I just don't think BA can have an LCC model within the busniess.

Look at Go and BACon.

If they are keeping the branding, and lowering the service, then this would be like TED. Which I don't think has been a success.

Or they could go BMI - and cut the onboard service on short hauls.

I think they should stick to what they are - expensive, but good quality. The M&S of the skies. They do this, and they do it well.

Now, saying that, Jet* seems to be going ok - so who knows! Interesting times.

or they could do a deal with bmi and keep the baby name so not as to devalue the BA brand .............

Named after a bloke who went looking for something and found something completely different? Geography is supposed to be big with airlines !

I can see how it would work. Turn the LGW operation (SH) into a high-class low cost airline (more akin to GO - with costa coffee/allocated seats), with the standard routes at the moment - mix of popular city breaks and bucket and spade.

Why not a London icon...say, project Jack The Ripper :E

Concerned that BA could come under pressure from the deveved assemblies and other areas of the Uk who take afront to the withdrawl of all services outside of London is to create a new group of airlines. The new regional airlines will be modled on the old Cambrain and North-East airline of BKS which were absorbed into BA and the BA manchester fleet.

The new arilnes will be.

Wippet Air

Based in Manchester and flying to many cheap popular destinations with the oldest aricraft we can find our uniques services will include.

Free carriage of wippets, ferrets and racing pigeons.
Warm still beer served with each meal
Local delicacies on offer such as Hollands meat pies, chicken tikka masala and fish n chips.
Pot belly class will offer a premium service for those of a larger dimension.
Locally recruited staff to assist with language difficulties such "Ey up"

Flights will operate at unreasonable hours and be subject to major changes as this is good enough for them up North.

Heading up this new division will be Tamara Tomkinson Jones assisted by Giles Cholmondley-smyth. Tamara who has an extensive six months of working for BA within the "Europe bread purchasing division" was quoted as saying she was looking forward to her time in the North as despite her extensive travel experiences throughout the world she had never ventured North of Watford Gap.

Giles brings with him a wealth of expereince from the City where he assisted developing Countries and belies he is well positioned to hel Wippet air develop into a truly leading third world carrier.

"One really knows how our ethnic services should be organised. I'm looking forward to helping these poor folk escape the deluges manchester is know for" Tamara will be undergoing language training

Given the American name, I would guess this is the 319 service out of LCY to the US.....

Why would BA get into locos when they are flogging off all their franchises?

TA

BA seems to have lacked long-term vision for a considerable period of time and goes from "hyping" an innovation like Four Corners or Go, only to dump it within a relatively short period of time. Now I know the standard BA line about Go (e.g., bought for £25m, sold for £110m) but imagine the company Go could have become within the Single Market. I was a great fan of Go and was sad to see easyJet take over. There is, I think, a market for a quality low cost short haul operation (of the type, dare I say it, represented by Go) where little things (like seat allocation on check in) which mean a lot to many travellers, in my view, can be incorporated. I could, of course, be wrong.
The way things have been with BA I wouldn't be surprised if Open Skies (the airline) is shut down, sold, merged etc. within a year or two; the same for any putative short-haul equivalent if that's what "Columbus" is about.

With a little research, Columbus is about driving costs down at Heathrow, more akin to what they have done @ LGW, but on a much bigger scale. Setting BA up for $200 pb

Looks as though many LGW BA B737s are going to have a long summer holiday, as well as a good few LHR BA B747s. The B767 fleet is also earmarked for 'parking'.

This is the start of UK airline consolidation in the early stages...

Whatever the rights and wrongs of BA, when they begin to show signs of financial woe, then other UK carriers WILL follow...

No carrier is immune from the ever increasing costs of fuel.

Project Columbus could potentially have disasterous consequences for BA (short term) but especially existing cabin crew. (permanently)

Disasterous for BA because if they think that crew are going to accept these changes with open arms then they are deeply misguided and will I am sure face weeks of industrial action.

Columbus aims to end all current terms, conditions, pay scales and agreements of all current BA cabin crew (inc LGW which the currently still considered to be too costly)

Crew who decline to move on to the new contracts (owned by a subsidiary) will either have their contracts bought out or side stepped altogether.

BASSA have been shocked by the level of planned cuts and the amount of work already completed (planning & legal) by BA.

It's about time some of those Gatwick 737s were put out to pasture!

BA has flown to Valencia many times over the years. Management merely looked at somewhere to serve that already has too many flts to and from the UK and might be difficult to fill = Valencia good for 'LLadro'.

Valencia per se isn't random: it's Spain's third-largest city. However, as aforementioned there's considerable competition:

EZY: LGW-VLC = 10x weekly
EZY: STN-VLC = 7x weekly
FR: STN-VLC = 14x weekly
XG: LHR-VLC = 7x weekly

(Frequencies based on the 10th-17th July.)

That's 38 weekly frequencies, or an equiv. of nearly 5.5 flights per day on LON-VLC.

There might well be seasonal reductions, but nevertheless there's considerable competition even before BA enters - as very much a latecomer. Still, they'll be the only full-frills airline on the route.

Does anyone know the rough segment composition of LON-VLC? I'm guessing firstly VFR, secondly business, thirdly leisure (including myself in the past).

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how it performs.

What will its frequency be?

tristar500
There are (I believe) 57 747-400s. How many is "a good few" do you suppose?:rolleyes:

And which summer are you thinking of?:rolleyes::rolleyes:

I suspect your comments are a little uninformed.

Just on side note, Would BA look at buying out a lcc that may need some financial backing, or taking one over such as jet2/globespan or even baby, rather than starting one from scratch? Jet2 would get BA back up in the northern regions, again, despite the odd BA problem, people are attracted to the brand, You could have a hybrid offshoot with the jet2/Ba logos . Just a thought .... ??

Take off BA got out of regional flying nearly 2 years ago why would they want to go back and have to pump money into something they have no interest in ? BA are not interested in anything north of LHR

Tandemrotor...

Since Iam not WW, I dont know exactly how many a good few is but time will tell. As for the LGW 737s, again who knows. Iam going on info passed by BA crews in the job currently, so I hardly think Iam 'uninformed'... This is after all, a 'Rumour Network'... :ugh:

Maybe you could call SKY NEWS and find out for yourself. They seem to have an inside track on lots of things... :ok:

It has been stated for a good while now that BA will, like many other airlines, park some of its less efficient aircraft: British Airways will ground part of its fleet over rising fuel cost - Times Online

Here's a good related article:

Special anna.aero briefing: Capacity and route reductions provide opportunities for niche carriers (and LCCs) | anna.aero

I made my remark about the choice of VLC employing my usual sarcasm. But I am right there is no more space for anyone else and I assume the remark about full frills from JNP employs a little sarcasm too?

The yacht racing is based at Valencia this year, so a lot of yacht based traffic makes this route special. Valencia is the 'new' Barcelona! BA is pretty experienced with deciding new routes- a lot of analysis goes into it. And an anonymous keyboard on Pprune criticises the decision? I don't think they will lose any sleep!

Dearie me Rainboe, what a loss to the comedy circuit. A witticsim surely.....

I can't see why BA would be interested in the UK regions, when the Single Market and Open Skies mean the whole of the European Union is available to them. How about taking over MALEV instead?

BA are running scared now. What next?

BA Connect and all the associated BA regional failures including BACityflyer, Openskies, LCY-JFK... Is there any directional planning at Birdseed Airways?

There just seems to be a 'clutching at Straws' culture now. Anything to try and stifle the competition. Whats AF doing... Whats LH doing? Whats IB doing? NOTHING. They all have settled models in operation already, forcing slackers such as BA to show their unprepared hand... By grappling with idea after idea, BA are showing they are running from one whim to another, and not sticking with one in particular...

Go was a winner for BA. Thats the only decent idea they had. On the other hand, BAityflyer is a continual nightmare for BA. Constant delays, technical faults and crewing issues.

Anyone fancy taking offers for the next big thing from BA :ugh:

Your P45 for continual, pointless moaning?

Skip to be fair though BACityflyer is a mess !!! no crew , Tech aircraft and management, sorry The leadership team as they like to be known with about as much idea of direction as a broken Tom Tom!!!!!!!!

Personally i think they should of stook to GO. This would or could of hurt FR at STN but could of also provided a expansion(Slight Exageration). The things they could of done with this type of product is endless expansion up north etc.

As far as aquring one now or buliding one up from stratch is not going to happen. LS isnt selling up and i dont think will do and it is pointless starting new ops from anywhere in the UK as a LCC because most airports now are more full of LCC than full service carriers.

What they should do is revamp the BA CityFlyer into a far better product and maybe expand at LCY but also places such as MAN. A new set of A/C (ERJ170,ERJ175), Better working conditions aswell as pay(here that it is bad here) would not go a miss and this could possible become a good little subsdary for BA.

These days though it seems BA likes to build up a subsdairy into a reliable one, makes money for them then all of a sudden they sell it get the money out of it they wanted and run. They then start up another and carry on doing this.

Imagine if they didnt do this what would they have today:
Go-LCC Airline could of expanded rapidley out of STN, EMA and BRS and probably have some 738s hanging around today
GB Airlines-Holiday subsdairy-Great for those retired people who want to start and finish there holidays in style-Could of expanded the MAN ops into Egypt,Turkey and Portugal
BMED-Dont know if this was actually making something to BA but i reckon they could of bought it out then merged it into BA but kept the fleet on the same rotation etc.
BA CityFlyer-They still have it but actually from reports i see, read and here they just dont give a S:mad::mad:T. Imagine if they did this could actually do something for BA.

As far as starting a new LCC up i dont think so. I would reckon more to them concentrating on the LODON ops then anything else make money that they want sell it then start again.

I don't think you understand how these things work. BA don't care about working conditions as long as they can get workers (which they always will). All they care about is forcing down costs, so why would they offer better pay out of the kindness of their hearts?

BA have stated they don't want franchises, that's why they were happy to let it go. BA didn't own it, Bland group did. That's who sold it. BA are now operating a lot of ex. GB routes with their own planes. This is a good thing in my opinion.

BMED were also a franchise. Sold to bmi. I think they got a reasonable deal, so again, can't fault BA here.

As for CityFlyer, not sure how that's doing so can't comment.

lexoncd
Thats a funny post and this business model could work well!...Could also include Stanley racing on board gambling product in IFE and duty free bar will accept all currency inc Giro cheque's..:)

I know BA have a 15%(17?) share in FlyBe, but why does their logo feature on the Flybe flight screens? could there be more to it for the future?
lo cost franchise/owners??

I know that some of the "management" from the failed BA Connect are stillaround but LCY is now a focus for BA. The re-introduction of Glasgow, ( alas Milan MXP is suspended ) but Amsterdam, Barcelona, Nice and Warsaw have come on line. They are my airline of choice as I live in East London but I too am disappointed that the RJ100 seems to go tech a lot! I mean they are barely ten years old and have been flying for BA all along, albeit initially with the real CityFlyer.

Further to my last posts regarding the potential B777-300 order,some developments are occuring within BA Engineering at present that would support this as being true....
Any of you who have ever visited Tech block J in the maintenance area will be interested to know that there is now a project in place to convert Bay2 to accept the B777-300. Three firms are involved,Hughes and Salvedge,who are a specialist demolition firm,....Arup,a construction firm and Reel,a specialist access platform supplier. Both H&S and Arup have been given the task of creating a "bubble" on the front of Bay2 in order to facilitate the -300 and from speaking to thier guys doing the groundwork etc,it seems that BA have tasked them with a Jan09 completion date. From an engineers perspective this would tie in with an aircraft "arrival date" of somewhen in early Oct,as under the B777s MPD,they are due an "A" check at 105 day intervals!!
With regard the older 747-400s being parked in the desert,well there seems to be two "thought trains" in place at present....One seems to involve getting shot of the oldest 400s in late October,(start of winter schedule),...the other seems to centre around parking up some of the newest 400s and then flying the oldest ones hard and fast towards thier intended retirement dates,ie next "D" check. The logic of this seems to revolve around getting the most out of the oldest airframes,then when each one of these a/c reach the end of the line,it will be replaced by one of the younger ones from temporary storage!
One problem that BA has not apparently forseen,(according to the spotters in my area),is the fact that suitable parking slots in the various airfields in Arizona,that deal in aircraft storage,have more or less been exhausted by the recent demise/cutbacks in US airlines.
With regard the 767 fleet,it still seems likely that the ones doing the Shorthaul routes will be converted to longhaul config somewhen soon
With regard the 737s,well they are not within my "fleet scope",but all i can say is that "rumour control" here in Engineering,is rife regarding the sale of BAMG,(the BA maint base in Glasgow),to a third party,with the Airbus work being split between LHR and Cardiff.....Can't be much "family silver" left to sell now if this is true!!

There is some familly siver left and that is Cranebank. That is sheduled to be vacated by mid 2010 with general AOT / CST stuff and staff moved to TBC. Flight ops and the sims will be located in a yet to be announced new site probably some miles away from LHR and likewise CC will have another site solely for them and SEP. In the future separate sites can be easily moved to another company, made a subsidary or soled off entirely. Cranebank which I am sure we own will fetch a handsome price and I expect these operations sites coiuld be in EC development areas in the UK. I believe that FC / CC training could be housed any reasonable distance from LHR / LGW and that might include SE coast sites and / or the Midlands.

If some of BA's 747 fleet (oldest or newest) really are going to parked up on a temporary basis isnt there anywhere closer that could be used instead of flying them out to the desert ?

How many airframes are we talking about ?

If you know of anywhere which has a similar climate and facilities to those areas in the US, ie Arizona and parts of southern California, and is nearer to the UK, then I'm sure British Airways would love to hear from you!

Maybe there's a business opportunity there for a budding entrepeneur - pity Dragon's Den isn't still running...:hmm:

BA codeshare on some of the flybe routes, those that flybe took over from BA I believe. Nothing more sinister than that I'm afraid!

barry lloyd
well unless i am mistaken Cornwall County Council soon take over ownership of the whole NQY site. This includes one hell of alot of a/c parking and taxiways which the current commercial airport does not require/use on the RAF side of the airport. ideal parking for unwanted aircraft as far as i can see!

Focusing on LCY...

Thats a laugh :ugh:

The crew and aircraft are based in EDI, with ops in Didsbury, and 'official' base at LCY. How the hell can the operation expect to be efficient and run generally speaking on-time, when for a start the comms between the 3 are non-existant... Can never get an answer from ops or the big-wigs at LCY when the sh*t goes down - sorry - thats normal, but come on...

The aircraft are constantly positioning from EDI to SEN for maint, thats if they are not tech already, or being worked on, on the ground... Its a complete and utter joke. EDI is like a parking lot for Avros.

The passengers are not stupid. They are regulars and know the score fine well. How come AF/Cityjet do not suffer the same problems (they do have tech issues but nothing on the scale of BACF).

BA just dont seem to care. They are building up a 'base' at LCY for other things, ie the proposed JFK route. Protecting the slots. Unless a new fleet of aircraft are introduced, NOTHING will change. Nothing has changed over the past 4 years - except the name...

Ba Man-jfk
 

Does anyone know what the costs to fly the 767 man - jfk is (fueled and crewed roughly)? Or what revenue does an airline need to make to keep in profit?

I hope the BA PPRuNers who occasionally contribute to this thread are asking hard questions internally about what the hell is going on here:
World Record Holder G-BOAD badly damaged
What is happening to G-BOAD?

And no, they didn't take the nose off to get it away from the Intrepid dock renovation.