View Full Version : Call sign "Shuttle" in MAN (EGCC) British Airways 737s/A320s
Just curious on who operates these aircraft. Paint scheme IDENTICAL to British Airways... my CA and I couldn't for the life of us figure out what airline it was. I;m pretty sure BA has no more 737s, but they do have A320s... subsidiary? thanks.
TopBunk
27th Sep 2011, 20:44
'Tis BA.
Domestic flights from LHR and LGW to MAN, NCL, EDI, GLA and ABZ all use Shuttle callsigns. BA still operate B37-400's from LGW.
wiggy
27th Sep 2011, 20:46
What Top Bunk said.
BA at LGW still operate some 737's.
Talkdownman
28th Sep 2011, 05:53
Domestic flights from LHR....use Shuttle callsigns
BA have been doing so for over 30 years...since Tridents (with BAC111s as Shuttle back-ups) did the first GLA and EDI Shuttles.
TopBunk
28th Sep 2011, 13:41
TalkdownMan
Yes indeed, but there were changes about 6 years ago.
Prior to then the Shuttle callsign was only used for flights which originally used the 'turn-up-and-go' shuttle concept, ie those between LHR and MAN, BFS, GLA and EDI, where backup aircraft (in theory) provided extra services subject to pax demand.
About 6 years ago, all domestics started to use the Shuttle callsign ie added were NCL and ABZ and all domestics from LGW also (not sure about JER), although the 'turn-up-and-go' concept had long since been abandoned (c. 1994?).
Hartington
28th Sep 2011, 16:22
In the days of turn up and go I seem to remember the call was in the form Shuttle 1Alpha where 1 was the route/direction (I forget which was which but say 1 was lhr/GLA 2 was GLA/LHR 3 was LHR/EDI etc and alpna, bravo, charlie indicated the aircraft sequence and represented the actual order the planes were flight planned.
At certain times they KNEW they would have a load by 15 minutes before departure and would plan accordingly with the backup planned for 45 minutes later which, on an hourly route sort of meant only 30 minutes wait (from scehduled time). On Monday morning they would have 3 planned to Glasgow for the first flight at 45 00 and 15 and the first 2 were full and the third was usually almost full.
I once asked a manager what they did when there was a rugby match on and he answered that in the early days they try and work out how many people they had coming off connecting flights and if it looked hairy they'd borrow a Tristar for the day. BUt after a while they found that was unecessary and simply worked the fleet hard for a day.
Wycombe
28th Sep 2011, 16:33
Talking of borrowing Tristars, I seem to remember that used to happen regularly at Christmas, certaiinly on LHR-BFS but may be on some of the other routes aswell.
Remember one evening turning up at MAN for the LHR shuttle (forget the year) and being bumped off the scheduled 75' onto the backup Trident 2 -well chuffed I was.
And don't forget, Concorde was used on occasions on the LHR/MAN route as a shuttle promotion.