The LBA and RTM routes are improving and LBA in particular is picking up and moving in the right direction:

So how are BA?s new routes to Leeds-Bradford and Rotterdam performing? | London Air Travel

LBA and RTM are not merely slot sitters. They are here for the long term, in particular LBA.

Kind regards

Mike

I wouldn't bet on it - BA have gradually pulled out of UK routes due to competition from trains and cars - LBA generates relativley little inter-lining traffic and (together with newcastle) is the most likely for the chop when they need another set of slots..........

Apart from Manchester only the Scottish routes make sense

Are you a fan of the Liverpool-Belfast ferry, then? :O

Harry - do you know if there is a particular reason as to why LHR-LBA is not seeing significant numbers of connecting passengers ? It may be the grim north but Yorkshire isn' *that* poor or devoid of people...

I thought most of the traffic on NCL and LBA was connecting, the LBA times are useless for point to point.

With EK already talking about DXB-NCL twice daily in two years time (I'll say that again, Newcastle to Dubai twice a day!), nothing like encouraging the competition...

With a large BA back office presence in NCL, I cn't see NCL being dropped in the foreseeable future.

As to LBA, it was inherited from BMI. If it pulls its weight then it might survive, if not then it won't. Simple as.

All BA slots go into the 'maximise profit' matrix. With BA's LHR slot portfolio, there are no end of opportunties to expand longhaul. After all when you serve EDI, GLE, MAN, CDG, AMS, ABZ, ARN, BRU, CPH etc 8+ times per day, all you have to do is reduce each by 1 per day and you have longhaul growth when the aircraft arrive.

To me, there is no doubt that BA are slot sitting many of the ex-BMI (plus some BA rotations) until they have the airframes to convert them to longhaul. In that I include all the LBA, but not all the NCL rotations.

P2P LBA-LHR has suited me just fine now on several occasions....

LHR-LBA was not an ex BMI route, certainly not at the time of the IAG buyout.


cs

MAN will be 11/day for winter.

BA maintained a back office function call centre in BFS for years after the Shuttle route was originally pulled.

BA call centre in US is in JAX ,Florida a point they have never served , so link between route and back office functions (NCL ) doesn't apply.

Having said that NCL was always one of the better ( domestic )performing BA routes from LHR as no competition and good P2P yields.

BA acquired a lot of slots from BMI at relatively short notice and didn't have the longhaul resources to utilise these .,conversely shorthaul aircraft were acquired from BMI which have to be utilised..hence routes like RTM , LBA have been introduced as these airports have likely offered very competitive terms ,even if the services will disappear again in the medium term.

Talk of freeing 10-12 slot pairs for longhaul by canx these routes , reducing freq on MAN , pulling PMI , IBZ is a lot easier said then done and saying its a job for the schedulers is very simplistic.

Overtime as the longhaul fleet expands some of these routes will be sacrificed for longhaul expansion but not without a lot of juggling both within BA and with other carriers.

The likes of PMI and IBZ along with ALC and AGA seem to be 'fillers' to keep aircraft utilised at the weekends (they are all only Sat/Sun) when the demand for the more business focussed routes is lower, and BA have obviously worked out that they'll make more money from fairly full leisure routes than half full business ones!

I would've thought any s/h reductions to allow for more l/h would be removing whole daily flights off of some of the higher frequency routes, rather than freeing up some rather random weekend slots.

That is correct. The slot pairs for expanded longhaul will come from the likes of DUS/GVA/CPH/MAN, not at the sacrifice of a whole route such as LBA. LBA is actually going from strength to strength. What is hoped, is that when it improves enough, a nightstopper will be introduced, but at the moment, it would simply increase the costs on the route too much.

ALC etc are indeed in order to increase aircraft utilisation, and about using the resources where they can perform best.

Kind regards

Mike

I seem to recall that BA did a similar thing from Manchester in the 80's with their B757's. They operated to various sun destinations on specific days of the week, departing in the evening and arriving back early morning.

...and from GLA also. But these were specifically charters for Inspirations mainly.

new/returning BA Asia routes
 

SGN needs to be added to the list of CKG, KUL, MNL, TPE, etc., whether direct (or as add-on to BKK initially). Vietnam is "up-and-coming" as much as Indonesia and the Philippines.

BA needs to get LHR5-SGN up and running before VN shifts from LGW to LHR4!

Given BA are having profitability problems with BKK, going from a 4 class B744 to a 3 class B772 mainly due to Thailand being a leisure destination, I suspect they would not fare any better on Vietnam. Up and coming does not equate to potentially profitable if your cabins are premium heavy like BA.

Quote: "Given BA are having profitability problems with BKK, going from a 4 class B744 to a 3 class B772 mainly due to Thailand being a leisure destination, I suspect they would not fare any better on Vietnam. Up and coming does not equate to potentially profitable if your cabins are premium heavy like BA."

Yes, maybe they're leisure-heavy at present, but both are-up-and coming destinations for trade and business opportunities.

Good to be ahead of the game for once, let's not leave all the potential business to the likes of AF, EK, EY, TG, TK and VN.

Vietnam is taking over from China as the world's manufacturer. Wages are rising in China and more manufacturing there is for domestic consumption as the "middle class" grows.

Thailand is as much an Asia "tiger" economy as Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan and probably more so than the Philippines.

So if CKG, KUL, MNL, TPE, etc., are on the list, would definitely add SGN!

Following hot on the heels of recent route launches to Sri Lanka, Tenerife and Lanzarote, British Airways will begin flying to the sunny Spanish island of Gran Canaria later this year.

The weekly service, offering Heathrow’s only flights to the popular holiday hotspot, will begin on October 26, from Terminal 5.

Schedule:

BA LHR1005 - LPA1435 32A 6
BA LPA1520 - LHR1940 32A 6