Uk registrations cannot be reused so some of the suggestions here would not work as they have already been active on other aircraft. There is only one that has ever been reused before the Caa stopped it in the early to mid 80s.

Corsica - absolutely, but I think Cagliari and Olbia over Alghero in Sardinia. Catania in Sicily, Naples, Dubrovnik and Pula.

BACF will, however, need to find work for the additional aircraft on MTuWeTh before they can think about adding highly seasonal leisure destinations on FrSaSu. So in addition to increasing frequencies to some long-served destinations (and possibly Rome), one or two additional business destinations must be on the cards. In Austria, there is talk about Vienna which is an obvipus gap in LCY's network. Not sure about other destinations, as the more obvious ones have either failed in the past (ARN, CPH, OSL, BCN) or been snapped up by others recently (WAW, BUD). MUC and/or PRG would be a long-shot, assuming that BACF will not be interested in routes with less than 50.000 annual pax like ANR and BRN that are up for grabs.

PRG is already being served now 6 weekly I think. VIE was flown by Austrian for a season with a Fokker 70 but didn't last.

You are of course correct regarding Prague.

VIE was in 2011, IIRC. The flight times were, from memory, awful. Arrival into VIE after 11 pm etc. Almost a decade later and with better timings, it might work.

Looks as if BACF really is running out of business destination they could add. They already serve almost all important ones, have tried a few more supposedly important ones that did not work out and do not have the right-sized equipment for some of the smaller markets with potential. Looking at a map of Europe, maybe E70s to BSL, LYS, MUC if we rule out Scandinavia which has not worked again and again in the past.

I still find the ARN route strange. It went up to three daily just before it was dropped and while only an anecdote, it was always full when I used it and prices were never that cheap. With the loss of the 767 on the route from LHR next year, perhaps there's room for the route to return.

Well done Cityflyer crew

Returned Dublin to City on evening of Wednesday 19th. Very disorganised in Dublin airport following the storm passing through ... but a major airport should do better than this. FIDS not being kept updated so the current departures were not shown although there were plenty of earlier delayed flights up on there, now shown as departed but not cleared off to allow the current ones to scroll up. Go To Gate eventually shown, even though the inbound aircraft, disorganised from earlier Dublin rotations, had not left LCY yet (if I can find that out why can't the information team). Gate we were to "Go To" completely unmanned until one hour after scheduled departure {Dublin Handling, you owe me for being your information officer to everyone else). Had been snapped at by the Club Europe handling agent at check-in. Security quere screen states "QUEUE LESS THAN (big letters)30 minutes (little letters)", trying to minimise a 30 minute wait with two-thirds of the expensive checking stations unstaffed and closed.. Restaurants overwhelmed and a mess.

Anyway, aircraft finally arrives, turned round, big queue at the Hold for departures, finally get off at about 2140, nearly 2 hours late. Flying time 50 minutes on a good day. Now LCY closes on the dot of 2230, due to its planning permission regulation. But the guys up front, doubtless with good help from ATC, get as direct a routing into the 28 Final as I've seen for years, nose towards home, we set down at ... 2226. Phew ! And instead of being sent to Stansted, I'm 5 minutes from home.

Thank you !

BA are launching 3 daily LCY-MUC flights using E190 from Feb 2019

Some discussion on the SOU thread about potential new flights there by BA CItyFlyer. Any chance?

As far as I am aware there has been no indication that they are planning to change the current business model.

BHX
 

Apparently all routes being dropped next summer along with BRS.

A case of too much being spread too thinly over the summer weekends? Poor loads and yield? A crewing and operational nightmare in terms of crew hours, HOTAC etc?

The FLR in particular seemed to do very well from BHX in terms of plain numbers of bums on seats.

It is very disappointing news for BHX which has been haemorrhaging airlines in the last 12 months. I thought with additional aircraft arriving at BACF there might have even been a small increase in flights at BHX next summer. Of course the MAG group MAN and STN operations survive...

MAG group MAN and STN are a considerable market force generally...

BHX (and passengers) can feel especially peeved, given that BHX > FLR was outperforming MAN both in terms of raw numbers and load factors (94%+ in Jul and Aug - around the same as STN). As the fares were 'reassuringly expensive' there is no reason to suggest that yields were any lower than those surviving routes. This probably points to the logistics of getting aircraft to Brum and perhaps weakness of the other sectors; Malaga and Palma.

There were other routes, though, that BACF could have gone for - uncontested routes that were lost with Monarch; Lisbon (c. 5,000 passengers per month) and Nice (c. 3,000) for example.

Like GF, I had hoped for some expansion at BHX - even perhaps for mainline to step in with a 319 on FLR and perhaps LIS or NCE.

[EDIT: On reflection, while 319's regularly fly into FLR, I'm not sure that BA's subtypes would be able to get in and out]

So with Stobart operating two Embraer 190 on behalf of BACF soon, does that mean that the expansion announced for 2019 with, IIRC, four additional aircraft will be covered by 2 BACF + 2 Stobart E190s or will it be be 4 BACF an Stobart's 2 E190s are counted as a replacement for the 2 Eastern Airways airframes? (and Loganair on LCY-IOM is just a step gap measure as they will be soon shedding the Saab 2000 anyway)

Of course. Little business traffic for over two weeks, and BA are in business.

BAladdy

Do you have the Stansted programme for this summer?

BACF are certainly proactive in flexing schedules by the day, week, and holiday period to reflect differences in demand, their commercial team seem very good at predicting demand.

I remember the old VLM at London City used to just do the Antwerp flights with one aircraft, departing at 0800, 1100, 1400, 1700 and 2000, on all weekdays. While good for aircraft utilisation and simple to schedule, it in no way reflects demand which rises and falls on quite a different curve, and as a result there were some rotations regularly pretty empty both ways. Note VLM are no longer with us, BACF are.

I think the comparison is a bit unfair. There is no way VLM could have done with their Fokker 50 what BACF is able to do with the EJets which can go to leisure destinations around the Med. VLM did try stuff that was practical with a Fokker 50, such as noon-time flights to JER and IOM, but realistically options to complement bread and butter business destinations from LCY with a turboprop were (and are) somewhat limited.

BA Cityflyer are dropping LCY-Paris Orly from the end of May. LCY now doesn't have a Paris service.

https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...qPBUDe7ejcLvi4

That will be for the BHD flights

BACF at BHD? Haven't heard anything about that...

Probably only happen if Flybe pulled their LCY route.

BA might be smelling blood. Hopefully BHD LCY is profitable but I doubt if it's a core route for Flybe's new owners.

Their whole LCY network might be chopped imo. They are going to have to find room for flights to CWL and DSA and Virgin might want more of focus on LHR so it will be interesting to see if they continue to fly into LCY in the future.

BHD-LCY is a high-frequency route (6 rotations tomorrow, for example) so could be room for 2 operators if BE have to reduce.

I am surprised that BA don't already operate it from LCY considering they operate most of the main domestic routes already from there.