BA transatlantic Club World meal service from London Heathrow August 2018 (Image Credit: London Air Travel)
It’s now almost one year since BA launched its new Club World bedding and meal service, and almost two years since it was first announced to investors in BA’s parent company, IAG.
Having experienced it on a number of different aircraft and routes, it’s a good time to put pen to paper and gather some thoughts.
Progress of new bedding and catering roll-out
By way of a quick primer, the new White Company bedding is now available on all Club World routes to and from all London airports.
The new catering service is taking longer. It should be on almost all Heathrow routes by the end of the year. The new service is now available on most, if not all, North American routes. The latest routes to receive the new service are Singapore-Sydney, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain. There are still a number of routes to Central and South America, Africa, The Middle East and Asia to follow. The last Heathrow routes are likely to be the Airbus A321 medium haul routes to Amman and Beirut. The new service will be rolled out at Gatwick in 2019.
Here are some very recent “before and after” images for the service on exact same aircraft (and seat!) and exact same transatlantic route just over 12 months apart:
[twenty20 img1=”11706″ img2=”11710″ offset=”0.5″ before=”BA Club World Starter June 2017″ after=”BA Club World Starter August 2018″]
[twenty20 img1=”11705″ img2=”11709″ offset=”0.5″ before=”BA Club World Main Course June 2017″ after=”BA Club World Main Course August 2018″]
[twenty20 img1=”11704″ img2=”11708″ offset=”0.5″ before=”BA Club World Dessert June 2017″ after=”BA Club World Dessert August 2018″]
[twenty20 img1=”11703″ img2=”11707″ offset=”0.5″ before=”BA Club World Second Meal Service June 2017″ after=”BA Club World Second Meal Service August 2018″]
British Airways is promising a major expansion at London City airport with a new six times weekly route to Rome and 4 additional Embraer aircraft in 2019.
British Airways has today, Wednesday 29 August 2018, signalled a commitment to a significant expansion at London City.
It is to launch a new route from London City to Rome from Sunday 11 November 2018. Flights will operate six times weekly with Embraer E190 aircraft.
The airline is to also acquire an additional four Embraer E190 aircraft in 2019. This will increase the number of aircraft based at the airport from 22 to 26. It is presumed that these aircraft will either be leased or acquired second hand as BA had allowed options for new aircraft from Embraer to expire.
This news comes just one day after CityJet announced it is withdrawing scheduled flights from the airport and is handing over its route to Dublin to Aer Lingus.
In terms of possible new routes, BA has previously suspended a number of routes at London City. These include Alicante, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Hamburg and Madrid. LOT is also due to launch Budapest and Warsaw in early 2019. TAP has also recently launched Lisbon and Porto.
As London City is closed for part of the weekend, it is likely these these new aircraft will also be used to launch new winter and summer seasonal routes from Stansted and other UK regional airports at weekends.
The Atlantic Update is published every Wednesday morning at 06:00 BST, providing a weekly bulletin on developments on transatlantic travel between Europe and North America.
Manhattan Skyline (Image Credit: London Air Travel)
Hello and welcome to the The Atlantic Update for Wednesday 29 August 2018. As the summer draws to a close, we are beginning to see a number of announcements by airlines for their schedules for summer 2019.
Will “London Airways” return to UK regional airports?
A little over 10 years ago, BA earned itself the moniker “London Airways”.
The airline had been progressively reducing its presence at UK regional airports. It effectively paid Flybe to take its regional short-haul operations off its hands. The straw that broke the camel’s back for many regional passengers was the withdrawal of the last remaining long-haul flight from Manchester, a Boeing 767 service to New York JFK. The aircraft was transferred to Heathrow to enable BA to launch a new flight to Calgary.
For a time, it seemed that BA could leave regional transatlantic flights to its joint-venture partner American Airlines.
However, it has not worked out quite like that. American Airlines has withdrawn both New York JFK and, from 3 September 2018, Chicago, from Manchester. This leaves just one route to Philadelphia. Meanwhile, both Thomas Cook and Virgin Atlantic have built up credible networks to most major transatlantic gateways at Manchester.
The picture is similarly patchy at other regional airports. American’s seasonal routes from Glasgow to Philadelphia and Edinburgh to New York JFK are suspended permanently this year. United also flies to Newark from a number of UK regional airports.
Of course, American and BA do have by far the biggest prize of all, which is a dominant position at Heathrow. This is a market that can sustain nearly 30 flights a day to New York alone. They may be happy to leave regional flights to others and it does also have Aer Lingus to draw feed into its hub in Dublin. However, the transatlantic market is clearly growing in markets like Manchester. BA’s cost base is radically different from what it was ten years ago and, combined with an aircraft like the Airbus A321 Long Range, this could prompt a return.
Primera Air Diversions to Reykjavik
Primera Air’s troubled start to transatlantic operations continues.
After having to wet lease aircraft to cover some flights, it is now operating some flights on its Stansted – Newark route with a Boeing 737-800 aircraft in place of an Airbus A321. A consequence of this, yesterday’s flight to Newark had to stop in Reykjavik for refuelling. Publicly available flight data shows a number of flights from 2 September will also be operated with a Boeing 737-800.
CityJet is to withdraw scheduled flights from London City from Sunday 28 October. Its service to Dublin will be operated by CityJet under the Aer Lingus name.
After a long period of contraction at London City airport, CityJet is to officially withdraw scheduled passenger flights from Sunday 28 October 2018.
CityJet has been progressively suspending routes. In recent years, it has suspended Antwerp, Avignon, Edinburgh, Nantes, Paris Orly, Rotterdam and Toulon.
At present, it is left with just three routes: A codeshare on KLM operated flights to Amsterdam; daily flights to Dublin; and a seasonal route to Florence.
As a consequence of today’s announcement:
– The codeshare on KLM’s service to Amsterdam will end on Saturday 28 October 2018.
– Aer Lingus will take over the sale of CityJet’s service to Dublin from Saturday 28 October 2018. The route will be operated for Aer Lingus by CityJet Avro RJ85 aircraft aircraft and crews in Aer Lingus livery
Welcome to our weekly Monday Briefing on the main developments in air travel in London and around the world, as published every Monday morning at 06:00 BST.
British Airways 99th Birthday Montage (Image Credits: British Airways)
Hello and welcome to our Monday Briefing for the week beginning 27 August 2018, summarising the main developments in air travel over the past week, and a look to the week ahead.
BA prepares for its centenary year
If you were flying through Heathrow Terminal 5 on Saturday you may have noticed celebrations for BA’s 99th birthday.
The airline’s official birthday is 25 August when, in 1919, a De Havilland DH4A aircraft flew from Hounslow Heath to Paris. This marked the world’s first scheduled international transportation service.
Although the celebrations were relatively low key, this really should be seen as a small taster of what is to come next year. It will celebrate its centenary. No doubt preparations are well underway and the airline will need to be putting its best foot forward. Next year we will of course see a new Club World seat as BA takes delivery of the first of 16 Airbus A350-1000 aircraft.
On a related note, here are some archive images of one of the most defining aircraft of the airline’s history, Concorde.
Qantas reiterates commitment to non-stop London – Sydney flights
Qantas released its annual results last week.
Its CEO Alan Joyce described the new direct London Heathrow – Perth service as the “highest rating” service for customer advocacy on the Qantas network.
Only Qantas knows the exact financial performance of the route, and is never going to divulge anything beyond vague comments. However, the route has at least proven successful operationally, with little by way of known teething problems or technical issues.
Qantas has reiterated that it is actively in discussions with Airbus and Boeing for aircraft for non-stop flights from London to Sydney from 2022. A final decision should be made next year.
In its investor presentation, Qantas did refer to the UK as one of its slowest growing markets that is suffering from overcapacity. With that in mind, it is likely that any direct service would replace Qantas’ existing Airbus A380 service from London to Sydney via Singapore. This is in the same way that that the non-stop Perth flight replaced the Airbus A380 service from London to Melbourne via Dubai. It is also highly unlikely that Qantas will go back to four daily services from London of ten years ago.
Boeing 787 Dreamliner issues continue
Time for a mea culpa.
Last week we said that BA’s schedules should be returning to normal after wet-leases from Qatar Airways to cover some flights had ended. This is now evidently not the case. BA has, once again, grounded some of its Boeing 787 fleet and instituted blanket cancellations to Doha, Los Angles and Mumbai.
Air New Zealand also confirmed last week it is continuing to lease in aircraft (one Boeing 777-300 and two Boeing 777-200) to cover grounded aircraft. It has also changed schedules to release aircraft capacity.
Singapore Airlines Brand Review
A little over six months ago, Channel 4 (UK) broadcast an hour long documentary “The World’s Most Luxurious Airline”.
It followed the design and launch of Singapore Airlines’ latest Airbus A380 First Class seats. There were the predictable production devices of the juxtaposition of the worlds of First Class and the everyday and Alan Partridge moments from carefully cast and edited contributors.
The Twittering classes duly followed the prescribed hashtag and engaged in the typical gentle mocking of the programme. However, a cloud darkened and the mood took an abrupt turn when the programme turned to Singapore Airlines’ stringent cabin crew recruitment processes for “Singapore Girl”.
Apropos of nothing, Singapore Airlines has invited marketing agencies to pitch to the airline for, inter alia, “fresh perspective on how the Singapore Airlines brand should be modernised”.
Airlines around the world from easyJet to Qantas are actively seeking to increase recruitment of female pilots. TUI was admonished in the UK press last week because some cabin crew handed out “Future Pilot” and “Future Cabin Crew” children’s stickers along gender lines.
There’s nothing inherently wrong in promoting highly trained and attentive front line staff. However, Singapore Girl is literally a product of the 1970s and Singapore Airlines is likely to face a backlash at some point unless it changes direction.
British Airways Concorde G-BOAB at London Heathrow Airport (Image Credit: London Air Travel)
It is nearly 15 years since Concorde undertook its last passenger flight.
Many new aircraft have entered service since. But none the captured the imagination like Concorde.
As equally elegant as it is imposing, Concorde’s ability to turn heads has not diminished. Interest in a possible supersonic replacement, however far away it may be, still remains.
Here are images of British Airways Concorde G-BOAB at London Heathrow, pictured at the BA Engineering base a few years ago.
As you’ve no doubt seen for yourself, this Concorde resides on the airfield at Heathrow. It may sit alone and static, but everybody notices the delta winged needle nosed aircraft over its younger upstarts.
British Airways Concorde G-BOAB at London Heathrow Airport (Image Credit: London Air Travel)British Airways Concorde G-BOAB at London Heathrow Airport (Image Credit: London Air Travel)Continue reading “Concorde at London Heathrow Airport”
British Airways / Iberia Logos (Image Credit: British Airways / Iberia)
BA and Iberia have long operated a joint schedule between London Heathrow and Madrid with the two airlines codesharing on each other’s flights.
Normally, when two airlines codeshare on a flight there is a “prime” flight number for the airline operating the flight. There is also a codeshare flight number for the codeshare partner that is merely selling another airline’s flight.
Airlines apply distinctly separate flight number sequences for their own flights and codeshare flights. On most occasions, the rules of the operating airline apply regarding seat selection, luggage fees etc.
BA & Iberia London Heathrow – Madrid Codeshare
Shortly after the merger of BA and Iberia in 2011, it was decided that Iberia would move into London Heathrow Terminal 5 to maximise connectivity between the two airline’s respective hubs.
However, there was a complication in that until then BA was the sole tenant of Terminal 5 and all of the systems and processes had been designed for BA’s operations.
A consequence of this was that flights from London Heathrow to Madrid operated by Iberia were treated by BA as its own flights and given a BA “prime” flight number.
British Airways Logo (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways has suspended its route from London Heathrow to Tehran.
The last outbound flight (BA153) will operate from London Heathrow on Saturday 22 September 2018. The last inbound flight (BA152) will operate from Tehran on Sunday 23 September 2018.
The route was relaunched in September 2016 having been suspended four years earlier. Whilst no reason has been given for the suspension, it is likely that the imposition of sanctions on Iran by the United States has had an impact.
This follows similar suspensions by Air France and KLM. Austrian and Lufthansa continue to fly to Tehran from Vienna and Frankfurt respectively. Iran Air will also continue to fly from London Heathrow to Tehran.
Rebooking Options
Passengers whose flights are cancelled are entitled to a refund or to change their dates of travel before the route is suspended.
BA is in the process of discussing rebooking options with other airlines. When routes are suspended it normally takes at least a few days for BA to secure rebooking agreements. In addition, options with more airlines tend to progressively become available.
As such, unless it is urgent, we would recommend waiting at least a week to see what rebooking options are available. We will update this page with rebooking options as they become available.
Update: Tuesday 28 August 2018
BA has secured a rebooking agreement with Austrian and Lufthansa via Vienna and Frankfurt.
In all cases, passengers must connect to/from a BA operated flight between London Heathrow and Vienna or Frankfurt. It should also be noted that Austrian does not operate a premium economy cabin on this route. This option applies for travel up to Saturday 30 March 2019.
Update: Wednesday 5 September 2018
BA has also secured a rebooking agreement with Turkish Airlines via Istanbul.
In all cases, passengers must connect to/from a BA operated flight between London Heathrow and Istanbul for travel up to Monday 30 September 2019.
Also note, not all of the above options may be available to passengers who have made bookings using Avios or group bookings.
The Atlantic Update is published every Wednesday morning at 06:00 BST, providing a weekly bulletin on developments on transatlantic travel between Europe and North America.
AMOR, Robert Indiana, Philadelphia (Image Credit: London Air Travel)
Hello and welcome to the The Atlantic Update for Wednesday 22 August 2018. As the summer draws to a close, we are beginning to see a number of announcements by airlines for their schedules for summer 2019.
American Airlines launches London Heathrow – Phoenix
American Airlines is to launch a new summer seasonal service from London Heathrow to Phoenix.
American will fly daily from Sunday 31 March 2019 to Saturday 26 October 2019 with a Boeing 777-200 aircraft.
This will complement BA’s existing service from London Heathrow to Phoenix. However, it is not known whether BA will change its current summer frequency of 10 flights a week.
BA has yet to announce any significant schedule changes for the summer of 2019. However, it will increase London Heathrow – Seattle from 12 to 14 times a week.
American Airlines European Network Changes
American has also announced a number of changes to its European transatlantic network.
It is quite a mixed picture. Philadelphia is clearly becoming an important transatlantic hub for American. However, it is also withdrawing routes from UK regional airports which, unless AA and BA take action, will be left wide open to Delta and Virgin Atlantic. In Manchester, having now suspended Chicago and previously New York JFK, American is left with one just one route to Philadelphia.
BA Boeing 787 at British Airways Maintenance Cardiff (Image Credit: British Airways)
British Airways flights at London Heathrow will continue to disrupted by additional maintenance to the Rolls-Royce engines of its Boeing 787 fleet in September 2018.
When the issue first emerged earlier this year, it was expected it would be resolved by this August. However, this is not the case. Whilst the situation has abated a little, there will continue to be disruption until the end of September at the earliest.
Here is a summary of the issue as at Tuesday 21 August 2018.
Background
Operators of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner are required to comply with an Air Worthiness Directive issued by the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States.
It limits the scope of the ETOPS (“Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standard”). ETOPS allows twin-engined aircraft like the Boeing 787 to operate between 60 and 330 minutes’ away from the nearest airport that can handle a diversion of the aircraft. This affects aircraft with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 “Package C” engines.
In response to this issue, BA has grounded aircraft and undertaken both blanket and ad-hoc cancellations.
Grounded Aircraft
According to publicly available flight data, two BA Boeing 787-8 and three 787-9 aircraft are out of service:
G-ZBJA – Last passenger flight 6 August 2018
G-ZBJE – Last passenger flight 7 March 2018
G-ZBKD – Last passenger flight 16 August 2018 (returned to service on 17 September 2018)
G-ZBKI – Last passenger flight 15 August 2018
G-ZBKK – Last passenger flight 8 June 2018 (returned to service on 26 August 2018)
Blanket Suspensions
BA has instituted new blanket suspensions on three routes:
London Heathrow – Doha: BA123 is cancelled up to Friday 30 November 2018. BA122 is cancelled up to Saturday 1 December 2018. This will extend its period of cancellation this year to more than 8 months. Passengers will be reaccommodated on Qatar Airways operated flights. More details of rebooking arrangements are here.
London Heathrow – Los Angeles: BA281 and BA280 are cancelled from Saturday 1 September to Sunday 16 September 2018.
In addition, there are number of ad hoc cancellations during August, including 18, 20 – 29 August. Passengers can be re-accommodated on one of four daily American Airlines and BA flights from London Heathrow to Los Angeles.
London Heathrow – Mumbai: BA139 and BA138 are cancelled from Saturday 1 / Sunday 2 September to Friday 14 / Saturday 15 September 2018.
Passengers will be accommodated on alternative BA flights to Mumbai and India. Note if you choose an alternative destination in India any additional costs will be at your expense. Also note that the BA website currently quotes incorrect flight numbers BA39 and BA38.
In all instances, passengers whose flights are cancelled have the option of a full refund.
Update: BA has secured a rebooking agreement with Jet Airways. Passengers can fly on a BA operated service to Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and connect on to a Jet Airways service to Mumbai. However, please note that Jet Airways does not operate First Class or premium economy on these domestic services to Mumbai.
Additional Cancellations
The following flights have also been subject to periodic cancellations over the past few months:
London Heathrow – Abu Dhabi: BA73 / BA72
This flight is cancelled on Sunday 9 September.
London Heathrow – Baltimore: BA229 / BA228
London Heathrow – Newark: BA189 / BA188
This flight is cancelled on Tuesday 21 August, Thursday 23 August, Tuesday 28 August, Thursday 30 August, Thursday 13 September, and Sunday 16 September.
London Heathrow – New Orleans: BA225 / BA224
This flight is cancelled on Wednesday 22 August and Saturday 25 August.
London Heathrow – Philadelphia: BA69 / BA68
This flight is cancelled on Friday 24 August and Monday 27 August.
London Heathrow – San Jose: BA279 / BA278
This is flight is cancelled on Saturday 8 August.
Air Belgium Wet Lease – London Heathrow – Cairo
BA is to wet lease an Air Belgium Airbus A340 aircraft to cover London Heathrow – Cairo from Monday 3 September to Wednesday 5 September, and the return from Tuesday 4 September to Thursday 6 September 2018.
Air Belgium Wet Lease – London Heathrow – Abu Dhabi
BA is to wet lease an Air Belgium Airbus A340 aircraft to cover London Heathrow – Abu Dhabi from Saturday 15 September to Wednesday 31 October, and the return from Sunday 16 September to Thursday 1 November 2018.
BA has previously wet-leased three Airbus A330-200 aircraft from Qatar Airways.
These have covered flights to Delhi, Kuwait and Muscat. These wet-leases have ended and all three aircraft have now returned to Doha.
Guidance for passengers
Given the fluid nature of the situation, it is likely there will be further cancellations.
It is recommended that passengers keep a close eye on their bookings using the Manage My Booking tool. You can also download the BA app to your smartphone or tablet which will alert you to changes to your bookings.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner at BA
In terms of background on the Boeing 787 at BA. It currently represents about 20% of BA’s widebody long-haul fleet.
BA has 10 Boeing 787-8 aircraft. These operate in a three class configuration, with no First Class. They ordinarily operate, bar occasional substitutions by 787-9 aircraft, to Baltimore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Montreal, Nashville, New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, and Seoul.
BA has 18 Boeing 787-9 aircraft. These all operate in a four class configuration. They are ordinarily operate to Abu Dhabi, Mexico City, Santiago, San Jose, The Seychelles and Tokyo Narita.
The 787 also operates selected frequencies to Cairo, Moscow, Mumbai, Newark, and Toronto. These vary by both flight number and day of operation.
BA is due to take delivery of a further 2 Boeing 787-8 and 12 Boeing 787-10 aircraft and these are not expected to be affected by this issue.
