[AMcWhirter]

LHR-JFK details just tweeted by Airline Route.

http://airlineroute.net/2015/10/28/ba-lhrjfk-s16/

[Jasonltd1]

World Travel Market is next week. Usually BA announce a new route/s during the show – but with a host of new routes accounced recently – will there be another?

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Great news another rotation being done by AA – have a few clients who much prefer the Business Class on the 777-300ER so having 4 operated flights a day will make brilliant. As long as they don’t plane change to an old 777-200 like they did last night!

[Jasonltd1]

I’ve always wondered why any sane person would chose AA over BA trans-atlantic (particuarly in economy). Or any Ameican carrier for that matter.

[nevereconomy]

Many good suggestions – but many years of experience have taught me that BA management is way too dumb to take notice of any customer feedback and will continue to blunder on with their “flag carrier” mentality. Good Lord – even Air France is better now…..

[TheLion]

@rferguson / @sparkyflyer / @AMcWhirter – 20-21/10/2015

You’re right, Tehran should ideally be their next route launch. They need to hurry up as many on here point out.

There are also so may unserved US cities with a decent market and large catchment areas (with no Europe service for hundreds of miles) that BA could make a good fist of, many as first mover…

Portland OR, New Orleans, St Louis, Nashville, Columbus, Charlotte (taking over 1 AA rotation), Detroit, Ft Lauderdale, even SLC & Minneapolis (SLC new Delta LHR service notwithstanding).

I was also surprised they didn’t go for Hartford before Aer Lingus became first mover last week!

@sparkyflyer: Freetown/Monrovia return, plus Dakar and Abidjan are all no brainers, perhaps tagging on Banjul in Gambia, although I feel this may be more of an LGW leisure route.

@amc1234: Agree re BA LGW service competing with Norwegian. Down the line I think this type of direct competition between LCCs and legacies might be a common sight

@James72: Intriguing re World Travel Market. Would be good to have some more new routes. This takes me onto the BA long haul fleet plan I created, mentioned last week, but mislaid and now found again!

This was based on some extremely useful info on Flyertalk. It gives an idea of how new a/c deliveries tally up to retirements, so providing an insight into how many a/c there might be for new routes or more frequencies. Details to follow…

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Hi James72

The AA Business class seat on the 777-300ER is way ahead of the BA Club Seat. No real contest on this. True if in economy I’d rather be on BA – but if I had a choice of AA / BA Club – as long as not an old 757 or 777-200 then AA all the way. Not a big fan of coffin class.

Sure service on AA may not always match BA (which can be hit and miss anyway) – but from a seat perspective – no contest.

[TheLion]

New route alert!

BA to BLL (Billund, Denmark) from LHR next Summer, begins 3 May:

http://londonairtravel.com/2015/10/28/british-airways-launches-new-route-from-london-heathrow-to-billund-from-3-may-2016

Schedule:

BA804 LHR0745 – BLL1025 319 1234567
BA806 LHR1515 – BLL1755 319 12-45–

BA805 BLL1125 – LHR1210 319 1234567
BA807 BLL1840 – LHR1925 319 12-45–

News originally broken in the Anglosphere by a-net:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/6533683

Business, cargo and Legoland tourism route I bet, plus opening up North & West Denmark for some easier connections. Wonder what this means for Sun Air service from LCY…and is this another slot sitter until…?

[AndrewinHK]

@thelion The problem for BA is Hartford doesn’t have a permanent US border control as it has no scheduled international flights. Aer Lingus can launch because Dublin flights will arrive as domestic.

[TheLion]

@amc1234
Yes good point, I remember reading about that but had forgotten. Thanks.

Hartford has a good size catchment area which includes many research institutions and global companies.

So if the Aer Lingus flight is a success, I’d wager its time will come…especially if pre-clearance is introduced to LHR, as is under consideration.

[AMcWhirter]

You can forget about pre-clearance at LHR. Too many terminals. Where’s the space ? What would the cost be ?

But maybe it would provide a selling point for another London airport.

[TheLion]

A good point however there’s an old maxim that always holds true in aviation and that’s never say never.

It wouldn’t be easy, but it is possible. Many of the US bound airlines all offer USA flights from certain gates already, so the infrastructure could be built around that premise. This said, it wouldn’t be without cost or disruption

[AndrewinHK]

@thelion I agree, I think for an airline like BA that is so US focused, they have to make something work in Terminal 5 no matter what the disruption/cost.

[AMcWhirter]

I often trot out that old airline maxim myself.

@amc1234 But what would the other airlines say ? Can you really see them letting BA have access to pre-clearance when they are excluded ?

[AndrewinHK]

@AMcWhirter I agree with you. I’m not quite sure how the US pre clearance works in terms of who pays for it, but if an airline or airlines are willing to foot the bill or partially pay for it then fair play. If Manchester got pre clearance maybe that would encourage BA to head back North.

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