Cargo flights. Not sure if it’s vaccines or just other cargo. I think before they were carrying PPE.

BA have been transporting large quantities of rubber from Bangkok. A lot of it stays onboard on arrival and goes onwards to motor production sites in the USA and Canada. Given that Malaysia is the world's third largest producer of natural rubber, I'd imagine these flights are related.

BA318

Judging only the country of origin on our PPE I'd say non-latex gloves and masks.

The aircraft went onwards to Halifax so it was rubber being transported from Malaysia for the automotive industry.

Is there any further news on BACF fleet renewal. They were discussing both the A220-100 and E190 E2?

Would imagine they are discussing survival at the moment.

Vokes55

Noticed that GLA has had a few BA 777 flights of late..I believe also from BKK. No idea if they had rubber on board...

The Glasgow flights are almost certainly PPE flights. I believe the others are too. https://cdfimages.photoshelter.com/i...000k0cPMz310RI

As I’ve said twice, the recent additional BKK and KUL flights are transporting materials for the automotive industry in North America. All of these aircraft go straight on to GSP, ATL, YHZ or ORD. The occasional GLA flights are separate, as are the BKK/KUL flights with the usual (old) flight numbers.

There’s very little PPE being brought in these days, most of the COVID related cargo from the Far East is things like testing kits. There isn’t a PPE shortage any more so it’s not urgent enough to be carried by air on mass.

I'm puzzled. I wouldn't have thought that rubber wasn't the sort of high value commodity that would justify air freight. And isn't it shorter from BKK to most of the US flying East?

I’m far from an expert, but there is a global shortage of natural rubber which has pushed the commodity price up over 70% in the last year. Given it’s importance to the automotive industry, if it’s needed urgently in the USA then it needs to be shipped by air.

Supply chains across the entire automotive industry have been hugely disrupted since the start of the pandemic, exacerbated by vast peaks and troughs in demand across different parts of the world. For airlines like BA and TUI, it’s been valuable revenue at a time when fleets would be more or less grounded.

Some meat to the bone:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...running-out-of

https://www.reuters.com/article/asia...-idUSL4N2HE0BD

Thanks for that. Still doesn't explain why they fly west rather than east.

Do we have any evidence that direct flights from BKK/KUL to the US go west ?

For anything in the Midwest and farther east, it's shorter over the top.

Because BA are based at LHR. If it wasn’t going to work for them, they wouldn’t have bid for the work.

Geographically, flying North is the most direct routing. A direct flight isn’t possible due to the Himalayas, and ULH cargo isn’t feasible as it would be load constrained. Flying via ANC would add another 500-600NM of ground distance, and whilst it would probably result in a slightly more efficient routing once winds are accounted for, it’s so marginal that it would be outweighed by the benefits of flying via LHR - crewing flexibility, engineering on site, no requirement to position crew to/from ANC, route unfamiliarity (oxygen escape routes over Russia, Alaska etc), overflight permits etc.

Has BA taken the opportunity of the last year to update its software
 

In August 2019, BA was forced to cancel many flights at three London airports due to a software glitch. In 2017 there was a severe software failure. According to the FT, senior software engineers had been let go, and systems had been outsourced to Tata Consultancy Services in 2016, though it was said that they were not responsible for the crashes. BA has dozens of old legacy systems. And at the same time there is conflicting pressure to provide new capabilities and features. It was said in the FT that BA's old legacy systems are very hard to migrate off. Low cost carriers like easyJet, it was said, have simpler systems that can offer better customer services and maximise revenue.

I'm SLF and not IT, but it occurs to me that the last year will have been an ideal time for BA to have been updating its old legacy IT systems, and install and test updates, to reduce the possibility of future software crashes like those in the recent past. Does anyone know if BA has been doing this?

I would have thought that a year in which your revenue has been reduced 90% is probably not the year that you spend money on software upgrades.

Every department will have been on minimal budgets, including IT.

But maybe I am wrong...

From my observations, BA only spend money on their IT when forced. The board seems unaware that, without IT, they do not exist. Its a standard 20th Century point of view.

BA have indeed updated IT to the latest 20th Century state of the art msdos systems lol

anxiao

On the contrary, a vastly-reduced schedule would seem the ideal time to install and test new systems; certainly, it would be preferrable suffering a(nother) meltdown over a summer bank holiday weekend.