Long haul aircraft order
 

According to Reuters, IAG the owner of British Airways are in negotiations with both Airbus and Boeing regarding a possible order for new long haul aircraft.

British Airways are looking to place an order for 20 or more long haul aircraft to replace their older Boeing 777s.

With the much delayed Boeing 777X that British Airways has on order from Boeing and the long delivery time for the Boeing 787 I have a feeling that this potential order will go in the favour of Airbus.

As part of the potential purchase, I wonder if IAG will order the Airbus A330-900 on behalf of British Airways as a possible replacement aircraft?

More 787-10s all the way. Be good to get some -9s too.

Don’t see A330-900’s featuring in any future order for IAG. Infact doubt any airline will order anymore of them unless they give them away. Will be A350 /787 or even more 777x

However, what is happening in the market is a shortage of supply, seemingly for the long term, where the A330-900, a perfectly reasonable and efficient aircraft, is becoming the only widebody actually available for delivery in the medium term. Boeing is pretty much sold out on the 787 long term, getting on towards the end of the decade now. Much of this is their own doing, cutting the 787 production lines back from two to one must be seen now as a mistake (I'll leave aside whether they closed the wrong one), along with inefficient handling of the 777X development losing years of production.

The A350 is likewise booked up for years ahead. What else is there ? Detailed analysis of the A321XLR, supposedly the wonderplane for the mid-long haul, shows it is not as easy to break even with such a narrowbody on these routes as first suggested.

Exactly my thinking, your post is absolutely spot on. That's why I mentioned the A330-900 as being a "possible" candidate.

You also have the problems with P&W geared engines - literally hundreds have to be taken off the wing and returned for inspection over the next couple of years - and this at a time when there is a general shortage of parts and engineers to get new builds out of the door never mind fix the current fleet. And there is no hope of having enough to just swap them out for a spare - there aren't enough.

There was a big article in a last months Flight - no-one seems to be able to give any decent info on timescales but it's clear there will be an ongoing shortage of aircraft -for several years

How compatible is the A330-900 with existing BA Airbus fleet? Crews, Engineers, Spares, Ops etc. Or would it be starting a subfleet from scratch? Which would be very expensive... not to mention potential lack of worldwide support on a niche type.

Not sure if many existing BA Engineers will have A330 type rating and could mean additional training!

Yes, it's amazing that any airline ever buys a new type.

Fair point, but easyJet never regretted the move from brand new B737-700s to A319s, if the aircraft is the right one for the business then you need to spend the money. The A339 is more likely at Aer Lingus to be fair.

Up until recently BA had a thriving 3rd party engineering department handling almost every type going. Quite a few had/have A330. The conversion course from 320 to 330 is only a few weeks. Practical OJT may be fun though, Madrid or Dublin anyone? 😁 🍻🍺

BA might find it pretty hard to persuade some members of the short haul crew to switch to long haul, A320 to A330.

I was responding to the post about engineers.
If the A330NEO is a replacement for an existing fleet surely the CC would come from LH not SH.
If its an additional fleet then I presume recruitment would be in order.

Is there such a thing as a short haul crew member , I was under the impression that everybody was mixed fleet and long haul and short haul is mixed over the period of the rostered 6 week, however I could be wrong , does anybody know if you can be short haul ONLY at BA. Just wondering. Thanks.

At LGW, cabin crew either work shorthaul only (euroflyer) or longhaul only (777 mainline). At LHR, they are fully mixed short and longhaul flying now.

BA165 to Tel Aviv almost got there today and turned round to London ..hope they loaded enough fuel for a round trip

it turned back south of Cyprus

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....97e324610.jpeg
It was a bit closer than ‘just south of Cyprus.’

British Airways is to resume Abu Dhabi in 2024.

British Airways flights between London Heathrow and Abu Dhabi are to resume on the 20 April 2024, daily flights with a Boeing 789.

BA073 LHR 22.25 AUH 08.30+1 789 Daily
BA072 AUH 10.10 LHR 15.20 789 Daily

With the resumption of Abu Dhabi, this brings the amount of destinations served by British Airways to the region to eight.

They include the following.

Abu Dhabi
Amman
Bahrain
Doha
Dubai
Kuwait
Riyadh
Tel Aviv

I wonder if Jeddah might be the next destination in the region to see a possible resumption of service by British Airways 🤔

At one point British Airways had quite a large presence in the region especially compared with today.

They include the following, including the airlines current destinations marked with a +.

Abu Dhabi +
Aden
Aleppo
Amman +
Ankara
Baghdad
Bahrain +
Beirut
Damascus
Damman
Dhahran (Until 1999 on completion of Damman)
Doha +
Dubai +
Jeddah
Kuwait +
Muscat
Riyadh +
Sanaa
Tehran
Tel Aviv +

Some of the above destinations were later served by BMI under franchise to British Airways. But many of those were also flown by British Airways long beforehand.

Edit....After being reminded by others regarding the misleading information regarding BMI under franchise to British Airways. I would like to correct that piece of information. BMED being under a franchise to British Airways and not BMI under a franchise to British Airways. BMED was eventually purchased by BMI and the British Airways connection had ceased. BMI were eventually sold to British Airways.