared to say MAN-JFK and all LCY routes had been dropped. Of course in actual fact its the other way round, with these being the only ones being kept.

Man - Jer
 

Flybe's site says it will operate this route but you can't book it after 24th March! Before that it is JER - SOU - MAN and at an extortionate price.:confused:

On the face of it, losing regional connections would be disappointing .........but the more you look at it, the less you see there is to lose. If you're from the regions, who needs LHR/BA anyway? Huge numbers have chosen to use KL via AMS as their preferred hub and this continues to grow, what with KL being an airline which is happy to embrace the UK with open arms. If you need to get to London then there's BD/VG/CB/EZY/FR/LS/AB or the train. If you need Oz/NZ then go on EK from MAN/BHX/GLA/NCL.
Huge numbers of people have already voted with their feet, showing their displeasure at the attempts to funnel them through LHR, which is not the most user friendly hub in Europe, and have found better options. Just look at the CAA domestic passenger figures ex LHR and you'll see that all domestic routes are down, most of them heavily.
Whilst I wholeheartedly dislike BA's contempt to anything outside of London, we are fortunate that there are other carriers that care to put the effort in and are perhaps more worthy of our cash.

The routes out of all of this that I'm surprised Flybe are dropping are into Madrid, Barcelona - and Manchester-Aberdeen. They have a reasonable presence in both Aberdeen and Manchester now, and to drop a route which links a base with what the Americans would call a "focus city" is surprising.

Mad BCN
 

I wonder if Barcelona and Madrid were dropped due to the lengh of the sectors as you can get more rotations by not going so far. With the aircraft and crew situation perhaps this played a part.


Centre cities