[Fili-Mestizo]

I agree with you about Manila; It would be great to be able to fly non-stop, and without the unecessary hassle of getting a connecting flight and wondering around in the Middle East aimlessly:

If BA were to reinstate the Manila route, I would understand their reasons to not travel via Hong Kong; there are far too many low cost carriers in the region which BA cannot compete with, offering fares for a fraction of the price down to Manila. However, they would probably benefit from extending their Dubai route onto Manila, as the only airline out of Dubai into Manila is Emirates which BA would compete with, and flights are often overbooked both ways meaning that passengers would benefit from anoth choice or carrier. As there are millions of Filipinos in The Middle East, seats would always sell.

Another choice could be to go via Delhi like they did years ago, but as Philippine Airlines has recently started a Manila-Delhi route, it may not prove to be as viable.

The Kuala Lumpur and Seoul routes may have become unpopular owing to the fact that Korean Air and Malaysian Airlines fly non stop, whereas BA had to fuel via Hong Kong. As Philippine Airlines hasn’t flown to London since 1998, there is no direct competition for the route. Bring back BA to Manila!

[VintageKrug]

BA doesn’t need to “re-evaluate the importance of the regions”.

When the regions ever become important, I’m sure someone in local government will send out a memo.

Until then, the London-centric strategy is the right course of action.

[HonestCrew]

I spoke to someone recently who made a good point of why BA doesn’t fly to certain Asian destinations, for example Seoul.

To make it really viable, it needs to open doors for pax to connect to other regional cities within South Korea.
This will generally require use of another One World Alliance or partner airline.
Korean Air is extremely dominant and a member of Skyteam so that is pretty much a dead end. BA have to rely on Cathay flying to these smaller cities, therefore pax transferring through Hong Kong.

BA used to fly Manchester to JFK. Having operated this route many times, the pax are fantastic. Relaxed, friendly holiday makers. Unfortunately very few business travellers and the majority of seats take in the Club World cabin were upgradesdue to overselling the flight. Also very very few foreign pax who do make up a large percent of BA’s customer base.

Business travellers = profit. Holiday makers not so much. Could BA fly an economy only aircraft and make a profit? I don’t know but as VK says there is a team of people constantly evaluating routes, that is their job and I trust them that if there is a route worth flying to, BA would fly there.

I was also told our domestic routes provide only 4% of BA’s business. This adds fuel to the fire that the new High Speed Rail link planned for the UK would not make much of a difference to internal flights and the environmental savings would be minimal. Billions spent on a new train line saving very little time. Travelling from London, what will you do with your extra 20 minutes in Birmingham?
We need that 3rd runway at LHR

[jet72uk]

Highly unlikely there will be future new LHR routes unless they transfer some old ones to LGW or, cut capacity on exsisting routes. MUC/DUS for example. Far too many daily flights. All new LH will prob be from LGW.

[AB123456]

1. Muscat for sure, why it stops in Abu Dhabi is a nightmare for those going for an hours hope.
2. Casablanca, only Royal Air Maroc for this one and soon to be BMI.
3. Dublin, not too sure why they forgot that one.
4. Vietnam for sure, the new Thailand

Finally, can BA have direct flights to the UK from 5 hours+ direct into Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. Especially for Asian and Middle Eastern traffic. Never understood why they give all this lost revenue to Emirates, who run their old aircraft on most of these routes and don’t offer necessarily the service advertised across their network.

[ConstantFlyer]

Not so much BA, but its other half, Iberia. If Heathrow is too full for more domestic services, underserved UK domestic points could be linked to Madrid instead. Only trouble is that Iberia long-haul is so dire….

[nevereconomy]

If BA has all these competent high level personnages evaluating the money-making possibilities of new routes, how is it that they are so dismally unprofitable compared with so many other airlines, who, for example, serve the ‘regions’ . After countless years of Goldness and support for management and crew who clearly have no loyalty to me,
I have given up on them. Nearly everyone has a comparable or better Business and First seat so why bother with the attitude.?

[Bullfrog]

Too many businesses take their established market, or ‘home hub’ or existing customers for granted.

‘Price cutting’ or being more competitive for new customers or a market in which a business does not have a foothold or any likelihood of gaining market share, is common practice, not just in the airlines but many businesses in general.

Businesses reflecting this kind of practice lose focus, become arrogant & fail to deliver both on the ‘product front’ and ‘customer service’.

‘Exisitng customers then become ‘exiting customers’.

In the airline business, I wish Cathay Pacific would have London as its home hub.

[HonestCrew]

To nevereconomy.

Good point. I expect there are a couple of reasons they would put forward for their justification of routes, the main ones being they could possibly make money on a long-haul route from a city other than London, but more money can be made keeping that aircraft on it’s current routes. Another being they could bite the bullet and launch a new route, but should it fail miserably then someone would be for the can!
Better the devil you know I suppose.

[AMcWhirter]

Bullfrog – “too many businesses take their established market or ‘home hub’ or existing customers for granted.”

Too true and note that BA is not the only guilty party in this respect.

Look at how other big European national airlines neglect major business and industrial cities within their home country when it comes to long distance flying.

[Hippocampus]

BA competes on frequency in the business market and the marginal cost of an additional frequency is much lower than the cost of setting up a new outstation. In the case of long haul at least when BA launches a new long haul route it tends to stick. Compare this to Delta which is forever chopping and changing its long haul route network.

The whole debate of BA and the regions really has been done to death. As yourself how many passengers on EK’s MAN-DXB services terminate at DXB and you have your answer as to why it wouldn’t work for BA.

EK may be a more expansive competitor than BA. However, it does not have the baggage of legacy carriers. BA management have at least now tackled head on most of the legacy issues and soundings are that there is to be renewed investment in the products and the brand.

[HonestCrew]

Spot on Hippo with
“Ask yourself how many passengers on EK’s MAN-DXB services terminate at DXB and you have your answer as to why it wouldn’t work for BA.”
This is the main point. Emirates use smaller UK cities to ‘scoop up’ their foreign pax to connect through Dubai, BA scoop up the same way with many non-hub cities around europe to connect through LHR.

BA’s old Manchester to Islamabad route had to be cut for this exact reason.

[HonestCrew]

Also,
£500 million to be spent soon on BA rebranding.
Watch this space.

[VintageKrug]

It’s more of a relaunch/reposition of the brand rather than a re-brand per se.

We will slowly see those changes coming through in the next few months.

[HonestCrew]

Maybe with a cracking new TV ad such as this famous one from ’94

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8PF8Rek9Ok&feature=related

They could film it in Manchester… to keep ‘the regions’ happy.

A nice rainy one.

[Author]

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