BAladdy - my anecdotal evidence was that it was fewer than that, but I am glad it is more. In which case, would it make more sense to operate weekly LGW-SKB-LGW in a 767? Hypothetically of course - there are plenty of other thin Caribbean routes which have stopovers, but afaik, 777s are now the only LH BA equipment at LGW?

I'm not sure how important cargo is on these routes - maybe some mail but the important stuff goes with Fedex. There is little agricultural produce on SKB / ANU - St Lucia grows a lot of 'fair trade' bananas, but I'd guess these are shipped by, well ship! The only other, err, high value cargo round there isn't the sort you'd take through airport scanners! Plenty of food, soft drinks etc come into both SKB and NEV from SJU, but that's not BA's concern.

The Rumour going round LGW at the moment does include a re-instatement of the Seychelles route.

That rumour, as well as CMB and HKT, has been going around for at least a year.

Willie Walsh was quoted in one of the Sunday papers business section yesterday. He was saying broadly, the government is naive if they think they can attract foreign inward investment to the UK if the connection without increased connectivity to UK airports. He said China only has 2 BA destinations from London, 3 if you include Hong Kong.

This was all in the name of re-emphasising the need for another LHR Runway. Interesting comments given that BA has cut all non London international routes from UK.... Would be nice if BA looked at some of them again. Unlikely though, but nice to See Iberia opening MAN and GLA to MAD nonetheless.

EI-BUD

BA lost packets of money operating direct from the provinces, and that was in the days of less competition. There isn't a market for them to run daily (which is what you need) from Manchester to Dubai or Singapore, as that would be just point to point for them. Quite different for those who are hubbed at those places, and can offer good high frequency. A small proportion get off there, the majority connect on to myriad other destinations.

Look at, say, Nice in France, land of protectionism, and indeed great support by the population for their own products. Not a single mainstream Air France flight any more other than to their hub in Paris. Some AF-badged flights on their FlyBe-equivalent commuter operators to selected other European points, but nothing French to London.

BA's greatest salvation in the provinces would be to offer good and worthwhile connections from their domestic trunk routes through T5 at Heathrow. Unfortunately, BA wanting to use domestic slots for the umpteenth schedule to New York instead, BAA incompetence in organising an airport, planning permission restrictions from the T5 public enquiry, and an attitude to regulations from the DfT mandarins that cannot understand connecting passengers at all (because they all live around London and so don't do it) all conspire to make this the most connection-unfriendly airport around.

There has been talk of long haul expansion at LGW for a while with the routes above mentioned frequently.

I'm not sure to what extent the rumours are just feeding themselves, or perhaps announcements are imminent for the Summer 2012 season?

Qantas - New International Strategy
 

So :
QF1 SYD-BKK-LHR B744
QF29 MEL-HKG-LHR B744
terminate?

Is this, in effect QANTAS cut their London operation in half leaving only
QF31 SYD-SIN-LHR A388
QF9 MEL-SIN-LHR A388

Also, in effect BA's Australia operation is cut by ~50% to a single LHR-SIN-SYD. I would imagine only politics and pride stopped the obvious BA to SIN only and QF to MEL and SYD only option.....

It seems so - could include sale of slots to BA in that case.

Qantas is leasing its two slot pairs to BA, so there's the question of what it will do with these (aside from the extra HKG flights) and the 777 released from BKK-SYD.

Given the following extracts from previous posts:

1. In relation to operations from the regions:

There isn't a market for them to run daily (which is what you need) from Manchester to Dubai or Singapore, as that would be just point to point for them. Quite different for those who are hubbed at those places, and can offer good high frequency. A small proportion get off there, the majority connect on to myriad other destinations.

2. Regarding the JSA with QF:

Under the restructured JSA, from early 2012 Qantas will fly Australia-Bangkok and Australia-Hong Kong, while British Airways will operate Bangkok-London and Hong Kong-London, maximising the airlines’ respective network strengths. British Airways will increase the frequency of London-Hong Kong services from 14 per week to 17 per week


I know I am opening myself up to ridicule from some, but given it is a stated fact 135,000 people fly annually from Manchester to Hong Kong ( I myself regularly being one of them) and the fact that the Middle East Carriers and SQ are mopping up a lot of Kangaroo route traffic from the regions. Is it not possible to put a business case for a Manchester to Hong Kong route which would carry both point to point traffic and connecting traffic to QF.

No ridicule, you're right. I fly to aus maybe 8-10 times/year and over the last 24 months I've switched from MAN-LHR hopping on Qantas and getting to Sydney and quite often doing a SYD-MEL hop to suit my times which was a nightmare. Now I fly Qatar and they are amazing. MAN-DOH-MEL or DOH-SYD, fraction of the price and fraction of the hassle.

But there is clearly the need for more capacity and I would love to see a MAN-HKG rout but maybe there's not enough demand in that 135,000 pax to justify a route on the type of ac it needs to operate it, so for BA, ditching people MAN-LHR-HKG works more effective. Maybe BMI are missing something and this could be their long haul opportunities? I do have that BA is basically London Airways.

On the face of it yes, I mean BA used to fly B747s on the MAN-HKG route into the late 80s (I think?). 135,000 pa = ~370 per day currently split between BA / EK / EY / QR / BD & STAR. That's one B744 for the entire market split over multiple carriers.
You'd need to grab most of that current market to make a daily direct feasible, bearing in mind that the price for a daily direct would be more than a one stop with the gold plated Middle East carriers. Hence in the case of BA, I am not convinced the numbers would add up given how price sensitive the market is.
Also the current strategy for BA/QF has just taken HKG out of the equation in favour of hubbing through SIN.

As for BMI going up against Emirates, well that's not going to happen.

Exactly, and will also be building on MAD, a good strategy to return to levels of profitability to maintain the brand and pay for product and fleet improvement. Anything "regional" has been borderline or loss making even in the halcyon days of Landor and based One Elevens. The level of money that needs to be made to replace 57 B747-400s is not going to be found on regional point to point alas.

The 135,000 figure is the pax routing through LHR. Let's tag on the all the pax routing through other airports. I'm sure you'd be looking at going on for 200,000 pax. Now that takes to over 500 a day. May be not worth a 744 daily but a nice 77W/772 with the advantage of taking up cargo. But even if they did do that to pay lip service to the regions, they'd find a way to make it not work as per normal BA practices.

You could not do MAN-HKG-MAN in a single 24 rotation so you'd need more than one aircraft positioned at MAN to service the route. It's just not efficient to set up a small base at MAN when there is much more higher yielding traffic ex-LHR (about 120,000 pax fly between LHR and HKG a month).

BA has had to learn hard lessons in the past from growing its asset base ahead of revenue and the reality is it has a very lucrative premium market in London and is much better being focused on that market.

135,000/year = 370 pax per day flying MAN-LHR-HKG

Tomorrow there are 14 MAN-LHR flights (counted off the Manchester Airport website) on A320 type a/c with an average load of 100ish gives us 1400 pax.

If 370 of these go to HKG, that's roughly 25%. Given that most of that 25% will fly BA MAN-LHR-HKG, I think they're definitely missing a trick there!!

I'm not saying your wrong, but unless my maths has gone a bit awry, I can't see how this would work!

Its an argument that goes perpetually around on here, but if regional medium/longhaul worked for BA they would do it. All BA do is fly to their hub from MAN, just like LH, EK, QR, EY, AA, DL, CO, LX etc.

Britain is a small country and unless people are willing to pay exorbitant fares to fly on smaller/emptyer planes to various destinations, its just not going to happen.

Skipness it was a Tristar and it routed via Munich when BA flew Manchester to Hong Kong.

Jerboy I dont agree with your numbers, the BA Shuttle varies between
A319/320/321 and in my experience as a regular traveller on the route its very rarely far off full.

However thanks all for the reasoned responses, I still think given the will there is the demand for some long haul services by BA probably connecting with One World hubs however I am also realistic enough to know it wont happen with BA (I am of course excluding AA to JFK/ORD, AY to HEL and IB to MAD).

Not since 88 it wasn't. I only say that as that is when my personal involvement at MAN started.

MAN-LHR-HKG was a 747. Terminated at MAN and routed through LHR (or was it LGW I forget)

The Tristar was used on the MAN-JFK. That swapped around a bit due to the 'merger' with BCal and changed several times from a 747 to a DC10 before the 767 arrived.

We had it on good authority from a senior BA manager a couple of years ago that there would be no return to regional longhaul ops until the 787 arrived.

Don't hold your breath. :(

For the sake of the historical record I can confirm that MAN-HKG was originally a TriStar 200 operation. The route was MAN-MUC-DXB-BKK-HKG, so perhaps no surprise that it was not a commercial success. Twice a week, IIRC, and in the mid-eighties but I would have to consult my logbook to come up wijh more accurate dates.

The Tristar-200 operation was certainly flying in winter 85-6 on Tuesdays and Saturdays ex-UK as I flew on a Saturday MUC-DXB-HKG and then HKG-BKK on the following Wednesday.