Football charters
 

All of a sudden there is (I suppose) an intense demand for flights from London to Baku. It was predictable that people would want to fly to Baku from somewhere in Europe on May 29th.

Thanks to the Max8 and RR 787 problems the airlines that have a stock of nearly-retired aircraft to lease out for summer emergencies probably don't have any spare this year.

How will the industry rise to the occasion?

One of the worst times in recent aviation history to try and find extra uplift for big events like this.

ACMI airlines like with larger a/c like TITAN EVELOP HI FLY WAMOS AIR BELGIUM PRIVILEGE STYLE and EURO ATLANTIC are all busy busy...

Germania, Small Plant and WOW have all recently gone under

Small Plant, aka Daisy Airways.

A European legacy carrier may have some downtime in high capacity wide body capacity. (BA doesn't fly many WBs to Moscow now.)

Dubai has a runway closed until 30 May, so EK will have aircraft on the ground its cutting it rather fine and there would be a lot of positioning involved.

Qatar is often a good standby.

One a slightly separate issue I read that prices between Bristol & Madrid for the match on 31 May are astranomical (£700 quoted). Is Madrid slot constrained? I would have thought that airlines would be able to transfer capacity and that market forces should lower prices to £low hundred. Obviously it might require two positioning flights for each leg so there are excuses for high prices.

If you ask in the right places I am sure you could raze a fleet of Pa 32s nod wink, with willing PPLs.

As you raise the matter, razing them is EXACTLY the right way to go.

As you said, ''It was predictable that people would want to fly to Baku from somewhere in Europe on May 29th.'' So there's not much ''all of a sudden'' about it. The airline / ACMI industry have known for ages there would be charters to Baku up for grabs on that day. Whether they were from London, Manchester, Madrid, Milan, they didn't know, but I'm sure they've left some slack in their plans. Or they really should have done...

I know Baku is not really possible as a land trip from western Europe, and I know there will be a lot of private jets visiting for the football. However, how many of the masses who can't afford a private jet will pay up to fly there ? Madrid has ample infrastructure, is sufficiently well connected and close to the UK that it's a do-able trip at a manageable cost. Baku is a modest sized airport, difficult to reach via nearby airports and with not much of tourist interest (yes I have been) and going to be seriously expensive - and I wonder how many people will really make the trek for just a single game as opposed to a string of games like the World Cup

The past and present spending levels by fans would suggest that there will be thousands who won't flinch at paying silly money for the CL Final. The game has morphed over the years from the working man's game to a middle class fanbase and rich men's playthings.