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British Airways June long haul routes
British Airways have stated that they plan to start reinstating flights from July in some form, although a lot will depend on the proposed 14-day quarantine for UK arrivals. There is still a surprising amount of long haul flights in June with daily flights to several US cities.
British Airways June long haul flights are as follows:
London Heathrow – Boston 1 daily 787-8
London Heathrow – Chicago O’Hare 1 daily 787-9
London Heathrow – Delhi 1 daily 787-8
London Heathrow – Hong Kong 6 weekly 777-300ER
London Heathrow – Johannesburg 1 daily 777-300ER
London Heathrow – Lagos 787-9 operates alternating days
London Heathrow – Los Angeles 1 daily 787-9
London Heathrow – Montreal 1 daily 787-8
London Heathrow – Mumbai 787-9 operates alternating days
London Heathrow – New York JFK 2 daily 747-400/777-200ER
London Heathrow – San Francisco 1 daily 787-8
London Heathrow – Sao Paulo Guarulhos 1 daily 777-300ER
London Heathrow – Singapore 777-200ER operates alternating days
London Heathrow – Tel Aviv 1 daily A350-1000XWB
London Heathrow – Tokyo Haneda 787-9 operates on alternating days
London Heathrow – Toronto 1 daily 787-8
London Heathrow – Washington Dulles 1 daily A350-1000XWB
London Heathrow – Beijing Daxing (from 14JUN20) alternating days
London Heathrow – Shanghai Pu Dong alternating days
HT: Routesonline.com
British Airways wants to stay at Gatwick
There was a big furore in the paper last week after an announcement to staff said BA did not when they may return to Gatwick which was interpreted as whether they may return at all. Looking at the stats of how their staff numbers may look, they are still showing a substantial number of staff at Gatwick.
Willie Walsh has now come out and said he does want BA to stay at Gatwick in last week’s investor meeting.
“I would like to see us continuing to have a presence at Gatwick. That’s just a personal opinion. It’s not going to influence the consultation that will take place.”
I suspect that BA will be back at Gatwick in 2020, although maybe not until the winter or late summer.
BA fleet changes – will Club World be phased out sooner due to CV19?
BA held an investor call last week after its first-quarter results were revealed. This yielded some interesting information, most of which I have already written about. One thing I have not touched on much is fleet changes. We all know that it will take some time before frequencies and routes are anywhere near their previous levels. Therefore it is not surprising that there will be a need for less aircraft.
IAG are managing this by retiring some aircraft early and delaying deliveries of new aircraft. They are also planning to hand back 20 aircraft when their lease expire this year. We don’t know what types these will be yet.
BA had a slow rollout of Club Suites planned, but could the chances of getting a Club Suite increase due to CV19? One of the issues with Club World in CV19 world is that the layout is particularly bad in terms of social distancing. Aside from the density of the seating, there are some serious layout issues too. Social distancing on an aircraft is not possible in absolute terms, but some things help more than others. Obviously the further away you are from someone else and the direction you are facing to someone are both factors.
With BA’s Club World yin and yang layout, you are facing opposite someone versus the more modern 1-2-1 layouts. Unless BA changes the rules about the privacy screen being down before take-off (technically for the safety briefing), it would put me off travelling solo with them in the old Club World.IAG stated at the briefing last week that they do not plan to try social distancing on board, so will not be leaving the middle seat free. Instead, they are in favour of masks, but as yet have not implemented a requirement to use one.
IAG announced during the investor brief that they are considering further earlier retirement of their B747s which were due to be retired by 2024 anyway. Two B747s will be retired early in 2020 in any case. I just hope I get a chance to fly on one again before they retire them all.
As BA start to get aircraft out of storage, it is highly likely they will concentrate on the newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft such as the A350 and B787s. I would also expect them to take aircraft out of storage with the new Club product first.
BA still has a number of aircraft due for delivery which will all have the new Club Suite. Four B777s were due for delivery in 2020 and also four A350s in addition to their current five A350s. Finally, for the long haul fleet, six B787-10 are due in 2020. As yet they have not stated if there is to be any change, however, it is usually difficult to get out of orders at this late stage.
Therefore I would expect there to be more chance of getting a Club Suite in the coming months as BA start to return to a more normal schedule.
British Airways & American lose slots in Competition and Mergers investigation
BA often seem to be on the wrong side of the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA). In 2018, the CMA started an investigation into the competition on Transatlantic routes to the US operated by Atlantic Joint Business Agreement which comprises BA, American, Finnair, Iberia and Aer Lingus.
The CMA focussed on seven routes initially but then narrowed that down. The initial routes were: London-Boston, London-Chicago,
London-Dallas, London-Los Angeles, London-Miami, London-New York and London-Philadelphia. LA, New York and Chicago (non-premium market) were then all disregarded.
The CMA found that there was no enough competition between the UK and US and BA/AA will have to give up a number of slots. Between them they will need to give up
- London to Boston – one pair of slots per day
- London to Dallas – one pair of slots per day with a minimum of 870,000 seats per year for the route until another airline operates the route
- London to Miami – one pair of slots per day
- London to Philadelphia – one pair of slots per day with a minimum of 635,300 seats per year on the route
Due to the current situation with the likelihood of the substantial changes to the airline market, the CMA has reserved the right to revisit the agreement within the next 2-5 years.
5 comments
Seeing that Capex is the biggest problem in a cash strapped world, I could see them returning as many planes to lessors as possible. I think they own most of their 747s and since they’ll have been paid off by now, I think (and it may be wishful thinking) that they will keep a few of those flying at least in the medium term. Here’s to hoping, because I’m yet to try 1A/1K on those!
Let’s hope that happens.
If the 747’s are retired soon I’m just glad that I had the joy of flying on a retro livery 747 in October. When the Negus 747 flew me back to London from Miami.
I’m jealous. I at least got to see a couple of them up close in the hangar but never flew on one.
As with others lets hope the 747’s do stick around to give more of us a chance to fly on them. I flew on the BEA A319 AMS-LGW & even getting to fly on her was super exciting for an AVGeek like myself.
There was a chance I would’ve picked up one of the 747’s on an LHR-MIA or LHR-MSY this year but both are now looking decidedly dodgy ( I appreciate that MIA is one of the routes listed above to restart) but it’s still unclear how travel into the US is going to work & made even more complex for those with multi-State itineraries planned. That said that trip isn’t till end August, through Sept so fingers crossed for both the ability to travel and a liviried 747 somewhere along the way
(( AOI – Does anyone know if any of them are on the JFK route, normally of course, as that’s our final return point for said trip)
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