I've never quite understood the mentality of people who decry BA for rationalising and retreating to their most profitable hub, and then have a go at the name.

Does anyone really care what they're called?

Perhaps I missed the article in the ANO where it describes how an operator's name must directly relate to the city of its main base.

Don't mind me, I'm off to start a petition to get Atlantic Airlines renamed as Coventry Cargo Airlines. :p

CC Check the relevant airports for the number of rotations into BCN + MAD by RYR + EZY and the rest. Those routes have been hacked to ribbons and any main carrier must look to serve routes that are new or have some special edge that the LCCs cannot get at. For, once they get their teeth into a route, then it is best to leave it for dead.

after reading the BE website, looks like BE are planning a all out attack on france, new routes nothing to do with the BACON take over

moi? a chip? nah!
 

and Gonzo's profile says LHR which says it all really. Tell you what, sometime watch the British Broadcasting Corporation weather forecast and see if they spend 2 minutes describing conditions in assorted parts of Northern Scotland, and then with a dismissive wave of the hand "and fair weather in the rest of the country, byee"

it is awful having to hack down to London for a trip to someplace else in the world. Generally the total travel time is doubled, and the cost is nearly doubled. Eg it'll be £120 pound to get from Leeds to LHR via GNER and underground, and the fare to New York is £260 thereabouts. Plus you'll start at say 10am and be at LHR at say 4pm but couldn't safe book a flight before 8pm really for a flight time of 8 hours to New York!

But you couldn't get me out of the Yorkshire Dales to nasty SE England for love money or a whippet!

Anyway, this is way off topic..

S

groundbum

Yes, that's where I work. Not where I live. What has that got to do with anything?

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. Which is why last time I flew to NY, I used Bristol with Continental.

Which means by concentrating at LHR, BA are losing out on my custom. But I don't really care about that, because other airlines provide for my needs, and someone at BA, a commercial company, has made a decision that they can make more profit from business class connecting traffic through LHR than they can by providing flights to NY from Bristol.

I really don't see why the name of the company is relevant. I'm sure I saw a QANTAS aeroplane at work yesterday. Long way from Queensland and Northern Territories. ;)

not forgetting Mr Brown
 

From yesterday....
"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."


Picking up on Regional to LHR/LGW hubs or Regional to European hubs.
Apart from the fact that the main non-UK hubs are much more transit-friendly it is also cheaper as you are not liable for Mr Brown's slice of the pie when going longhaul ex Europe!

Aviance to take over BA Mainline ground handling in the UK regions
 

BA are talking exclusively to Aviance UK for ALL ground handling services at BA destination-Regional UK airports.
There will be NO BA uniform precence at these airports, but there will be a BA 'Duty Manager' overseeing the contract on a daily basis...
Wonder how much the tender came in at 'per aircraft turnaround', as BA quoted the current figure of doing it in-house at approx £300.00 per turnaround. By keeping BA staff to do it, loosing the Connect flights and only having LHR,LGW and LCY the figure rises to an amazing £800.00!!!
Aviance have certainly been spending money to no end, with brand new tugs, GPUs and cargo-kings arriving at EDI recently (before BA officially announcing Aviance as preferred handling agent). Looking to recruit staff too, with BA staff being prime targets to smooth the transition.

Heard a rumour that Mainline groundstaff at MAN were given 90 days notice yesterday.

Is this true?

What Next
 

This was mensioned down here a couple of weeks back, to take back front of house operations that was given up when Midland cut there sevices to the Island.
With Midland now back operating the Heathrow service from the 25th March they are growing again in the Island as well as baby operations increasing.
This must have been going on for a number of months now and as the Flybe and BAcon take over is signed this is just anoth step for we willie and his companions at Speedbird house so what else will they have in store?

Wonder if they will move Jersey back to LHR from LGW !

Not quite true Tristar500.

Contrary to rumours being circulated by certain competitor organisations, BA Mainline Engineers will be present in the regions for the forseeable future.. :ok:

TURIN - Ok, BA Mainline engineers WILL still be on-site and in an 'engineering' capacity only - ergo 'airside' and in BA engineering style uniforms, however this will not help passengers identify customer service staff in the terminals...
Having NO customer service staff in BA uniforms is just another fool-hardy move by the FLUMPS at Waterworld... Roll on T5. The end of BAs troubles - I THINK NOT :ugh:

TURIN
 

Yes 90 days notice was served on 05/03/07.

BA name change
 

The reason i ask bout whether BA should become LA or whatever is that it really donestn serve the british public anymore does it, basically now it serves the london/southeast catchement area, i have nothing against people down south ..just think as Jet 2 claimto be the norths fave airline..maybe BA could be londons fave airline...or would easy/ryanair/thomson/virgin have that one tied up????does anyone remember in the eighties when they claimed to be 'the worlds favourite....' , what happened?

This might come as a shock to some posters... have you seen the three little letters that BA put after their name on their letterheads?

plc.

It means they have shareholders to satisfy, and will therefore act to make a return for them. It may be that it does this in such a way as to make regional services unprofitable for them; that is their model.

But to say that they have to provide a service to the whole nation if they are to carry the moniker "British" is just plain daft. You could equally argue that Brussels Airlines should refuse your money if you live in Antwerp....

TA

So take-off.

Have British Airways ceased flying to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, and all the other 'mainline' domestic routes?

I must have missed THAT big announcement!

Tell you what. Maybe you're right. Perhaps they SHOULD rename themselves. Maybe they SHOULD operate to every tin-pot regional airport. Then they could call themselves British Regional Airlines (BRAL).

Tandemrotor

You certainly did not miss the big announcement just a lot of little announcements when they pulled out of Cardiff, thats right part of Britain. Also the fact that they no longerr fly to Northern Ireland, not technically Britain but the UK, other than in the guise of Loganair, a franchisee but for how much longer.
BA do fly from the sirports you mentioned but all flights are to one of the London airports.
Yes BA are London Airways.

PF

In the here-and-now Tandem you are right of course. However there are 2 angles that annoy many about BA that you don't address:

As a nationalised airline, and then as a privatised one, with fuselage titles changed to just 'British' they made a big thing over the years of being the national airline, and the one that the country expected to serve them all, not just those in the South East.

There is a huge feeling outside of London that it didn't have to be like this. From the position they had got themselves into in the regions over the last 10 years where it has ended up was probably inevitable. However had they had management with greater vision and foresight it could have all turned out much differently.

Many times on these pages the Waterworld overhead that was imposed on the regional operations (compared to the days when they were Brymon etc) has drawn comment as giving BACon and its forerunners a huge disadvantage. It will be interesting how things go now that that burden can't be shared around so much how BA fare, as I doubt that the Waterworld bill will be slashed pro rata (= proportionally higher overhead for the LGW/LHR/LCY operation).

As has been commented by others previously, I think the increasing number of eggs that are in the one basket that is T5 will prove decisive to BA's existence in the decade from 2010.

That BA is a plc is doubtless true but what's also true is that places like MAN and BHX and GLA have huge catchments which would keep entire airlines going in other countries - like the one a few deg. West. It's not that BA can't make a buck in the regions, it's that their strategy and corporate structure prevents them from doing so.

It seems inevitable to me that while it will be difficult for governments to restrict LH travel, SH can and will be if *reasonable* alternatives exist so MAN-LHR will start getting pricier.

How about this - BA set up a franchise operation in MAN or use GB and give them the three G-ZZZ* frames which will probably leave the fleet anyway to maintain and operate from there. Give them a free hand with routes subject to aircraft range and bilaterals together with a starter route of MAN-JFK as previously operated by BACX. See what happens.

Try the Unions puting a block on it at the outset. That has been a big contribution to the regional failure since the year dot. BA will encounter still more problems in the future as they have still to address a large number of T & C issues at LHR and LGW.