British Airways

[lbaspotter]

Going to Milan at the end of March and have just had my flights changed because BA are not operating the BA1344 on Tue 1 April. Fortunately,it is operating on Wed 2 April and I have managed to extend my accomodation.
I wonder if Ridgeback could tell us if this is going to be regular on a Tuesday or it is a "one-off".

I've just checked http://www.ba.com website for you Seasider and yep it looks like the late evening 3rd daily LHR-LBA-LHR BA1344/1345 service will not operate Sundays between March 9th to March 23rd. Also looks like the Monday and Tuesday BA1344/1345 service will not operate for an extended period from March 10th until April 23rd when normal service resumes by looks off things.

At a guess it may be connected to the Easter Holiday period and all the Bank Holidays we have around them dates?

 

[whoshotjimmi]

Doesn't sound like Easter to me. Sounds more like BA are losing too much money on these flights and have postponed them.

 

[a300boy]

Not looking good at all !! fingers crossed we see an increase for the bike race or we may see the flights withdrawn.

 

[lbaspotter]

"whoshotjimmi" the Easter holidays this year do fall around them dates, Good Friday, April 18. Easter Monday, April 21st. All I will add is that Its a good job that it seems like its only the late BA1344/1345 (SUN, MON & TUE) that have been cancelled on selected dates in March and April. If either any of the better performing morning BA1346/1347 or afternoon BA1342/1343 and WED to FRI late BA1344/1345 flights had been cancelled I would have been a whole lot more worried like "a300boy" seems to be.

But instead of been all doom and gloom look at it in another way because if I remember correctly am sure its been said on here before that the late northbound BA1344 dose ok but the southbound BA1435 is normally empty and its basically seen as a positioning sector so to just get the aircraft back to Heathrow for the first wave of flights the next morning! Now if that's the case I bet its far cheaper for British Airways cancel them low forward booking flights and just rebook passengers onto other flights instead of wasting fuel and all the other associated costs that go with it. Eg crews, atc and ground handling!

 

[ridgeback]

Afraid I have no knowledge of the reasons behind this and can think of zero positive spin to put on it.

lbaspotter I don't follow your argument at all. We need the 1900 northbound everyday. It was regularly >100 pax all last year.

Disastrous announcement imho and I believed that it had all been going OK recently.

 

[lbaspotter]

lbaspotter I don't follow your argument at all. We need the 1900 northbound everyday. It was regularly >100 pax all last year.

I agree ridgeback that we need the late northbound. But it would be better as a night stopper with and early morning departure instead of having the current situation of the aircraft going back to Heathrow half empty each evening...

 

[whoshotjimmi]

Could there be something more behind all this? The reason I ask is that, aside from the lack of late rotation today, looking at the booking engine would suggest that various flights are not operating which are not exclusive to Sun/Mon/Tue nor are they exclusive to the late rotation. There are numerous days when the middle rotation is not available and there are numerous Wed/Thu/Fri when only 2 flights are available. Clearly, any loss of the middle rotation instead of the late rotation is illogical due to the reasons aforementioned ie passenger loads on both the Northbound and the Southbound are similar. Is it a case of maintenance or refurb of the A319 fleet or is it what we all fear - the slow decline of a service that, if lost, will never return?

 

[lbaspotter]

We'll I never though I would say this and I know it may open a heated debate, but the more I think about it and the way things are going at the moment. I've got to admit that I'm now actually beginning to think what others thought when this route was set up!
That been the service is just a slot sitting exercise at London Heathrow by British Airways for 18 months.

I hope somebody can prove me wrong!

 

[ridgeback]

I don't agree with that for one simple reason. If it was slot sitting it wld be for eventual LH use, the much awaited long haul expansion which hasn't happened yet.

I believe the slots freed up by this are being used to fly to Mykonos and Santorini which are being done twice weekly this summer on Airbus SH equipment.

They cld have done that sort of work with the BMI aircraft from day 1 but chose LBA.

Furthermore the erratic nature of our schedule cull (I still haven't seen the actual flying plan for S14 LBA) wld indicate that other services must be providing some slots for the new SH flying.

eg Mykonos is to be a Sat & Tue service. I presume us losing the late rotation on some Tuesdays is to help this but on the other hand we are not losing it on every Tuesday I believe so are they finding slots from here there and everywhere? I don't know and I'm certainly not defending it. For a fledging route it's something of a disaster and I don't understand it as I've been really, really impressed that BA seemed finally to have realised that LBA needed nurturing and the tiny amount of canx in many many months now has been most impressive.

It's only my opinion but I think they must be disappointed with the numbers or something but I agree that its an ominous decision.

 

[lbaspotter]

Here’s the full list of the Leeds/Bradford – London Heathrow route 36x cancelled flights up until May 25th when it looks like the normal schedule resumes according to the British Airways website timetable. http://www.britishairways.com/travel/schedules/public/en_gb

BA1346/1347
No flights effected

BA1342/1343:
Tuesday = 04/02, 10/02, 18/02
Sunday = 02/02, 09/02, 16/02

BA1344/1345
Monday = 10/03, 17/03, 24/03, 31/03, 07/04, 14/04, 21/04
Tuesday = 11/03, 18/03, 25/03, 01/03, 08/04, 15/04, 22/04
Wednesday = 12/03, 19/03, 26/03
Thursday = 13/03, 20/03, 27/03
Friday = 14/03, 21/03, 28/03
Sunday = 09/03, 16/03. 23/03, 04/05, 11/05, 18/05, 25/05

 

[SNOWMAN]

well that's one way to stop people from using the flight,i wonder whats going on at BA
hq?? :bomb:

sm1

 

[a300boy]

Shall we ask the Lbia PR Dept why these flights are cancelled ?

 

[lbaspotter]

Shall we ask the Lbia PR Dept why these flights are cancelled ?

I say go for it A300boy as I would really like to see what kind of reply you get. Failing that you could always write a letter or post an email off to either John Parkin or Tony Hallwood.

 

[SNOWMAN]

Shall we ask the Lbia PR Dept why these flights are cancelled ?

I say go for it A300boy as I would really like to see what kind of reply you get. Failing that you could always write a letter or post an email off to either John Parkin or Tony Hallwood.

A300BOY
I wonder if the pr dept are aware of the cuts. :whiteflag:
regards
sm1

 

[Seasider]

You are quite right about cancelled flights affecting future bookings. I was looking to go on one of my "3 day photo tips" in September. I will wait and see what happens when the proposed summer schedule "kicks in".

 

[ridgeback]

Re my last it can have nothing whatsoever to do with the new Greek services as they only start at the end of March and LBA is, pretty much, back to normal by then. Could it be no more than seasonal culling in accordance with demand similar to this period in early Jan we have just seen? Even if so then still rather damaging to our offering as although still enough seats on the 2 flights it reduces the flexibility of departures by 1/3. I guess part of the rational of that wld be that the late south is the best one to cull in quiet periods, albeit that sadly the late North goes with it.

 

[a300boy]

It makes having a reasonable days jolly down to "The Smoke " difficult. Lets hope its just a hiccup and not the start of a withdrawal.

 

[lbaspotter]

It makes having a reasonable days jolly down to "The Smoke " difficult. Lets hope its just a hiccup and not the start of a withdrawal.

A300boy with the timings we had would you on anyone else really have considered a days jolly down to London using the British Airways service from from Leeds/Bradford? Surely you wouldn't with the current late 09:30 depart which arrives into Heathrow for around 10:30. You've then got get the Heathrow Express train (quick) which i'll get you to Paddington Station for about 11:30ish. Now if you go for the slower (Cheaper option) train you looking at 12:00 mid-day before you hit Central London.
On way home you have to be at Heathrow for the 19:30 departure back to Leeds. So that mean's you'll have to be at at Heathrow airport for around 18:00 which means leaving Paddington station for around 17:30 on the Heathrow Express or 17:00 on the slower service.

As has been said before this service is mainly aimed at connecting long haul passengers not your average jo London day trippers or Business pax who need to be in London a lot earlier than the current scheduled.

 

[a300boy]

Yes it looks a little difficult ! I was thinking for a day watching the big birds landing at Heathrow and a dash into London for lunch like I used to do on my working days followed by a nice night flight. They paid me to do it too ! Happy days.

 

[lbaspotter]

Yes it looks a little difficult ! I was thinking for a day watching the big birds landing at Heathrow and a dash into London for lunch like I used to do on my working days followed by a nice night flight. They paid me to do it too ! Happy days.

Work and Pleasure in one! It must have be nice A300boy getting paid to go watch the big birds land and take off down at Heathrow through the day then go onto flying one of the big Airbus A300 freighter birds yourself over night?