BA Winter Timetable ex LGW

[tilly666]

Has anyone seen the winter timetable for BA LGW, particularly Eurofleet?

Just wondering if any of the old nightstops are coming back? At the beginning of the summer BA decided to scrap nightstops in BCN, MAD, PSA, TLS, MRS, VCE and more in favour of earlier departures and very late arrivals. It seems alot of these flights, which sometimes don't land back into the UK until 0130 are getting very light loads indeed. Surely nightstopping the aircraft would get the loads back to their original levels?

If the nightstops were reintroduced then I think it would do crew morale at EF LGW wonders, as it seems to be quite low at the moment! :(

[sammyhostie1]

Hiya,

Havent seen the timetable as yet.

The reason BA are pushing out so many rotations of aircraft on such light loads is to compete with EZY, as next to BA they are they are the second biggest and most frequent carrier.

Therefore, even if the flights are very empty, they are still offering the EZY customers the same flight for a better price and service, so hopefully they will fly with BA again.

I know this because we were told when I did a BA CSA course.

[worldwidelad]

Haven't heard anything about short haul.

Heard about a direct Tobago, and Mauritius and Nassau (cayman shuttle) coming down from LHR.

Agree with you about the nightstops, morale certainly seems very low.

[sammyhostie1]

Apparently there will be 74 services to Nassau, Orlando and Mauritus...

[worldwidelad]

We have had 2 flights per day to certain destinations such as IAH, BGI, ANU. Bearing in mind the rise in fuel cost's would it be more cost effective to use the 74 once a day on such routes?

Virgin fill a 74 to MCO so I don't see why we can't (again!)

[bunnygirl]

Hi Tilly 666,

Re: EF LGW nightstops, TLS is definately back as a nightstop from the end of October, which is great for me as it was always one of my favourites..apart from the hotel, more comfortable sleeping on a slab of concrete, but a beautiful city, good bars/restaurants and FAB shopping!!:D

As for the others, I know that the company has asked various hotels in both NAP and BCN to quote for the winter..but that doesn't mean alot...wait until you see it in the timetable or better still on your roster. Only good bit of news is that we are not losing anymore nightstops from the winter timetable, so Christmas Markets in HAJ and MUC here I come..

[ditzyboy]

Hello.

Comment from Australia here. Know nothing about the specifics of your operation although I know enough about the battle of full service carriers vs. LCC airlines. BA is securing YOUR future by rotating aircraft back to base each day. Doing away away with overnights reduces costs astronomically and creates a more level playing field (comparing apples with applies) with HUGELY SUCCESSFUL LCCs. I couldn't agree with sammyhostie more.

I absolutely agree that doing away for with overnights decreases crew morale and more importantly allowances (!!!). Though in doing this your employer is securing it's own future and hence yours. I have recently been subject to a 15-20% drop in annual income from lowering average nights away from 9 to 11 per month to an average of 0 to 1. (Thanks Jetstar :ok: ) And we are working an average of an EXTRA sector per day for LESS money. But at the same time it is a absolute neccessity in order to compete and maintain profit.

I have no doubt that your company's thoughts are primarily of it's own future. But it does in turn secure your own.

Can assure you that NO airline will increase nightstops to make crew happy. Not nowadays unfortunately. Sad but true I am afraid.

It's not my intention to cheapen your totally justifiable concerns. It's just no airline anywhere in the world can afford to do anything but cut unnecessary costs - particularily full service carriers. Of which BA is one of (if not) the finest!

[worldwidelad]

Agree with what you say ditzyboy but the BA LGW situation is a bit more complicated as there are other factors causing low crew morale. eg some of them have wanted to transfer to long haul LGW and have been waiting for a while, but for operational needs, new entrants were recruited straight to long haul LGW.

So I think the cutting of night stops was just putting the boot in!

[Human Factor]

If the Cayman shuttle is coming down to LGW, it will either be on a -400 or a 767 as the 777 is too big to turn on the runway, so I've been told....

[tilly666]

ditzyboy I totally agree that by cutting nitestops the company is doing their best to reduce costs etc. But it is slightly different at BA. We had early departures and late arrivals into/out of europe, flights which were always full which makes me think thats what time passengers wanted to fly. Now the change in flight times we find ourselfs flying round europe with 10-12 pax, not the 141 we used carry. This surely does not make economic sense???

I also realise that we have to try and compete with low cost airlines and I agree. But BA have a totally different operation to the likes of easyjet, with higher cost bases and different flying and we also operate a dual class cabin on european services.

I just wish BA would wake up and treat lgw as it deserves. It could be turned into a profitable operation, with new routes and convenient flight times!!!

And worldwidelad I am glad that our colleagues at WW LGW have some sympathy for us, all we want is to be treated fairly, the same way as our colleagues at EF LHR (the golden runways) who do exactly the same as we do!!

[No comment]

Schedule should be made public soon. Still bit of tuning to be done

[jerrystinger]

The Grand Cayman runway thingy has been around for ages...but the fact is the route used to be direct on a DC10 and 747-200....showing my age!

As for the 744 at LGW, it would make more sense to increase frequency on the popular MCOs etc on 777s so as to minimise base costs.

[redfred]

there never going to take away long haul night stops.....expecting to work 24hrs straight?

[HZ123]

We are told at LHR that a number of A319/A320 namely the latter will move to LGW this winter thus returning 737s back to the lessors. The A320 are rumoured to be the old group G-BUS, is this rumour supported at LGW ?

[TopBunk]

HZ

The plan is to release A319's to go to LGW as the A321's arrive from this winter, with the first A319's arriving in Jan 2005.

HTH