I believe the IAG plan is for BA long haul at Gatwick to continue as per usual with a new subsidiary set up to concentrate on Gatwick short haul. I don't feel this will beVueling or Level but
a form of BA.
A new subsidiary will also have potential to increase the number of destinations offered. BA already have the infrastructure in place at Gatwick, check in areas, lounges and engineering centre that could all be shared.
If it means that BA will continue to have a strong presence in some form at Gatwick that, in my opinion, will be a positive.

I am sure Gatwick Airport will only be to pleased to cut good deal. Perhaps the South Terminal will be back on operation too next summer if these plans are realised.

However, I do share concerns about the staff at Gatwick and possible terms and conditions changes. The BA staff at Gatwick have always been great at all levels. I think this stems from being part of a smaller team that had to stick together and deliver a good service knowing that LHR was favoured by some of the management!

I continue to believe that BA does not wish to leave Gatwick to Easyjet, Ryanair and Wizz. In recent years it has become a successful base for them delivering6 million plus passengers a year. They made a costly mistake in 2008 when Easyjet was operating just a few flights a day. It is now nearly a 60 aircraft base! (Agreed at the moment smaller owing to Covid, but it will grow again!)

My personal opinions as always!

vectisman - Reading between the lines of the reports, that does seem to be the direction they are looking to take. I wouldn't be surprised if it were named with a connection to BA's heritage (maybe Speedbird - although that could be confusing with callsigns) - its similar to BA, but different enough. Gives them the licence then to change the onboard service and ticketing structure - maybe more of Vueling style service, but still retain the essence of what the Gatwick base has been good at.

I don't think this is about onboard service. Its already pretty much been to Vueling levels. It's buy on board (granted they brought back the bottle of water and a nutrigrain bar) and the fares are already aligned with a basic offering with no seat selection, baggage etc. This is about being able to cut wages and reduce crew conditions and benefits.

Yes - I understand it isn't completely about that, just it decouples Gatwick from the BA brand if they wanted to experiment. In addition to contacts etc.

In effect a BA version of Iberia Express?
Creating a subsidiary that will be at a lower cost to allow it to compete with easyJet, Wizz etc.
On balance this is good news for Gatwick in that BA will stay in some form and long haul continues.

Why not just reduce their prices and call it British Airways? The T&Cs of the staff are hardly legacy anymore anyway.

What can you say about BA? They bought a low cost operation at Gatwick (Dan Air), merged it into BA and lost all the cost savings. They started a low cost operation (Go) and decided they didn’t like it so sold it. They bought another low cost operation at Gatwick (CityFlyer Express) and subsequently merged that into BA and lost all the cost savings (BA CityFlyer at LCY is a separate operation). I know BA achieved some significant cost savings at LGW over the past few years but I think the likelihood of a new BA low cost operation at LGW being a long term success is slim. I’m sure they will be able to do “low fare” but that’s not the same as “low cost”.

Going back just a few years…. but I’m sure what was left of Dan Air was renamed European ops at Gatwick to achieve just this with staff on worse T&c than BA.

how about half the fleet painted in BCal colours the other half Dan Air?

Interesting, I read it would be the same aircraft and some long haul retained. Any one who used to work in any capacity for BA on the ground at LGW now works for GGS on a brand new contract with lesser pay and conditions , I think any crew that were remaining went onto new or changed pay and conditions so not sure how much in the way of cost savings could be made.

using Vueling or level etc , neither have much brand awareness in the U.K. and to throw away the ba brand at LGW wouldn’t make sense in my view so what are the savings that would allow this new outfit to dramatically offer cheaper seats than what ba mainline could now?

The story is also on the BBC. Balpa seem to indicate that negotiations are nearly complete, as I read it.

BA318

completely agree. There is nothing left to strip from the short haul cabin service with the exception of eliminating any Club/Premium service. Sounds like it will be a single cabin operation. This Has been done before with Go from Stansted and Flying Colours. Go was sold to Easy jet, Flying colours absorbed back into mainline BA. The savings that BA want to make I fear will come from what is left of any ground staff at LGW. Tech crew and cabin crew will be on inferior terms and conditions to mainline staff. The wages will be marginally above minimum wage. I think it’s disgusting the way BA treats its staff. The CEO Sean Doyle has been in situ now for 9-10 months and has done nothing. He inherited a right **** show from Alex Cruz but so far has said and done nothing. The management team is nothing more than useless. Performance at the moment is abysmal. At some point Sean Doyle needs to show himself and start leading the company, put his identity on it. If he waits too long shareholders will get impatient and move him out. BA at the moment has larger problems than starting/rebranding it’s short hail operation from LGW. I think if BA continue on the path they are taking they will become irrelevant within a short space of time. BA are neither a low cost carrier or a Full service airline, they are caught in the middle sandwiched at both ends by carriers that do either no frills or full service better.

Do BA self handle at LGW above and below wing? That would be one cost saving but not sure what a BA lite operation brings to the UK aviation scene tbh at the moment but in a perverse way could be cheaper to do this than pay massive redundancy payments to staff.
I just don't get it at all

Remember this is all being driven by IAG, not BA. Current IAG CEO Luis Gallego was originally CEO of Iberia Express, which probably points to the likely outcome.

I really don't see how much there is to be saved at LGW. The cost base has been reviewed countless times. I think some ground handling was outsourced to Swissport and then brought back in house to a separate company.

Creating a separate brand and AOC will all add extra cost and complexity.

willy wombat Identifies the failed attempts as BA did the standard corporate flip-flop. Each time a new boss has to prove he is boss by doing something, doing ANYTHING. The GO operation was very good and thrown away for nothing. But we have seen so many legacy companies do this: Think they can jump on the new band wagon and then find that it doesn't 'fit' their legacy way of doing things. We have seen countless airline attempts at this, as well as the high ranking failure of Chrysler-Daimler. We won't even start on watching political parties try to reinvent themselves. With all of these - they cannot escape that they are (for the most part) still the same people in the same building thinking the same way.

I agree that the staff are going to take the hit (as always) so that the boys at the top can get their bonus and the shareholders their rakeoff.

Alteagod

They outsourced below the wing to Swissport and it fell apart, they then brought it back in house as GGS with lower terms and conditions.
Remember the only reason Iberia Express was formed was to force Iberia mainline to accept vastly inferior terms and conditions or be salami sliced across to I2. It still exists as a reminder of what can happen if the unions get bolshy, Iberia Express and Iberia are effectively one and the same brand and experience but one AOC is used to beat the other. What BALPA do not want is the BA LGW pilots who are on the masterlist to be cut away to a second AOC, it's classic divide and conquer, yet again.

Do not forget the amount of slots that BA hold at Gatwick. I am sure they do not want to see easy, Ryanair and Wizz more or less taking the lions share of the slots available. The owners of Gatwick would still like to see some sort of BA brand i.e. BA Express - at the airport. 'We do not want Gatwick to become the south coast Luton/Stansted heaven forbid!'

Hi Paxboy,
Hindsight is 20:20 vision. BA sold Go as they needed the cash at that time and there was no appetite the model at that stage, despite fact it had turned a corner. The airline since recognised it was foolish to allow the low cost airlines to steal the show.

It is fascinating that so many commentators criticise the motives of management when they are trying to strip cost to ensure the viability of the business, we are in an unprecedented crisis. I'd rather explore the possible options with this than see BA exit LGW fully.

This needs to be looked at through a commercial lens. The real underlying issue here is the deregulated market that came about in 1992 and a free for all led by Ryanair in stripping the cost of everything back to the bone, this has set the bench mark in cost terms and certainly in short haul terms will continue to do so. I know it's sad and inpalletable that airlines have cut employee terms and conditions.

I think in terms of branding they need to look to the group (IAG) and lever the brands. The group look likely to acquire Air Europa in the near future. The result is a slew of brands, Iberia, Iberia Express, Level, Aer Lingus, BA, BA Cityflyer, Vueling and now potentially BA Express etc. Having a rationalised chain of brands makes sense at group level and putting this new entity into that could result in a bigger brand with greater reach, operation efficiencies eg scheduling from various bases, this bring huge benefits. I think there is a better way than creating a new unit. Union constraints should be no issue, they were able to get around all the Union rules during the pandemic.

Iberia Express and BA CityFlyer are not "brands", both are parent branded. They're AOCs or operating companies. Brand is a consumer facing marketing term. For instance Loganair were still Loganair but branded as BA then latterly flybe.

Aer Lingus UK at MAN. What next Iberia UK at LGW?
Best of luck to all concerned.

By the way, I thought Flying Colours developed into JMC and then eventually Airtours and Thomas Cook. Could be wrong though, it was a long time ago.