BA considering cancelling more African routes

Lagos and Abuja may be axed within the following months as management at BA evaluate the strength and economics of both routes.

What with Freetown and Montovia being indefinitely suspended, Uganda et al left behind and the possibility of the cancellation of the Cairo route, I ask this. What has BA done so badly in Africa?

Brussels Airlines can do it, so can Air France – even Lufthansa have a relatively decent route network around Africa. Yet BA is decreasing its routes, not exploiting potential hotspots with the ‘long-and-thin’ 787.

Seriously, what has gone wrong? Some years back, BA were the dominant European carrier in Africa. This is clearly no longer the case. What will happen to the slots freed at LHR? There will be a lot!

I spend two weeks a month in Africa, averaging about 120 flights a year, and it’s well over a year since I had to touch a BA flight.

For anything East and Southern, Emirates now has all the business. Twice a day to Nairobi, 4x to Johannesburg etc. Connections from UK regions so it works well. If travelling J the proposition is also miles ahead.

For West Africa, LH has much better prices via Frankfurt. Occasionally KLM too.

And their only competitive on US routes because of their near cartel like agreement with AA. As I’ve said before, IAGs bank balance can thank AA more than they can thank their flagship carrier.

If the rumours are true,then IMO to turn your back on Africa is short term laziness which unfortunately for BA will come back to haunt them in the long term.

But as has been stated so many times, BA/IAG is managed and its strategy is run by bean counters rather than by anyone who has an understanding of longer-term strategy. As such, IAG management appears (witness the annual Capital Markets Day presentation each November) fixated with regaining their investment grade credit rating and increasing their dividends payments to shareholders. These are the principal determinants underpinning their behaviour. The staff are simply to be treated as a cost – and one which has to be constrained and paired back.

It is perfectly reasonable to criticise this fixation, in which case those critics should be open and honest and say that they, as I do, question the entire Anglo-American construct of shareholder-based capitalism with its total focus on the short-term. As with so many issues posted on this forum, it is impossible to divorce and detach it from the underlying political economy.

@AndrewinHK

Some Nigerian sources have near-confirmed the cancellation of Lagos and Abuja, the economy is falling and it’s very likely that the routes will be cancelled. Other airlines have also pulled out.

There are many news stories around at the moment regarding this.

Abuja & Lagos won’be cancelled in the near future they are probably the airline’s heaviest flights & management has to adjust types & schedules on routes like Cairo, since BA does make money, AF & LH hardly do?

I can’t imagine either getting the chop – especially LOS. I would think BA would first retime/reduce aircraft type/frequency etc. It would be almost a first going from a consistently full daily High J 747 to axing the route.

I know there was some confusion in the media the other week as whilst Willie W was talking about some ‘IAG routes’ being cut they jumped on BA cutting Nigeria etc. But what was being referred to was IB.