[AMcWhirter]

BA to suspend daytime EWR (Newark) to London LHR service this summer.

People praise Eastbound transatlantic daytime flights for being civilised compared to their overnight counterparts.

So it’s surprising to see BA suspending its sold daytime flight from Newark to London during the summer season.

Flight in question is the 08:55 service which arrives into Heathrow at 19:35.

It will be suspended effective March 31.

The other two overnight flights out of Newark will continue.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Rferguson2, AlanOrton1

[AlanOrton1]

Thanks for this Alex.
I was searching for eastbound daylight flights for later this summer from NYC and wondered where the EWR option had gone.

As an aside, BA’s partner AA is starting (or re-starting) a daytime flight from ORD-LHR later this year. (787-9).

1 user thanked author for this post.

AMcWhirter

[Rferguson2]

I am a huge fan of the daylight East coast USA – UK flights.

But I guess from an airline economic POV they aren’t so great.

1) the aircraft arrives in NYC the night before and then remains overnight instead of turning around and flying back.

2) there are very few connection possibilities at either end with the NYC flight departing 8am-ish and arriving in the UK 8pm-ish.

3) Most UK based leisure travellers would rather check out of their NYC hotel at 11am and head to the airport for an afternoon flight instead of spending ££££ New York Hotel prices to check out at 5am to be at the airport for 6am.

5 users thanked author for this post.

cwoodward, ASK1945, Olneyflyer, AMcWhirter, sparkyflier

[AMcWhirter]

Consider the POV for the US-based traveller or tour operator.

Yes the daylight flight would be appreciated but on arrival in the UK they would face an extra night’s hotel expense.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Rferguson2, Olneyflyer

[CheerUp]

Seeing more and more demand for Baku.
With the limited options being a non-daily overnight flight out with J2, or horrible timed flights with QR, perhaps this is routing BA could consider.

[BackOfThePlane]

@CheerUp – Don’t Turkish Airlines fly to Baku?

[CheerUp]

Yes of course, Turkish too via IST – but an early start to get there at a resonable time.

Feels as though an upcoming destination, so a possibility for them to consider

[sparkyflier]

Baku was served by BA from LHR until about 6-7 years ago. They flew there initially as a route which was profitable for BMI when BA took them over who had inherited the route from British Mediterranean. I think BA initially used the old BMI mid -haul configured aircraft with flat beds in J, followed by BA’s long haul 767.

They stopped the route when they retired the 767 fleet I believe, but also at a time of lower oil prices. Azerbaijan’s economy is very much oil and gas based.

I agree the schedules used by Azerbaijan Air are not desirable and once again this is a route that would be ideal for those A321s with long haul seating that some bright spark at BA thought wise to get rid off. These aircraft could be good for Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Sharm for example.

Re my suggestion of LHR-BKK-Auckland I will give some history of NZs offering first:-

They used to have 2 routes to Auckland:-

LHR-LAX-Auckland daily 77W
LHR-HKG-AKL I think 5 x weekly 747-400

A friend of mine worked for NZ based in their London office. He told me both routes were profitable, despite plenty of competition on each.

However the first to go was the route via HK as the 744 was getting very old and the plane was then retired. They kept the LAX route which earned money on 3 markets – UK – NZ, UK – LA and NZ-LA, and had a loyal following. However the management wanted to tilt to more Asia and Americas travel, and so decided to cash in on the very valuable slot and work with CX.

I totally appreciate BA is short of crew and as TimFitzgeraldTC said also engineers, but my suggestion is proposing that if they had a lot more staff then LHR-BKK-AKL would be viable would attract these markets:-

UK-Thailand and vice versa
UK-NZ and vice versa
NZ-Thailand and vice versa – bearing in mind neither NZ or TG operate between their nations at this time.

Another factor is that initially NZ did have regional feed at the LHR end from BMI but their closure/merger into BA deprived them of that feed. whereas BA would have no shortage of feed at LHR. This was also a factor which did not help NZ.

Back to BA’s engineers, very indeed. Apparently many have left for vastly better salaries and perks, especially at United!

So yet another example of problems at BA made entirely of their own making, short-termism and nickle and diming.

2 users thanked author for this post.

AMcWhirter, cwoodward

[Robert Stevenson]

Azerbaijan Airlines will start 3 x weekly from Gatwick to Baku from mid-March. These will be daylight flights in both directions. From June, 2 of the 3 will be on B787. This on top of the existing flights from Heathrow, making 6 a week in total.

1 user thanked author for this post.

sparkyflier

[sparkyflier]

Wow Robert Stevenson thank you for sharing that. Maybe BT editorial can do a piece on that? Who saw that coming?

And on mainly widebodies serving and Baku is hardly a bucket ‘n spade route.

Just shows how BA is missing out on so much due to their conservatism and IMO some poor decision (maybe also a stealth route for Russians wanting to “investigate” UK developments, check on on their bank accounts or booking one way tickets).

[BackOfThePlane]

Perhaps, in light of the recent BT article, BA should consider flying to Sharjah. At least they would have no competition on direct services from London!

[AMcWhirter]

Yes I realise it’s a code-share but Aer Lingus / BA are to axe the LGW-DUB service effective end March.

The route is operated up to five times daily by Aer Lingus mainline with A320s so it’s a significant development.

1 user thanked author for this post.

sparkyflier

[sparkyflier]

Alex thank you for that. That is actually major news..

Which makes me think IAG can make more money with those slots with other airlines within the group. So more options for Vueling, BA Euroflyer or BA long haul (perhaps IB Express) or even IAG shareholder Qatar.

Many of the schedules for the BA Gatwick network are at very unattractive times so maybe there will be some shuffle of slots/routes, but maybe some more long haul….

I guess any new new 2024/25 long haul routes will be announced soon so they can be marketed.

[AMcWhirter]

No problem sparkyflier

In fact later yesterday I started a separate thread re EI and LGW-DUB.

Here’s a link to another piece this time from Rte.ie

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2024/0119/1427567-aer-lingus-gatwick/

[MarkivJ]

With today’s big news of AF starting year round weekly 3x CDG- PHX, I wonder if it means there’s frequency increase opportunity for BA/AA as well?

[Author]

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