[Anonymous]

[InfiniteFlyer]

Hi all,
looking ahead to November and the Christmas/New Year period this week I was dismayed to find that my very frequent LGW-NAP route is currently cut to 1 flight/day from October 29.

In high season BA is operating 3 x 737 flights per day, and for the last 17 years, has operated 2/day in low season.

Given the current and ever-increasing Italian emigrant population, and the massive re-entry around the Festive Season (not just to NAP), I’m lost for words. (Except those above, and the following, obviously!)

EZY currently flies 3 x day in high seaon (2xSTN, 1x LGW), which also reduces to 1/day (STN) in low season.

So, total direct scheduled capacity is reducing from around 780 pax each way/day, to 260 pax each way/day. (Only BA & EZY fly direct LON-NAP)

I’ll be booking this week for Christmas, but this is unsustainable.

*Please, fellow BTers, check your favourite frequent routes, and see if BA is reducing capacity to historic minima on your routes too – and post them here!*

[continentalclub]

Since I’m not aware of any wholesale fleet reductions, nor the transfer of aircraft to LHR, one can only assume that frequencies being cut on certain routes must be balanced by increased frequencies on others – or indeed altogether new routes.

Could a 737-400 do TFS instead, for example?

In the NAP case, if easyJet are going from 3 to 1 as well for W11, then it tends to suggest that there’s a demand depression rather than just an arbitary decision on the part of two completely unconnected carriers to ignore the destination in Winter.

[openfly]

More BA LGW route cuts this winter…..AGP down from 4 per day to one at 07.25! FAO down from two a day to 4 per week. MAN/EDI/GLA all lose a flight a day. The cuts keep coming. No sign of new routes…looks as though Silla has the pruning shears out.

EZY must be loving it.

[InfiniteFlyer]

To continentalclub’s point, I’d agree that (modelled/expected) demand depression would be a perfectly good business motivation for substantial reduction in flights.

What I was trying to say, though, is that in 17 years of experience, BA has never had fewer than 2 flights/day LGW-NAP in low season, and EZY (which inherited GO’s route) has only been flying it 10 years, and has always had 1 flight/day minimum in low season too.

So unless the model has changed (it shouldn’t have – these flights are pretty crowded most of the time), or BA has found a new way to predict the future, this is a *cut*.

Interestingly, that will of course allow prices to be driven up, as there will be more pax than seats at many times, particularly Xmas, hence my original posting…

And of course in turn, fewer flights means fewer crew needed.
Is BA going to lay of a chunk of cabin staff, and (try to) re-employ on short term seasonal contracts instead?

openfly’s observations are similar to mine, although we don’t yet have a statistically solid argument.

[InfiniteFlyer]

I’ll keep it brief here as I realise there may be nobody interested 🙂

But EZY have just published their 2nd Winter LON-NAP routing, this time LGW-NAP.

Yes, they’ve (according to me, not inside sources) taken BA’s LGW NAP slot for the winter as well.

As @openfly said, EZY must be loving it.

Based on a sample of 1, they’re not only loving it, they’re eating it too.

I’m feeling depressed about this. I don’t want to spend my declining years travelling around Europe in EZY.
I like them and especially their staff: new equipment, good attitude, terrible employment conditions. It’s a small minority of the other passengers who are sometimes just too stressful for me 🙁

[Travellator]

OPENFLY

Cannot believe AGP down to 1 a day !

We fly this regularly in CE and up to 9 rows full.

This means only 1 flight a day by any airline with a business product to any airport in the UK !

[openfly]

Travellator
I agree that this is massive pruning for the winter. But NAP goes back to three per day and AGP goes back to four per day from end of March 2012

[Travellator]

Thanks Openfly – back to 4 on 26 March.
This is a hugely popular flight all year round even in the depths of winter so prices may be pretty stiff !

[Author]

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