I suspect hand me downs as-per.
Any ‘newer’ 777s to LGW or some of the oldest 787s at a push.
I cannot honestly see a brand new subfleet order exclusively for LGW.
Thats assuming LGW longhaul survives (really) long term… I have my doubts.

why the doubts over BA LGW longhaul in the long term?

the current 777s, refreshed and densified in 2018/19 are due to leave the fleet in or close to 2029

be interesting to see newer the time what the plan is. The 788s of course by then will be 15ish years old, 12 in the fleet, seems a pretty good fit age and fleet size wise but 2029 is so far away it’s too early and easy to assume anything now. Also the -8s are three class and have 35 J seats again a nice fit with the current 32J config. Only 214 seats though Vs the 330ish currently at LGW and the loads pre covid and of late suggest 214 is too low.

the 773s would need a reconfigure for LGW as no need for F and the J cabin is way too big for LGW

Nice to chew the fat but far to far away to have any idea

The 777s at LGW were not hand-me-downs though, so I don't see why a replacement fleet would necessarily be? I would be fairly confident about the long-term prospects of long haul at Gatwick, it was relaunched fairly early in the pandemic and continues to fly. The 777-200ERs will need to be phased out over the next decade, the A350-900 is the probably the closest direct replacement so I would not bet against it. The 777-8 is closer in capacity, but its enormous range apparently makes it heavy, the 777-9 is larger again than the 777-300, so probably too much capacity.

The 788s seem to have a great place opening up new routes from LHR to the US and the -9s were useful in Asia, at least historically. So I dont think hand-me-downs will be forthcoming. Move the A380s round the M25? ;)

With the third runway even further away at London Heathrow plus the increasing costs to airlines using that airport I believe
BA long haul at Gatwick is secure. Indeed I can see further expansion. Long haul loads from Gatwick are up to 100% with the J and Premium economy cabins doing
very well.
In my opinion you are being a tad pessimistic.

Very much agree with you. I think the A359 could make a good fit for LGW in terms of a direct 1-1 replacement for the 772s, although I'm unsure whether the A350-900 is able to accommodate the numbers as currently seen in the densified 772s? Surely BA wouldn't try to replicate 3-4-3 Y in the A359 as in the 777 currently, as that would be really pushing it. Alternatively, they could go with more 788s/9s, with the advantage that current 777 pilots at LGW could seamlessly transfer onto the replacement fleet with little/no training? Although as mentioned, capacity per aircraft would drop pretty drastically. They could do what VS have done with the leisure fleet and go with the A350-1000 with a densified configuration.

Yes, I've no doubt we will see BA gradually expanding from LGW going forwards, particularly as leisure long haul is now bouncing back. BKK has already been rumoured and discussed elsewhere in the thread, and no doubt BA will be watching Scoot to see how successful they play out at LGW. With charges rising at LHR, I'm sure other long haul operators will be looking at LGW as a viable alternative.

We all seem to be assuming costs won't be going up at LGW? The balance sheet is a car crash with LGW being the worst affected of our major airports. BA actually do have a good history of adding brand new long haul metal at LGW, G-VIIO/P/R have been LGW based since delivery for the most part and the later B744s arrived at LGW via Cambridge. There's a lot in flux at the mo, am not really convinced Scoot will do well, and BA may move BKK to LGW but on doing so will leave a fair amount of premium traffic to Thai at LHR. Every route BA moved in the past, the African and South American long hauls lost a % of premium traffic as they had a competitor who stayed at LHR. With Thai still in market, I wonder if BKK needs to stay put? Doha is a different beast as QR's LHR ops compliment BA's LGW service, they're partners.

'We all seem to be assuming costs won't be going up at LGW? The balance sheet is a car crash with LGW being the worst affected of our major airports.'

I agree costs may rise at Gatwick, but it will remain a cheaper airport to operate from than Heathrow.
As leisure travel appears to be recovering faster than business travel, hopefully Gatwick is in a position to show
a positive recovery in Summer 2022.
Heathrow is also not without its balance sheet issues.

With the above programme from Wizz, would there be any room left for Jet2 at LGW assuming they could get slots? The ops so far this winter seem to have generated passenger interest in the product. I'd be surprised if they didn't try to get in there, but how could they do so?

interesting question regards Jet2.

their winter operations appear to have been successful but I think they have (not entirely but largely) filled a gap left by BA this winter, pre covid (and I would suspect winter 21) BA operated ski and Lapland flights, this winter without them I think LS have been smart plugging the gap but moving forwards, with LS having such a strong operation further North in the U.K. and with strong competition at LGW from U2, BA, TOM and W6 I’m not sure it would be wise for LS to try and break into the LGW market.

don’t get me wrong I think LS have a very good offering especially with jet2 holidays and could do well at LGW but it could be a difficult market to enter as the incumbent airlines may react to any new entrants.

I hope LS do try and enter the market however would add some more competition and variety at LGW

Bangkok is (normally) high volume and low yield. Thai is a competitor, but most of the competition came from the 6-7 ME airlines that had about 20 flights a day to both London and Bangkok. BA gave up trying to compete for higher yields on that route a long time ago, which is why it ended up on the dog of the fleet with mediocre flight times. If (big if, I agree) Scoot stick around, it may prompt BA to move it in to LGW. Using the reconfigured 777 would also be both a product upgrade and a capacity increase on their pre-Covid offering. As it is, they’ve binned BKK altogether until Winter 22.

There’s no chance of EZY, BA or TOM letting Jet2 in. Ever.

The Jet2 flights were charter flights operated on behalf of tour operators that tend to go to the cheapest bidder. In the past, these flights were operated by the likes of Germania, Small Planet and Enter Air. I doubt Jet2 even made any money on them.

Iberia are flying their A359s in a 31/24/293 layout compared to 32/52/252 on the 777s, thats 3-3-3 with a 31" pitch in Y. I would expect BA to sacrifice some Economy seats for Premium Economy, but they still might end up with one or two dozen more seats overall. The A350 is a bit larger than the 787 and airlines tend to configure it at a higher density than the 787. I guess thats why the 787/350 combination is fairly common in many airline fleets. With the A350 and 787 already in the fleet at LHR anything could happen. Its even more unpredictable when the wider IAG landscape is taken into account. Pound for pound the A359 would be the closest direct replacement, if that is what BA want for their 777-200 fleet.

I see that Jazzera Airways are ceasing Heathrow operations citing high airport charges as part of the reason from January 6th. I wonder if they will return to Gatwick where I believe they still hold slots.

Do we have a link on the Jazeera issue? Nothing on google or twitter but bookings have been closed. Challenging making mid haul LOCO work in a COVID world, Kuwait still has a 10 day quarantine on arrival so more indicative of being squeezed out of the market via COVID otherwise they would have jumped ship to LGW or STN ref fees. It's also a twice weekly night stopper rather than a daily spin which adds to the cost burden.

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-ad...virus-covid-19
"You will have to quarantine at home for ten days on arrival, although quarantine can end if the PCR test carried out 72 hours after your arrival proves negative."

I think this is the link. Hopefully allowed to post it here.

The massive increase in flights by Wizz will yield an additional 3.4m seats to their existing operation annually.

South terminal reopening and airline moves 2022
 

Now that we have confirmation of BA building up their LGW presence again with short haul returning, no doubt GIP are beginning to ready the South Terminal for a reopening soon? Does anyone know if all airlines that were originally based in the South (British Airways, Ryanair, Wizz, Turkish Airlines et al.) are intending to move back or will some remain in North Terminal long term? BA is an obvious candidate to relocate back to the South, given that their lounges are there, but was wondering what FR, W6, VY, TK and even Scoot are planning on doing once LGW reverts to dual terminal operations?

I see flights appearing on arrivals and departures, SAS to Copenhagen. Showing on arrivals and departures twice daily. New intended flights?

Vueling to open a base at Lgw from April 22.

What routes does Vueling fly to from Gatwick airport.

According to Wikipedia. They already fly to:

Barcelona
Bilbao
Florence
Paris Orly
Rome
Santiago de Compostela
Valencia

They are planning to add from April:

A Coruna
Asturias
Granada
Jerez
Malaga
Menorca
Paris CDG
Seville

Is this just part of BA Euroflyer? or in addition to their original press release of 18 SH BA aircraft?
We're not BA going to lease some slots to EZY so they could expand as well at LGW?

This is further expansion operated by Vueling. It will likely get a BA code but obviously there is no Club etc on Vueling.

..and not the last of this apparent VX /BAEF overlap..

BAEF Routes:
Alicante (ALC), Amsterdam (AMS), Antalya (ATY), Athens (ATH), Bari (BRI), Berlin (BER), Bordeaux (BOD), Cagliari (CAG), Catania (CTA), Dalaman (DLM), Dubrovnik (DBV), Faro (FAO), Gran Canaria (LPA), Heraklion (HER), Ibiza (OBZ), Kos (KGS), Lanzarote (ACE), Larnaca (LCA), Mahon (MAH), Madrid (MAD), Malta (MLA), Malaga (AGP), Marrakech (RAK), Milan (MXP), Nice (NCE), Rhodes (RHO), Palma (PMI), Paphos (PFO), Santorini (JTR), Seville (SVQ), Tenerife (TFS), Thessaloniki (SKG), Turin (TRN), Venice (VCE), and Verona (VRN).
Vueling Routes:
Barcelona,Bilbao,Florence,Paris Orly, Rome, Santiago de Compostela,Valencia,
Vueling Additions:
A Coruna, Asturias, Granada, Jerez, Malaga, Menorca, Paris CDG, Seville.

By complete coincidence (of course!) the only route where BAEF and VY overlap is Malaga. I think BA could send A380s there and still fill them. In fairness most of the routes VY are planning are pretty interesting destinations in their own right, if slightly off the beaten track from a "Spain = Costas" tourism mindset. Are any of these served by easyJet at the moment?

Yes quite a few which again begs the question about leased slots to EZY, still going to happen or is that arrangement gone soar?

I believe BA still had quite a few unaccounted for slots. According to what I can find online, at the peak, BA operated around 25 short haul aircraft, I think it might have been a few more and closer to 30. For sure there were the 10 G-GATx, 6 G-MIDx/G-MEDx A320s, the 10x G-DBCx A319s and usually a few extras from the LHR operation.

At 'just' 18 aircraft the BAEF operation needs a bit of friendly help to use all the LGW slots. Is there any word on which aircraft the LGW operation will use? 18 is a conveniently identical number to the A321ceo fleet thats had a few years parked up in Spain.

The A321ceos are now appearing on LHR T3 ops for S22 so doubt it will be lock stock transfer to LGW.

Just reading an article about RYR expanded base at DUB and it says LGW will be 8 daily S22.
Is that above pre-covid levels?
Along with 8 & 4 daily to STN & LTN from DUB that's alot of capacity!

Yes, I think FR 8 x daily on DUB-LGW is more than pre-Covid, but not 'new' for S22. They were operating 8 daily flights on the route from the start of the Winter season (end of October) until the New Year.
Cut quite drastically for the moment, as is much of their European network

Ryanair used to operate 8 daily DUB LGW pre pandemic in 2019. I recall that also would have had daily SNN, ALC and ORK. So I'm guessing they have something like 11 slot pairs. Clearly other routes operated at times including Kaunas, Seville or Malaga, but subject to be corrected .

I remember back around 2010 when Ryanair were operating about 15 routes from LGW - That was largely due to the BAA debacle at STN during that time - but don't think LGW-DUB was operating at nearly that kind of frequency then.

A fair few BA ones do but they always did. As for the new Spanish routes, Granada was served until Covid and Asturias was served from STN until the base closure

Presumably the Vueling based aircraft are going to have to be on the G-reg?

No, not unless they serve non-EU.

How many units will Vueling be basing at Lgw? 2 or 3 as I have seen different reports.

All reports I’ve seen say 3 planes. There will also be 4 Iberia Express A320 on lease to BA Euroflyer for the summer season.