[HarryMonk]

Interesting to hear so many suggestions for SE Asian destinations, Vietnam, Indonesia etc but are the chances of these happening going to get slimmer with the start of the KUL service with which BA can then feed passengers on these destinations via the Malaysian network.

[DontTurnRight]

Would throw in Honolulu too. Believe it could be done via a polar route and would tie in with One world feeds from JAL. Qantas and Cathay.

[1nfrequent]

Bath_VIP – many thanks. Didn’t realise there was still so much industry in that region. I was there a few months before Katrina and got to say that while the city’s got a lot of history, I have never felt so unsafe in the heart of a US city’s tourist area before. Hopefully the pain of the hurricane will have led to improvements there for everyone (not just tourism).

1F

[AisleSeatTraveller]

Thanks for the news on Vietnam Airlines (having flown on the airline (between Hanoi and Saigon) I’d still contend that its not much competition.

on the Malaysian A380s, clearly they’d need refurb. However the Skymark aircraft only one was in advanced state of build (another was further down the line), therefore anyone taking over the order would effectively be buying delivery slots

[FCTraveller]

Ottawa. Maybe as a tag from Montreal? Air Canada have a daily non-stop and it’s always packed not to mention all the other passengers they carry from there via Montreal and Toronto connections.

[icenspice]

Yes SenatorGold….Dhaka, perhaps combined with Kolkata – both in the top 10 largest cities.

I would also be looking at Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Guangzhou.

[AMcWhirter]

BA will boost capacity on the Austin route to a B777-200ER as it’s proved a success.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayinthesky/2015/05/21/british-airways-austin-london-route-appears-to-be-a-success/27702453/

[sparkyflier]

Although I prefer the 777 to 787, my money is on Austin becoming one of , if not the first route, to have a 787-9!

Another contender for the newest aircraft is EZE, but I am not sure BA will be confident of selling First class on that route, so my opinion is that Austin and EWR will be the initial destinations.

As usual BA will not be bold, so they will play safe with these routes.

[sparkyflier]

I guess I should have read the link! It seems it is going to be 772! I flew on this route recently and it was very overbooked.

[Wiff2110]

I would like to see Perth in Australia added, save me changing to Cathay in Hong Kong or Qantas / Singapore airlines out of Singapore.

[MarkivJ]

No matter what we say about BA’s conservative and careful approach to the rest of the world, they always seem to nail it when it comes to the US. Austin, Seattle and Denver were the top 3 fastest growing cities the last 2 years (“exploding”, is the word used in news reports) that it’s good to see BA proactively respond to growing demands of all 3 cities.

As for suggestions made about starting flights to the Indian subcontinent, I really don’t see it happening. If anything, BA has been scaling back capacity to India. In 2012, Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru all got 747s but in W15 it’s only Delhi, and that too, 1 of the 2 daily flights. Load factors may be good but the yield seems abysmal. And, with the ME3 increasing capacity and flights, I don’t see BA challenging them in the Indian space. I’d think it was the same story with Lufthansa but the advantage for them unlike BA is that more Indian passengers hop off in Germany compared to the UK (most Indians use BA to fly to the US).

Finally, there’s the general sentiment. I’m from Bengaluru (well, been living in the US for 2 decades now) and every time I visit, I see a lot of promotion and hear a lot of positive sentiment for the ME3 and Lufthansa. BA, Air France and KLM – not so much! The worst perceived airline seems to be AF!

[AMcWhirter]

Hello MarkivJ

It’s not true that “more Indian passengers hop off in Germany compared to the UK.”

Lufthansa is a prime sixth-freedom carrier out of India. Only a fraction of its passengers are getting off in either FRA or MUC.

The latest official figures that I can find are dated 2011. They reveal that a whopping 87 per cent of Lufthansa passengers are changing planes in Germany for onward destinations. The equivalent figure for BA is 61 per cent.

Yes these stats are four years old and there will be some changes. But even today I understand that around 80 per cent of Lufthansa passengers flying ex-India remain sixth-freedom.

That’s even higher than KLM which is recognised as a sixth-freedom maestro.

Here are details from Business Standard of the main sixth-freedom carriers flying out of India.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/sixth-freedom-choked-air-india-111091200033_1.html

[MarkivJ]

Thanks for that link. I’d read the stats in Oct last year (print newspaper in Bengaluru) but I don’t recall them. They could’ve been wrong – that said, Lufthansa is the only European airline that seems to want to grow in India!

[rferguson]

Hi MarkivJ. You are very correct in BA’s approach to new routes in the US. If you compare the two newest longhaul route launches (AUS and Chengdu) they have performed like chalk and cheese. AUS has way exceeded expectations while CTU has disappointed. To a degree it’s not difficult to see why. I believe that AUS had the largest amount of indirect traffic ex LHR of all routes in N.A so it made sense to try it out as a direct flight. Austin local government provided a lot of encouragement and assistance, BA had a market presence there, AA who also sells on BA metal an even bigger one. Most of the passengers on the direct LHR-AUS flight were already flying BA or AA but via IAH or DFW. So i’m sure there are more Austin sized cities on BA radar for direct flights on the 787 where they already fly a significant amount of passengers via another U.S city. I guess the plan is to encourage those using other european/US airlines to London via their respective hubs to switch to BA and direct flights to LHR.

In terms of India, attracting bums on seats is never a problem. Earning a good yield is. Much of the traffic originating from India is continuing onto North America. But the fares from India – UK – USA and return are only fractionally higher (on in some cases even lower!) than the cost of the flight direct from LHR or sometimes other points in europe. So it’s a lot of extra aircraft utilisation for relatively little gain. It’s a little like the situation BA faced when it had multiple flights UK to Australia – the fare to the mid way point (SIN/BKK etc) made up about 85% of the fare to Australia.

I think BA could probably start a number of new Indian cities to LHR and fill the aircraft but they would probably earn a lot more of a return by sending that same aircraft direct from LHR to somewhere in the US than launching another Indian route.

In terms of India I think the lack of a OneWorld partner also limits BA’s ambitions to expand there. I’m sure if they found a local partner to join OW we’d see more activity.

[UnhappyWithService]

Totally unhappy with the service received from BA
Had a query back in October 2014 when a flight was overbooked and they STILL haven’t managed to sort out a resolution over the ongoing e-vouchers they gave us as goodwill at the time.
I’ve written to the CEO and it’s been more than their promised response time with no further response from him or the Complaints team
Completely crap service – fly Emirates or even Easyjet would probably be better!

[Author]

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