[MartynSinclair]

Is there any news when BA intends to return routes such as BA9/10 (Bangkok) and there must be many other routes – from being cargo only back to passengers. I understand during the pandemic cargo flights became the key revenue earner, but surely these services now need to return to passenger flights to keep up with demand.

If BA are unable / unwilling (due to staff shortages or mismanagement) why aren’t other airlines, being offered contracts for these routes where passengers are desperate to fly, but the airlines who ‘own’ the slots, are unable to use the slots for their intended purpose?

As cwoodward reports (and I purposely did not want to highjack his thread) HKG may have failed in managing CV19 and sadly retains draconian Q laws, but at least it appears CX are building up for a grande opening.

Could any of the M/E hub carriers cope with more flights – or is it simply that the UK airports cant cope with more passengers feeding through the UK airport system.

I also presume the testing for security machines to allow passengers to no longer remove liquids and laptops, which commenced pre pandemic – is also no where near completion in the UK…

Utter ba**s up – to put it politely…

[AMcWhirter]

Hello Martyn, I would have thought TG would be an obvious alternative. Or how about Lufthansa via FRA ?

Emirates currently operates five A380 flights from your local airport of LHR. From DXB to BKK there are two flights (1xA380 non-stop, 1xB777 one stop).

[MartynSinclair]

Hi Alex

Getting to BKK is not the problem, it’s getting there for a respectable fare & via O/W. Next trip to BKK in August is with Finnair and on to SIN (with Thai) to meet up with K1ngston. There do not appear sufficient flights to cover the needs, hence prices are soaring. Why are slots being used to shuttle cargo, when passengers need the seats. I remember back in the 80’s and 90’s when too many pilots were coming through training school and there were insufficient jobs. Some pilots were redeployed for a period of time as cabin crew. Cant this happen in 2022?

[stevescoots]

[postquote quote=1218412]

OW flights out to Asia are crazy, i just had to jump ship to EK to get to SGN in July. CX no suitable flights, QR £500 more than EK + another £500 in petrol and parking (EK have car service) Finnair were lower but had to have another flight in BKK to SGN. the world is slowly opening but considering the chaos as most UK, EU airports i want to avoid ex EU flights.

of course some of this is going to be UK charges. as an experiment i did a couple of weeks back on July flights CX LHR-SGN was 6.5K Rtn. flipped around and SGN to LHR Rtn same dates was 3.9K rtn

[TominScotland]

Martyn

Interesting suggestions about requiring airlines to offer passenger services. Who would offer these contracts to other airlines and on what routes? I don’t know anything about the conditions attached to slots at Heathrow but do they require that airlines offer passenger services? If freight is more profitable, that surely raises questions about HAL charges for passenger services and the amount passengers are willing to pay??

As to BKK, it is my understanding that this has long been a low yield route (in comparison with the likes of HKG and SIN) which accounts for the downgrading of services since the heyday of BA09/10 when BKK was a stopover enroute to Down Under. It is now the equivalent of a long-haul bucket and spade route, maybe more suited to LGW than LHR??

[AMcWhirter]

[quote quote=1218540]As to BKK, it is my understanding that this has long been a low yield route (in comparison with the likes of HKG and SIN) which accounts for the downgrading of services since the heyday of BA09/10 when BKK was a stopover enroute to Down Under.[/quote]

Absolutely. Europe-Bangkok is low yield and that’s why many European airline no longer serve Thailand.

Some years ago SAS, which had been serving Bangkok for 50 years, axed its route from Scandinavia.

It’s one reason why BA and QF transferred their stopover point to Singapore.

In fact in terms of fuel consumption BKK is a better stopover point than Singapore. I say that because sector lengths London-Bangkok and Bangkok-Sydney are roughly the same (which benefits fuel consumption, payload and so on).

[AMcWhirter]

Hello Martyn, Sorry for any confusion.

An airport slot is as much about capacity within the terminal as runway capacity.

Heathrow as its own freight terminal.

I say that because in 2016 after Oman Air purchased that single slot from Kenya Airways it thought it could combine both flights (Oman Air plus the Kenya Airways flight slot) at T3.

But it wasn’t the case as we reported at the time (although Oman Air was eventually allowed to operate at one terminal).

Oman Air splits Heathrow operation

As regards the freight market things may change.

A few days ago at the IATA AGM the CEO of Qatar Airways forecast a decline in freight business.

https://www.reuters.com/article/airlines-iata-qatar-airways-idAFS8N2XL01T

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