THY South American routes

[SpringHeeledJack]

This belongs perhaps in Airports etc forum, but I thought I'd better not clutter up their nice orderly forum. :) I was following the progress of a flight over Brazil when a THY 777 was heading the other way from Buenos Aires via Sao Paulo to Istanbul. For some strange reason I found this an odd pairing of cities as there don't seem to be historical links/communities at either end :confused: Might it be that THY are offering their hub at IST as a gateway to Russia/Middle East/Far East without going through Europe to Sth American passengers ?


SHJ

[Hartington]

There is much more to South America than I think many people in the UK realise. I recently went to Chile and Argentina and many people were rather surprised that we considered it as a holiday destination. When you get there you find vibrant communities and business opportunites as well as sights, wine, flora, fauna and everthing from desert to mountains to rainforest.

If you look at BA they only serve Sao Paulo, Rio and Buenos Aires and then assume they can funnel the rest of the traffic from the UK via Madrid on Iberia. That to me says eveything about the attitude of the UK to South America.

In the aviation community I suspect we're more aware of Brazil, at least, because of Embraer.

THY is indeed trying to build a hub in Istanbul. I get the impression they want to try and emulate the success of the Gulf airlines and, as you say, build on their niche into the 'stans. If you want to get from South America to South East Asia (or vv) Istanbul could well be a valid route as well.

So I take the view why does UK PLC seem to ignore South America?

Apologies, it's a hobby horse of mine!

[TopBunk]

Hartington

There is much more to BA's network connections to South America than via Madrid with Iberia (in addition to the directly served routes of GRU, GIG and EZE).

That is what alliances are all about - providing links through partners where there is not the demand or the capacity (LHR - where the resources/slots have to be deployed as profitably as possible).

BA connect to SA destinations using alliance partners AA, Lan and IB through their own destinations and those in DFW, MIA, EWR, MAD etc etc.

I'm sure I haven't covered all the options, I suggest a little research through the BA & One World websites might calm you down a bit.

As and when UK plc have a 4 runway airport to serve our interests then you may well see more direct city pairings. As an example, BA only pulled out of CCS/BOG some years ago because they could redeploy the aircraft more profitably elsewhere, not because the route was losing money.

Morale of the story - don't blame BA - blame the government!

[The SSK]

THY is indeed trying to build a hub in Istanbul. I get the impression they want to try and emulate the success of the Gulf airlines

I think they have pretty much succeeded. They have a huge range of destinations, many of which are unique to them as far as hub-and-spoke goes and they are forever winning awards for passenger service. And they are consistently turning a good profit.

[Hartington]

Top Bunk, I used to see the BA inhouse newspaper and there were regular letters along the lines of "airline A serves destination ABC and they're always full so why don't we?". To which the inevitable answser was along the lines of "We constantly review opportunities but we don't believe we can make money by serving that route".

Despite that, I reckon that you've made my point for me. The only way BA serve most of South America is through code share (remember LAN as well). There used to be enormous British investment in South America in mining, railways and who knows what else. We're still there; if I said "Antofagasta" would you think of the city or a UK PLC that runs mining and the FCAB railway in Chile, Bolivia and Peru to this day? I know that until recently I'd have said "city". Actually, I suspect many people would say a very basic "What?"! But that company is an exception.

In general, we (the British) and UK PLC seem to ignore South America. We hardly ever see news from the continent (other than anything related to the Falklands/Malvinas). I suspect most people couldn't even name more than 2 or 3 countries in South America.

On the other hand various airlines (not just THY) are opening routes into South America. There used to be only 1 flight across the South Atlantic (SAA) and now I think there are 3 or 4. Most European carriers (ignore TAP and Iberia for a moment) serve more cities than BA (for that matter Virgin doesn't go at all).

I simply think it's a shame that, as a country, we're missing out in so many ways. I accept that for BA the most effective way they have of serving the continent is by code share; we went LON/SAO/SCL using BA then LA and it was a very easy trip but I met a group that had come out on Iberia and they were saying "never again" so is it really good for BA if their flight number is on those flights?

Anyway, I had a great trip and I can reccomend Chile and Argentina as places that are well worth visiting.

[The SSK]

It is also worth mentioning that the South American airlines are coming along in leaps and bounds. Whilst there are exceptions of course, there is much more financial stability, there is some innovative cross-border rationalisation leading to strong and (apparently) well-managed groupings. And safety is nowhere near the issue that it used to be.