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.
Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 BST.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 18 April 2022.
On this Easter Monday we take a look at how ten years ago this week a decades long rivalry at London Heathrow came to an end when its second largest airline, bmi, came to merge with BA.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 11 April 2022.
“Why is air travel such a nightmare right now?” asked yesterday’s Sunday Times.
Passengers continue to contend with short notice cancellations, security queues and long waits for baggage at airports.
The situation will no doubt abate, but not in the short term. If you are heading to an airport this coming Easter weekend, there is also disruption to rail services.
No Gatwick Express services will run over the four day weekend. Nor any Southern rail services from London Victoria to Gatwick. Southern and Thameslink trains will continue to run between Gatwick and London Bridge.
On London Underground, no trains will run between Acton Town and Heathrow stations. If you’re heading to Paddington, the Hammersmith & City line is closed all weekend. Heathrow Express and TfL Rail services to Heathrow should operate normally.
There are also no direct trains between London and Stansted. Full guidance is available from National Rail.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 4 April 2022.
Today, the first week of April, marks the official start of the Easter Holidays for schools in the UK.
It also marks the start of the second quarter of the year. This is supposed to be the time when airlines leave COVID-19 losses behind, return to profitability and take advantage of pent up demand for summer travel.
The signs are this will be, at best, a bumpy ride.
Both BA and easyJet made a large number of short notice flight cancellations over the weekend. This follows repeated disruption at BA, due to both staffing issues and IT failures, in previous weeks.
In an ominous warning BA is only selling fully flexible short haul economy fares at Heathrow for travel over the next two weeks. This is historically only done when the airline is expecting mass cancellations.
The long Easter weekend is next week. If airlines do not have the resources to meet their current Easter schedules, they would be well advised to take the pain of cancellations now. Otherwise, the EASTER TRAVEL CHAOS newspaper front pages will write themselves.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 28 March 2022.
The South Terminal at London Gatwick reopened yesterday.
The move, which Gatwick has likened to reopening a medium sized airport, takes place in a phased basis.
Airlines such as Air Malta, Aurigny, Eastern, Iberia Express, Norwegian and TAP Portugal moved yesterday. BA and Vueling follow today.
Aer Lingus, Air Baltic, Air Europa and many others follow tomorrow. Full details are available from Gatwick Airport.
BA’s Gatwick lounge facility also reopens today, ahead of the full launch of short haul flights tomorrow.
It was also confirmed last week that BA will lease in some aircraft from Iberia Express to cover some short haul flights.
Staying with BA, here are full summer timetable guides for London City, London Gatwick long haul, London Gatwick short haul, London Heathrow long haul, and London Heathrow short haul.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 28 March 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 GMT.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 21 March 2022.
This coming Sunday 27 March, marks the start of British Summer Time and the summer travel season.
With many travel restrictions lifted, airports and airlines will be hoping for a return to normalcy. This is, of course, subject to economic and geopolitical events.
It remains to be seen whether all have sufficient resources to see themselves through the season. Some could be facing a long hot summer.
Here is a run through of some major route changes. Separate articles on BA at London City, Gatwick and Heathrow will follow later in the week.
In terms of airports, the South Terminal at Gatwick reopens this Sunday. As does Terminal 3 at Manchester. Heathrow aims to reopen Terminal 4 by July.
Turning to airlines, Air Canada will restart flights from Heathrow to Halifax, Nova Scotia on 1 May. Flights to Ottawa and St John’s, Newfoundland remain suspended.
American Airlines will move flights to Dallas / Fort Worth, Los Angeles and Miami to Heathrow Terminal 5 for the summer season. Seattle is suspended due to aircraft delivery delays.
Delta will reinstate flights from Heathrow to Minneapolis Saint Paul from 12 April. Salt Lake City follows on 7 June. Portland and Seattle remain suspended.
Finnair will operate Airbus A350-900 flights up to twice daily between Heathrow and Helsinki.
To Gatwick, Iberia Express will reinstate twice daily flights to Madrid from 27 March. Icelandair also returns to Gatwick from 25 March.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 14 March 2022.
In the 1990s, a time when BA had ambitions to be what it regarded as the first global airline, franchising was seen as means to extend its brand around the world.
At its peak, there were more than 10 franchises, carrying nearly 6 million passengers a year to around 100 destinations.
Over time, these have whittled down to just two airlines. In the UK, BA chose to allow British Mediterranean Airways and GB Airways to be sold to bmi and easyJet.
BA terminated its last UK franchise agreement with Loganair, with a terse statement from then CEO Willie Walsh that franchises had outlived their purpose.
Internationally, an attempt to set up a franchise airline in India never came to pass.
Whilst franchise agreements no doubt contain many protections for BA, allowing your brand on aircraft you don’t actually operate does carry risk.
Over the weekend the South African Civil Aviation Authority suspended Comair’s operating licence following a number of safety related incidents. Comair had expected the matter to be resolved swiftly, but that proved not to be the case. You can read extracts of their respective statements here.
South Africa is obviously an important market for BA and Comair helps provide connecting traffic, but these incidents will be reviewed by BA and its parent company IAG.
Staying with another franchise, there appears to be no immediate prospect of SUN-AIR resuming flights to Billund. These have been off sale for some time.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 7 March 2022.
Shortly after maintaining it was safe to continue to use Russian airspace and cancelling its codeshare with BA to protect itself, Japan Airlines has decided to reroute flights from London Heathrow to Tokyo.
Flights will now pass over Greenland and Alaska, rather than Russia. Readers may remember from the late 1960s BOAC and Japan Airlines launched “Polar flights” from London to Japan, with a stop in Anchorage, before they could secure access to Russian airspace.
You can see footage from the first BOAC Polar flight to Osaka in the Pathe film below.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 28 February 2022.
The attention of the world is of course focused on the very fast moving situation in Ukraine.
As has been extensively reported, a growing number of flight bans on Russian registered and controlled aircraft are in place. Many airlines are avoiding Russian airspace, regardless of whether they are allowed to use it.
Some airlines such as Finnair have been forced to temporarily suspend long haul routes. Others, such as Emirates, are looking at operating routes between Dubai and the US via Europe.
IAG published its annual results last Friday. You can read our full write up here.
IAG confirmed its airlines will take delivery of 15 long haul and 10 short haul aircraft this year. It did not give a breakdown by airline.
Yesterday, Iberia confirmed it will receive 3 Airbus A350-900 and 6 Airbus A320neo aircraft this year. This leaves 12 long haul and 4 short haul aircraft for other airlines in the group.
Iberia will have another 8 Airbus A350-900 to be delivered by the end of 2024. These will feature new cabins in all travel classes.
Iberia also confirmed it will take delivery of its first Airbus A321XLR aircraft, ordered before the COVID-19 pandemic, from late 2023.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 28 February 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 GMT.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 21 February 2022.
Today’s the day Australia reopens its borders to international travel. Meanwhile in another sign of travel returning to its pre COVID-19 state, flights in the UK remain subject to disruption due to severe weather, with short haul flights bearing the brunt of cancellations.
It’s results season.
Last week Air France-KLM and Finnair announced their annual results for 2021. This Friday it’s the turn of IAG. Lufthansa will follow next week.
For IAG, we can expect another heavy annual loss. Analysts will be keen to understand the group’s capacity plans for the coming year – and whether they can be fulfilled – as well as plans for aircraft deliveries in the coming years.
BA has tried to make much of planned investments in customer service but, apart from the roll out of its Club Suite, there is little by way of hard capital spend.
Ever since the decision by the UK to leave the European Union, there has been the question whether IAG’s ownership structure could be compliant with the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
Former IAG CEO Willie Walsh always confidently brushed aside any concerns. When IAG was formed it was structured to ensure that both BA and Iberia were majority UK & Spanish owned to comply with bilateral route authorities.
There have been reports of lobbying by France and Germany for the EU to demand IAG spin off BA to comply EU airline ownership laws. When asked about the need for airlines operating in the EU to comply with such laws, Air France KLM CEO Benjamin Smith was quoted in the Financial Times last week as saying the group would not be “holding back our efforts to make sure they are”.
IAG is unlikely to comment on litigation between its shareholder Qatar Airways and Airbus, nor ongoing pay negotiations at BA.
Continue reading “London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing – 21 February 2022”Welcome to London Air Travel’s weekly briefing on air travel around the world, as published every Monday at 06:00 GMT.
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Welcome to London Air Travel’s Monday Briefing for the week beginning 14 February 2022.
Gatwick Airport was in upbeat mood last Friday.
The airport was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic with BA and Virgin consolidating flights at Heathrow. Norwegian also suspended long haul operations entirely.
The airport confirmed that its South Terminal will reopen to passenger flights from the start of the summer season on Sunday 27 March.
easyJet and Vueling will operate increased schedules are they’re both leasing slots from BA. This is not the first time BA has indirectly assisted easyJet’s growth at Gatwick.
Iberia Express will also tentatively restart twice daily flights to Madrid from 27 March.
As far as BA is concerned, there are signs that it’s not quite ready to restart short haul flights. The start date of roughly a third of its planned routes was pushed back last week, including:
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