[Anonymous]

[LeTigre]

http://business.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201306/107325.php

Reasons:

-Fuel has to be taken from the UK, in Ghana it’s astronomical
-APD
-Slot times
-Overcapacity (?)

For VS though, this is clearly a good decision. Getting rid of unprofitable routes is the only way to get back in the black.

[sparkyflier]

Cheers for sharing this Le Tigre. This is a great pity really, but interesting point about the fuel price locally. This is odd as Ghana is an up and coming oil exporter, indeed over 70 000 barrels per day, and its fields are becoming more productive! I suppose though that it is Jetfuel they need, not crude!

Also shows they VS cannot rely on just O&D traffic. BA however have increased capacity on the route in the recent years, using 777 these days as opposed to 767, and there is more competition these days, with TAP, Iberia & Turkish also now flying there, albeit with 319/320/737.

[BA744fan]

So the next question is where will V send this plane instead?

[BritFlier]

That’s a real shame to see.
Similar reasons quoted to the Nairobi suspension too – I guess routes to these emerging economies are under a lot of pressure with all the extra fuel costs these days. And when an airline’s got to choose between something like a US service or Africa for that morning slot, there’s not much debate.

[LeTigre]

I believe part of the expense of fuel in West Africa is due to be the lack of refineries, rather than a lack of production.

Less profitable African routes will also be more difficult to justify at a full airport, that’s why the amount of African traffic at Heathrow is falling year over year. BA have cut DAR, VS have cut NBO and ACC. SAA have dropped CPT.

[rferguson]

Cost and access to fuel is a big factor in Africa.

The main reason BA gave up on the Harare route was because of the situation with fuel. The supply in Harare was so sporadic, and what was available was astronomical. So BA had to tanker the majority of the fuel from South Africa.

[sparkyflier]

The examples that Le Tigre cite of reduced Africa services from LHR all have very different reasons, for example SAA had to cancel the CPT-London route, because leaving a brand new A330 unused for 12 hours between its overnight flights is hardly an effective use of the resource, and therefore covering the costs of buying/leasing it.

BA dropped DAR because they were not nimble and flexible enough in satisfying demand. Business traffic would be in and out of Dar Es Salaam, but tourist traffic is mainly for northern Tanzania and Zanzibar, and BA failed to even try and capture these markets, which are now being served by other carriers, like Turkish, ET etc. KLM has flown to Kilimanjaro for many years and does very well. And these routes attract premium leisure traffic as well.

BA could have started a triangle service with Zanzibar, JRO etc, but did not. Kigali would have been another city with which to partner with and so not using extra slots, and using the same aircraft.

On Harare, there were many reasons for pulling out, for example instability and the hatred of President Mugabe to most things British, but fuel was a major reason no doubt.

I do not accept that money cannot be made on African routes from LHR, after all much of Africa is booming, and KLM do very well indeed on them, and their colonial links there are far less than those of the UK!

[craigwatson]

Sparky,

As long as they can also make money elsewhere, the volatility, and political instability will make much of africa unattractive in the near future.

[AMcWhirter]

Based in Europe, it’s all too easy to overlook the huge expansion by the Gulf carriers in Africa.

Check the route maps of EK/EY/QR and you’ll see what I mean. All three carriers believe that Africa holds a lot of potential judging by their network growth in recent years.

It is true that much of their new traffic comes from flying passengers between Asia (and mainland China in particular) and Africa.

But European travellers also fly to Africa via the Gulf. Yes, I know it’s a dogleg but some do take the Gulf routings. Price is one reason but another is the fact that the Gulf carriers serve so many secondary points in Europe which have been neglected by our national airlines.

[flying_sikh]

Any chance of VS introducing flights to Moscow once they have axed Acc as they lost the bid against Easyjet last year for flights to Moscow

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/oct/24/easyjet-beats-virgin-atlantic-moscow-slots

Honestly I have no idea how does launch of a new route works.

[sparkyflier]

Alex you are right about the Gulf carriers and their impact, and I mentioned TK also having this as their flights are less of a diversion. You also rightly mention the secondary points they can serve.

But craigwatson I am not suggesting BA or VS fly into unstable and volotile destinations. Much of Africa has hugely improved. BA has inherited the Freetown, Sierra Leone route from BMI, and has built on this by also serving Monrovia in Liberia. These are two former war torn countries now prospering, and indeed these flights I understand are frequently sold out, perhaps even justifying an upgrade from 763 to 772.

Kigali in Rwanda is now far more stable, Mozambique, which had a major war over decades, is now prosperous, indeed is becoming a Natural Gas major exporter – surely an industry type (oil & gas execs) of interest to airlines offering premium services at premium prices.

Just look at Luanda, Angola! BA, AF & LH are all very keen to have more flights there.These flights even justify the plane sitting on the ground 14 hours.

[craigwatson]

I think a case could be made for calling all of those countries you mentioned as volitile, and unstable if you use corruption, endless bureaucracy, crew security concerns ( which believe it or not is one of the bigger challenges getting it past the unions ), fuel cost/availability ( and here the mid eastern carriers have a huge advantage as they can tanker in all their return fuel, whereas european airlines can only tanker in a small fraction and will still need to top up the majority of their return fuel ).

Balance all of this next to using that aircraft to add a rotation to JFK or HKG just as an example and you will see why the Legacy carriers in europe tend to saturate routes before adding new ones. (KLM are the exeception to this)

[dutchyankee]

There are various reasons for certain flights being cut. Harare nonstop would entail crew overnighting in Harare which the unions would not allow, or the carriage of a double crew to tak ethe aircraft to a final destination such as Lusaka, Maputo, Durban, etc. Often the unions will impact the survivability of a route as once already mentioned in another thread Air France used to operate an old UTA route CDG (changed from ORY) to Luanda and then on to Gaborone. This was a combi 747 with 4 Flight deck and 27 Cabin crew to handle both sectors as the Air France union refused their crew to stay in Luanda even though there was a Meridien hotel in Luanda, so the crew would stay in Gaborone, for one week. I know this as the crew stayed in my hotel, great for me, but a costly route for AF. I no longer have that hotel, but it was a great time. We had the BA crew as well, but they only took 5 day rooms, 4 for Cabin Crew to share, and 1 for the flight deck to share as they operated a twice a week shuttle frm JNB to GBE, on the other days the aircraft (744) went from JNB to DUR or sat in JNB, with the BA crew having a base in JNB.

These kind of flights do cost a lot to operate when these extra type of costs are added in. As Sparky mentioned KLM has been flying to JRO for ages, but the crew stay in DAR due to lack of adequate accommodation in JRO. For BA, I think an in season route to Mombasa perhaps continuing on to Seychelles or Zanzibar would certainly suit the British leisure client, served from LGW on a three class 777, or perhaps with the new 787`s. Not sure of the traffic to JRO would make that a likely destination, but would be intersting as an add on as well. For me, Maputo is a great opportunity solely served by TAP or LAM so this could be a good addition, perhaps first with the BA subisidary Comair?

[sparkyflier]

Welcome back dutchyankee. You have not been around so much, and have been missed, you probably spotted the pretty unpleasant interractions going on in some of these threads.

About crew rest in some locations, well Lufthansa/Brussels Airlines fly into Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, Congo DRC, Angola, Burundi, Rwanda, and through triangle routing crew rest in places acceptable to crew/unions.

Air France also flies to most of the same places.

I am not saying that BA/VS ply all of these routes, but it does show some are quite fine. I have friends who work for BA who would have no problem with some of these places, indeed would request them. Triangle routing also saves jetfuel costs if you are not aiming for local traffic rights.

Further south in Africa, this becomes more difficult, due to flight length, flights at reasonable hours/decent utility of aircraft etc.

Harare is probably not yet good for crew rest, but a stop in Lusaka or even Kigali would be fine for such purposes, maybe using a day room as you indicated.

I recall your post about JRO not having decent sized hotels, but as you say, this could be part of a routing that served Kigali, Dar or Zanzibar.

Maputo is capital of a major Natural Gas producer, so I am sure of interest. BA/Comair does now fly there, but Joborg, with its famous baggage theft situation, is not an ideal transit place in my opinion. I wonder if a stop in Durban woud be ideal, for both BA and Comair, the routing being LHR-Durban Maputo and v v, maybe on 772 or 787.

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