[rferguson]

Just been confirmed. BA to operate last CTU flight JAN 12, 2017.

[rferguson]

I’m going to place a small wager that the aircraft and slot will go to New Orleans.

[AnthonyDunn]

This is more than a tad ironic bearing in mind the announcement last week that the UK and Chinese governments have agreed to a substantial increase in flights between the two countries.

[rferguson]

From what I understand the Chengdu local government offered incentives for foreign airlines to launch flights to Chengdu. These incentives would be for a limited period of time, presumably to allow airlines to establish the route and start turning a profit. I guess the incentives were due to finish and the route deemed unprofitable.

[TheLion]

As reported in the New Orleans thread, BA finally announced flights to NOLA yesterday:

http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2016/10/new_orleans_london_flight_brit.html

It’s a 4 weekly B787-8 service which begins 27 March 2017:

BA225 LHR-MSY 1-3-56- B787-8/JPM
BA226 MSY-LHR 1-3-56- B787-8/JPM

If this wasn’t enough excitement, an article from last Wednesday references Alex Cruz & reports that BA are “set to announce new short and long-haul routes in the coming months”:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-12/british-airways-says-u-k-has-no-choice-but-to-expand-heathrow

It also says their capital markets day next month will make their fleet plans clearer, hinting that they may have sourced some new long hail aircraft.

So, where next then? What are your views on BA’s next European & Long haul routes:|

a) What do you think BA are likely to introduce at this, post-Brexit, China and Africa-cutting yet US-adding moment in time?

b) Regardless, what do you think would work, irrespective of what BA might do next?

Cheers
The Lion

[Mark Caswell]

BA’s new Heathrow-New Orleans route also reported here:

British Airways to launch Heathrow-New Orleans route

[SenatorGold]

I would suggest resuming service to Georgetown, Guyana after a very long suspension – over 35 years I would guess. Oil and natural gas has been discovered off shore in Guyana. Georgetown could be served as a tag to the current service to Port of Spain which stops in St Lucia. The flight could be scheduled to reach Georgetown in a day and then turn around and head back to London. Crew currently work the Port of Spain flights as a shuttle from St Lucia and probably could cover Georgetown on this basis as well.

[TheLion]

[quote quote=769986]I would suggest resuming service to Georgetown, Guyana after a very long suspension – over 35 years I would guess. Oil and gas has been discovered off shore in Guyana.
[/quote]

I have long been a quiet advocate of BA service to link Guyana to the world, however as you all know development and nurturing of routes for the future and connecting people, even business people, isn’t the current BA’s way. However now the country is known to have natural resources, it may well be on BA’s radar. Note that it’s ExxonMobil who look set to extract the oil, at least initially:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/09/05/dreams-wealth-fears-problems-as-guyana-finds-oil.html

[TheLion]

Also, today I found a very curious anomaly in the One World destinations map:

http://onw.innosked.com/(S(dveawojecfei0ibv5b4imjyx))/default.aspx

To load what I saw, select London in “Leaving from:” and select no preference in “With airline:” The results threw this up:

When I viewed these results, it added direct links to Honolulu, San Antonio, New Orleans, Kansas City, St Louis, Portland OR, Salt Lake City & Minneapolis. None of these are served direct from London by OneWorld airlines, indeed several are without TATL service at all. Note that MSY was not included when I just selected BA routes only, so clearly hasn’t been loaded yet.

Some decidedly odd routes then, especially as all connections were excluded in this selection (though these routes are all removed when you check “Non-stop flights only”). The inclusion of these non-direct routes is also US-specific; I could find no other routes on this map where a non direct flight was included.

It may be these routes are included because they are either key secondary markets or because the last three are served direct by Delta, so they’d want to push a connection as if it was a direct flight. However they don’t include Detroit here either. Yet it doesn’t really explain the inclusion of HNL, MSY, STL & MCI and not other medium size markets such as BNA, IND, PIT, CMH, CLE, CVG etc.

Well it could indicate key OW markets on the basis of AA frequent flyer numbers on the London route, and thus it does make you wonder if there is a future route plan hidden here…maybe… 😉

[Tom Otley]

Gatwick to Fort Lauderdale confirmed – piece coming up in a few minutes

[TheLion]

Indeed, hot on the heels of a new long haul route last week, BA make in two in a row and launch FLL at last!

British Airways to launch Gatwick-Fort Lauderdale service

BA2169 LGW-FLL 09:25-13:45 -2-4-67 B772/JPM
BA2168 FLL-LGW 17:00-06:30 LGW -2-4-67 B772/JPM

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays year-round, Sundays during summer schedule July 6-Oct 30.

Excellent news for those who want to avoid Miami, want a quick route north or are going on a cruise.

Rather amused by the line in the press release: “The cabins have stylish interiors with individual on-demand entertainment systems.”

Decrepit old seats and cabins and ancient, tiny screens with flickering lines. Good crew though. Such was our experience when we flew BA en route to a three week road trip round the Yucatán & Belize last year 🙂

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Anyone know if new plane based at LGW, better utilization of what has been slashed to make way for this service. About time they added this I may add!

[TheLion]

[quote quote=771072]Anyone know if new plane based at LGW, better utilization of what has been slashed to make way for this service. About time they added this I may add!

[/quote]

Could be the frame that was pulled off the PHL frequency that was taken over by AA. They have also announced an extra flight to Kingston, a fourth weekly, from April:

http://www.voice-online.co.uk/article/british-airways-increases-service-jamaica

With an extra frame, this could mean there’s further frequency increases in the offing, or another new route 1-2 weekly…

[TheLion]

NEW ROUTE ALERT!

8 new routes to be precise!

Wow what a crazy day and mad last few weeks by BA’s standards. Three new long haul and seven new short haul European destinations. After New Orleans & Fort Lauderdale, we’ve now got BA’s 25th US destination, Oakland!

British Airways to launch new route to Oakland, San Francisco Bay

I made a list a long time ago of predicted and desired destinations for BA to serve yet there’s no way I could predict this. Clearly BA are taking the fight to Norwegian!

To Europe it’s Murcia, Tallinn, Nantes, Montpellier, Brindisi, Zakynthos & Pula, the latter four seasonal only:

http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/269632/british-airways-adds-new-heathrow-europe-routes-in-s17

Tallinn and Nantes make sense for business and leisure, in fact I’ve always been surprised they didn’t serve Nantes before given its large catchment area. Murcia is a logical next add in their increasingly blanket Spain coverage, Montpellier & Brindisi further steps into underserved regions and Zakynthos continuing their Greek island charter to scheduled conversions.

What’s next I wonder?

[sparkyflier]

There are quite a few cities they have listed here which I would love to go to,but these schedules and timings are useless for me sadly.

Oakland is all about attacking Norwegian, I suspect FLL as well, although they should have started it years ago! I am sure former posted VK will be totally excited by this route, even if they are operated by clapped out 772s!

Cape Town from LGW was also started to stop Norwegian trying it out.

But whilst the recent routes are mainly in the Americas, could African routes be started from LGW – a safari/beach route with a triangle ( I know BA don’t do triangles but maybe Mr Cruz has some imagination) to Tanazania with Dar and Kilimanjaro?

And West Africa there has to be demand – how about 4 flights a week to Abidjan- with 2 each flights stopping in Monrovia and Freetown. After all, Air France now fly there 11 times a week, including daily A380s..

Re Colombia, with the State Visit of President Santos to UK, and PM May vowing to boost trade, could this be a good time for BA to announce Bogota, at long last..

[Author]

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