Our Monday Briefing is published at 06:00 GMT every Monday morning featuring the latest news and developments in air travel in London and around the world.
It’s a short bulletin this week to say this weekly feature has come to an end for this year.
The site will remain open and new stories will be published, but at a reduced rate. Activity on social media will also be cut back.
This is simply an issue of time due to other projects and commitments over the next few months.
Thank you for reading every week. If you are feeling particularly nostalgic, there are Monday Briefing archives from 2019, 2020, 2021 and this year.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing on this August Bank Holiday for the week beginning 29 August 2022.
It’s a public holiday today in England, Wales and Northern Ireland marking the end of summer.
A number of BA summer seasonal routes are now ending for the year.
At Heathrow, Newquay ends this Sunday, 4 September. Of BA’s two routes to The Azores, flights to Terceira Island have ended. Flights to Ponta Delgada end this Saturday, 3 September. Newquay and Terceira Island are not on sale in 2023.
Elsewhere, Pristina ends this Saturday.
Over at London City, a large number of seasonal routes come to an end this weekend. These include Faro, Guernsey, Jersey, Mahon, Quimper, San Sebastián, Santorini, Skiathos, Split and Thessaloniki. These routes resume between May and July next year.
BA’s franchise partner SUN-AIR restarts scheduled flights to Billund for the first time since COVID-19 next Monday, 5 September.
Back to Heathrow, yesterday BA ran a large number of short haul cancellations for November and December.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 29 August 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 22 August 2022.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce faces renewed calls to resign from the airline.
Yesterday, Qantas offered AU$50 discounts on flights and added frequent flyer benefits as an apology for its operational performance.
Alan Joyce also appeared, sans a high vis jacket, in a video apology:
Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 15 August 2022.
BBC Scotland goes behind the scenes with the staff of Loganair in a new ten part TV series “Sky High Club: Scotland and Beyond” starting today.
Like similar series there is a focus on human interest stories and a cast of recurring characters. Here’s a precise of tonight’s episode:
Robbie is the youngest pilot to become a captain in the UK. Now 25, he has the dream job, and Kirsten, his dream girl – but there’s one small problem: he lives in Edinburgh and she lives on the remote island of Shetland as part of the customer service team.
Luckily for him, crew members and good pals Shannon and Karolina are on hand to organise a team day out, and offer some solid advice on long-distance relationships.
Moroccan-born Omar has moved from the Canary Islands to start a new life in Scotland. He’s training to become a member of the cabin crew, and having made the big move to Aberdeen for a career with the airline, the pressure’s on to pass gruelling exams or risk having to take off again to another location.
All 10 episodes should “drop” on BBC iPlayer from today. This will be shown across the UK on BBC Three from this Thursday. A full episode guide is available from the BBC.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 15 August 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 8 August 2022.
When airlines announced their second quarter results, they were been keen to trumpet strong demand and, for the most part, a return to profitability.
They had much less to say about the prospects for 2023. The Bank of England did, however.
When it announced a rise in interest rates by 0.5 percentage points to 1.75% last week the Bank of England forecast the UK would enter recession this year.
This is expected to last for five quarters and will be as deep as the recession of the 1990s. Inflation in the UK is expected to peak at 13% will stay at close to 10% for most of next year.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 8 August 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 1 August 2022.
Iberia, currently the star performer at IAG, has confirmed its route network for the winter season.
The airline will return to Rio de Janeiro and Caracas, both three times weekly. These are the last long haul routes Iberia intends to reinstate post COVID-19.
Together with Aer Lingus and BA this means IAG has largely restored is pre-COVID-19 route network to the Americas.
Routes benefiting from increased frequencies include Havana which goes to five times weekly. Frequency increases are also planned on Guatemala – El Salvador and Quito – Guayaquil.
Bogota, Buenos Aires and Mexico City will be served twice daily. Lima, Santiago and São Paulo will be served daily.
Montevideo, Panama City and Puerto Rico will also be served throughout the winer.
On North American routes, Boston, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas / Fort Worth and Los Angeles will continue throughout the winter. As do New York JFK and Miami up to twice daily. San Francisco and Washington Dulles will end for the winter.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 1 August 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 25 July 2022.
We’re starting to get a picture of BA’s winter schedules as it is running schedule updates for London Heathrow.
Headlines include Sydney being upgraded to a Boeing 777-300, as before the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s no sign of BA’s A380 returning to Singapore yet, but it should revert to twice daily.
A number of routes are subject to frequency reductions including Los Angeles, New Orleans and Seattle. Planned frequency increases on routes such as Dubai and Mumbai are postponed.
Some changes are only applied to the start of season. It is not immediately clear whether rolling cancellations will continue throughout the winter or there’ll be a schedule BA knows it can stick to. The latter is crucial for passenger confidence.
Full details of known changes are here which is continually updated.
On a related note, last week American Airlines said Boeing may resume 787 deliveries as soon as August. On the flip side, Heathrow painted a pessimistic picture of ground staff recruitment which seems to barely keeping up with staff attrition.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 25 July 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 18 July 2022.
The impact of extreme heat in the UK this week on public health and infrastructure is likely to dominate the news over the coming days.
The Gatwick Express is suspended today and tomorrow. Other rail services are running at a reduced frequency and at revised times due to speed restrictions with strong advice not to travel.
The claim and counter-claim by airlines and Heathrow over travel disruption continues.
Last week Heathrow imposed a short notice cap on departing passenger numbers at the airport until 11 September. Ostensibly, Heathrow claimed it wanted to wait and see which airlines took advantage of the slot amnesty before issuing its demand.
The CAA and Department for Transport ordered Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye to provide an immediate explanation.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 18 July 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 11 July 2022.
After a four year absence the Farnborough International Air Show returns next week.
This is traditionally when airlines that like to show off their buying power unveil headline grabbing aircraft orders.
With Airbus recently securing significant orders from Qantas and 3 airlines in China, attention is focused on Boeing.
Boeing confirmed yesterday its 737-10 and 777-9 aircraft will be on display at the show, both on the ground and in the air.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 11 July 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 4 July 2022.
One of the biggest complaints by UK airlines against the government are excessive delays in security vetting checks for newly recruited employees.
On Sunday, The Department for Transport followed up its “22 point plan” for air travel with a release claiming that Accreditation Checks are completed in around 5 days on average. Counter Terrorist Checks are completed in under 10 days on average. This is said to be a reduction from 20 days.
As we are now in the first week of July with the start of the school holidays imminent, it remains to be seen what impact this has on the summer season.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 4 July 2022”