BA cut Lusaka, Zambia route from 31st October

This closure has been in the offing as Lusaka vanished off BA.com sometime ago. My Zambian friends are most upset – they suggest its due to Emirates et al begining flights to Lusaka and not only poaching the pax but belly freight too. Fruit, Veg and flowers now to be found in Dubai’s hotels etc. This is possibly the real reason for chopping the route only 6 months after Dar was droppped. Lusaka would have worked as 5 day service with intermediate stop in Kigali or Kilimanjaro. Thanks Mr Walsh.

“It’s more connected with the increased cost of aviation fuel in Zambia, which make the route from London no longer profitable for BA.”

Two questions, SM

1 – How do you know this to be true, or is it just your opinion?

2 – Do Emirates buy fuel at a better rate than BA?

“BA is increasing come East African services, with Entebbe moving from 3 per week to four per week in 2014”

Any idea when? I booked a flight last week for EBB – LHR for July 14 and could not see this… Also do you know if this service will move from 767 to 787? Thanks

It is a great shame. My Zambian friends are also upset.

I’m not sure about the cost of fuel being the reason. Ethiopian, Kenya Airways and South African Airways all fly there at least once daily so they would be affected by increased fuel costs too unless someone tells us that they don’t refuel in Lusaka.
Competition from Emirates (daily flights and lower fares) is probably the reason.

craig

What is the fuel burned in tankering (I recall a pilot once told me 20%, but may be wrong.)

Adding that to the non-optimum flight levels that tankering may cause, wouldn’t there have to be a very big difference in price, to make tankering worthwhile?

You are right about the distance, 50% longer flight for BA, than EK, though I believe they use 767-300ER, not 757.

LHR-LUN – 4274nm
DXB-LUN – 2892 nm

Many of the issues about the LUN termination have been covered by other threads. but for the sake of this discussion and new aspects I think the following:-

Am with Jetplane. BA could have easily served this in conjunction with another route, like Kigali for example, or even Dar es Salaam! They seem incapable of being nimble in the way that KLM can be. KLM have AMS-HRE-LUN-AMS and that works for them. KLM has triangle flights in many areas, including AMS-JRO-DAR-AMS, helping keep costs down.

Going down to Joburg to then come back up is very unattractive, and that is befere you consider the notorious baggage theft at OR Tambo Airport. Comair may fly to Livingston, but not Lusaka and not Mfuwe, where most of the safari traffic arrives at.

This LUN termination will really hit Zambian tourism hard, and thus conservation, especially for elephant and rhino. Another poster did not agree with this point, but tourism, especially in the Zambia and other countries, is very labour intensive, and all you need is 150 less people a week, each spending $2000-$5000 dollers+ in an area to really make a difference.

Since the financial crisis as tourism mainly decreased to African countries, poaching has gone up. Tourism provides a cash value to animals which means they are important ALIVE.

Surely using a 787 would have made the fuel costs less relevant?

I appreciate BA are a business, and there is now much competition on the route from KL, EK, ET and KQ, but Zambia is growing and I think BA is not imaginative enough or nimble enough.

BA would get a lot more connecting traffic if the southbound flight was during the day, and the northbound flight was at night. This is the KLM schedule and allows for connections to and from North America.