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As previously mentioned, International Airlines Group published its 1st quarter results in Friday.
On the morning of the announcement, as per standard protocol, it held a webcast for analyst and the question and answer session that follows provides a lot of useful insight into current strategic developments at the airline group.
Here is a summary of some points of interest from the call:
Continue reading “IAG 1st Quarter Results – Analysts Q&A Session”
London Air Travel » London Heathrow »
British Airways has confirmed changes to its London Heathrow short-haul timetable for the Winter 2013 season, which starts at the end of October.
The changes are relatively modest and mainly concern small increases and decreases in frequencies on certain routes.
– Agadir increases from two flights a week to three.
– Basel increases from 21 to 26 flights a week.
– Amsterdam, Athens, Hamburg and Nice also benefit from small increases of 1-2 flights a week.
– Flights to Manchester reduce from 72 to 68 a week.
– Prague also reduces by five flights from 33 to 28 flights a week.
– Aberdeen, Barcelona, Budapest, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Paris Charles de Gualle, Rome, Stockholm and Zurich also reduce by 1-3 flights a week.
The daily flight to Larnaca also reverts back from a night-time departure to a day-time departure from London Heathrow, with the flight from Heathrow leaving at 12:05 and returning to Heathrow at 19:40.
There are also timetable changes to Rotterdam with BA’s three daily flights moved to earlier times. There are also relatively modest changes to timings for BA’s twice daily flights to Bergen and Stavanger.
BA’s weekly summer Saturday flights from London Heathrow to Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca also finish on Saturday 26 October 2013. The airline will continue to fly all year round to Ibiza and Palma de Mallorca from London City airport.
London Air Travel » London Heathrow »
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”
London Air Travel » London Heathrow »
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?”
London Air Travel » London Heathrow »
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”
London Air Travel » London Heathrow »
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”
London Air Travel » London Heathrow »
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.
London Air Travel » London Heathrow »
As expected, following Delta’s acquisition of a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic from Singapore Airlines, Delta and Virgin Atlantic have applied for anti-trust immunity for transatlantic flights from London Heathrow.
Delta will continue to operate a joint-venture with Air France-KLM for transatlantic flights to points beyond London Heathrow.
London Air Travel » London Heathrow »
British Airways has announced that it will increase its flights from London Heathrow to Seattle from 7 to 10 weekly from 3 April 2013.
Continue reading “BA increases London Heathrow – Seattle from 7 to 10 weekly”
London Air Travel » London Heathrow »
There probably isn’t an airline route in the world where travellers have more choice of airlines routings than London to Australia. As non-stop routes between London and Australia remain a technical impossibility and fuel prices mean that is likely to remain the case, a stop en route has always been required.
Continue reading “End of an era for the Kangaroo Route as Qantas calls Dubai home”