Delta continues its focus on growing its presence at London Heathrow having today, 23 April 2013, announced that it has purchased two pairs of take off and landing slots at Heathrow for $47m.
Continue reading “Delta purchases of two Heathrow slot pairs for $47m”
International Airlines Group (“IAG”) confirmed today that its offer to acquire the 54% of Vueling’s shares that it does not already own has been accepted by the majority of Vueling’s shareholders.
This means that IAG will control just under 91% of Vueling, effectively giving it control of the airline. Vueling will officially become part of IAG from Friday 26 April 2013.
Continue reading “International Airlines Group gains control of Vueling”
The offer by International Airlines Group (“IAG”) to acquire the 54% of Vueling’s shares that it does not already own expired on Friday 19 April 2013.
The airline group initially made an offer priced at €7.00 per share which Vueling management chose not to recommend. IAG subsequently increased its offer to €9.25 per share. However, the minimum acceptance level was reduced to just 4.16% of Vueling’s capital to leave IAG with at least overall control of Vueling, if not 100% ownership.
Assuming the transaction completes this will be the second airline acquired by IAG since its formation in 2011 and the third member airline of the group (the first acquisition, bmi, being subsumed into British Airways).
Continue reading “What does International Airlines Group have planned for Vueling?”
International Airlines Group has just announced that it has ordered 18 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft for British Airways for delivery between 2017 and 2023 and has secured a further 18 options.
The group has also secured delivery slots for Iberia, in anticipation of a future order for Iberia, subject to a satisfactory restructuring of the airline.
This follows the recent exercise of 18 Boeing 787 options for BA and acquisition of 787 delivery slots for Iberia and both airlines are moving towards a common long-haul fleet.
Whilst this is not the first long-haul order for Airbus by either BA or IAG, for Airbus this is still a significant long-haul order by BA as the A350-1000 aircraft is likely to form a major part of BA’s long haul fleet as a replacement for the Boeing 747-400.
When BA’s parent company, International Airlines Group, bought bmi last year much was made of how the extra slots would enable BA to expand its long-haul network. So it was something of a surprise when last May BA announced it would launch new routes to Leeds-Bradford (initially 4 daily) and Rotterdam (3 daily) from 9 December 2012.
Neither are the most exciting destinations on the BA route network but both seem like a clear move to capture traffic from KLM.
Continue reading “So how are BA’s routes to Leeds-Bradford & Rotterdam performing?”
British Airways has confirmed today that its (near) daily flight to Bangkok, BA9, will undergo a change of departure terminal at Heathrow, aircraft type and timing from the start of the Winter 2013 season on Sunday 27 October 2013.
The flight which currently departs from Heathrow Terminal 3 at 22:05 to arrive in Bangkok at 15:20 will transfer to Terminal 5 from 27 October 2013.
The operating aircraft will also a change from a four class Boeing 747 to a three class Boeing 777.
Furthermore, the departure time will change to 15:05, arriving in Bangkok at 09:20 and returning from Bangkok at 10:55 to arrive at Heathrow at 16:55. This is also the last BA operated long-haul flight to transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5.
Continue reading “BA9 to Bangkok: A new Heathrow terminal, aircraft and timing”
An 11 hour transatlantic flight from San Francisco to London in a passenger configured BA aircraft may not seem the most conducive environment for 100 thinkers to come up with solutions to the world’s problems, but BA thinks otherwise with the launch of Ungrounded.
Continue reading “BA launches “Ungrounded” – An innovation lab in the sky”
Here, somewhat belatedly, are details of terminal changes for flights departing from London Heathrow from 31 March 2013.
Continue reading “London Heathrow Terminal Changes from 31 March 2013”
Our archive collection and commentary of British Airways’ most memorable TV advertisements over the past 40 years.
British Airways has a long history of producing some of the most memorable TV advertisements with the aid of its advertising agencies, formerly Saatchi & Saatchi/M&C Saatchi and more recently BBH.
As well as simply being enjoyable to watch, the ads provide a commentary on both the changes in the air travel industry over the past three decades and changing social attitudes.
Continue reading “A look at British Airways’ most memorable TV advertisements”
It’s approaching one year since the parent company of British Airways, International Airlines Group, officially completed its purchase of bmi from Lufthansa. bmi’s former Heathrow operation has been fully integrated into BA for nearly six months. Of the two other airlines acquired from Lufthansa, bmibaby has been shut down and bmi regional has been sold to Sector Aviation Holdings.
The merger represented a significant milestone in BA’s history and a once in a lifetime chance to grow at a capacity constrained London Heathrow, so it’s worth looking at what has happened to former bmi routes and the current state of play at Heathrow.
Unsurprisingly, given the very poor revenue performance of bmi a very large number of former bmi routes (which in turn used to operate under a BA franchise, BMED, before being bought by bmi) have been cancelled by BA. Here are the routes, in order of date of cancellation:
Damascus (29 May 2012)
Addis Ababa (10 June 2012)
Dammam (16 September 2012)
Bishkek, Khartoum (1 October 2012)
Tehran (12 October 2012)
Yerevan (13 October 2012)
Amritsar, Casablanca, Marrakech (28 October 2012)
Tbilisi (31 March 2013)
These former bmi routes are now a permanent part of the BA route network: Agadir, Almaty, Amman, Baku, Belfast, Beirut, Bergen, Dublin, Freetown, Hanover, and Stavenger.
With the exception of Agadir, Bergen, Stavenger and Freetown, these routes operate from Heathrow Terminal 1.
Since the merger BA has also increased flights to Amman and Beirut from 7 to 10 weekly and Bergen and Stavenger has been increased to twice daily.
At the time IAG purchased bmi, much was made of the fact that BA would use the slots to expand its route network from Heathrow, particularly to Asia. So far this has only been partly realised, as most new routes are short-haul routes. A key reason behind this is that BA is awaiting delivery of the 787 and this is also initially intended to replace Boeing 767 long haul routes to the East Coast of the USA. However, BA has used the additional slots to operate these new routes from Heathrow:
Marseille from Terminal 1 from 28 October 2012 (this is a transfer from London Gatwick).
Leeds-Bradford from Terminal 5, and Rotterdam and Zagreb from Terminal 1, from 9 December 2012.
Monrovia via Freetown from Terminal 5 from 6 November 2012.
Six flights a week to Seoul from Terminal 5 from 5 December 2012.
Three flights a week to Chengdu from Terminal 5 from 22 September 2013.
Seasonal weekend summer flights from Terminal 5 to Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca.
One consequence of the merger is that BA has reverted to a three terminal operation at London Heathrow with its operation split across Terminals 1, 3 and 5 with most of the former bmi mid-haul routes and BA routes to Cairo and Tel Aviv departing from Terminal 1.
Whilst BA showed an interest in moving part of its operation to the new Terminal 2 which is due to open in 2014, it seems that this will not be happening and when Terminal 1 closes following the opening of Terminal 2, BA will consolidate its operation in Terminals 3 and 5.