Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21679 posts, RR: 23 Reply 1, posted (1 year 3 weeks 1 day 11 hours ago) and read 4797 times:
Quoting Jackbr (Thread starter): I'm most interested in their LHR routes - apparently there was a LAX-LHR flight operated by BA crew on the ANZ DC-10?
See Reply 14 in this thread re the joint BA/NZ DC-10 operations. BA And The DC-10 (by Scalebuilder Jul 9 2006 in Civil Aviation)
As mentioned, BA sometimes used an NZ DC-10s on other North Atlantic routes. I remember seeing one at Montreal Mirabel (YMX) once operating BA's flight to LHR.
kiwiandrew From New Zealand, joined Jun 2005, 8435 posts, RR: 14 Reply 4, posted (1 year 3 weeks 10 hours ago) and read 4088 times:
Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 1): As mentioned, BA sometimes used an NZ DC-10s on other North Atlantic routes. I remember seeing one at Montreal Mirabel (YMX) once operating BA's flight to LHR.
I have the vague recollection that at one point, to add to the confusion, Natonal Airlines ( NA ) leased in an NZ aircraft as well and that this sometimes appeared at LHR as part of their MIA-LHR service. Can anyone provide confirmation of this, or am I having a senior moment ?
Moderation in all things ... including moderation ;-)
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21679 posts, RR: 23 Reply 6, posted (1 year 3 weeks 10 hours ago) and read 4057 times:
Quoting kiwiandrew (Reply 4): Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 1):
As mentioned, BA sometimes used an NZ DC-10s on other North Atlantic routes. I remember seeing one at Montreal Mirabel (YMX) once operating BA's flight to LHR.
I have the vague recollection that at one point, to add to the confusion, Natonal Airlines ( NA ) leased in an NZ aircraft as well and that this sometimes appeared at LHR as part of their MIA-LHR service. Can anyone provide confirmation of this, or am I having a senior moment ?
Checked a couple of fleet lists and there's no reference to any ex-NZ DC-10s operated by National, unless it may have been a one-shot wet-lease etc.
kiwiandrew From New Zealand, joined Jun 2005, 8435 posts, RR: 14 Reply 7, posted (1 year 3 weeks 9 hours ago) and read 4010 times:
Quoting AeroWesty (Reply 5): Was LAX-FRA in the DC-10 era, or only after the 742s arrived?
Well after the DC-10s left the fleet. IIRC it was around 1988 that both the shortlived weekly DFW service and the FRA services started. The DC-10s had retired a number of years earlier ( the 742s arrived in 1981/82)
Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 6): Checked a couple of fleet lists and there's no reference to any ex-NZ DC-10s operated by National, unless it may have been a one-shot wet-lease etc.
Damn, must be early onset dementia on my part. Thanks.
Moderation in all things ... including moderation ;-)
rutankrd From United Kingdom, joined Sep 2003, 2037 posts, RR: 5 Reply 10, posted (1 year 3 weeks ago) and read 3692 times:
TE001/2 continued LAX- LHR- LAX as BA598/599
Summer 1978 BA begin to use the TE DC10s to Miami 5 weekly and Montreal 3 weekly from Heathrow
Co-incidentally ZK- NZS leased to National from april 1979 - October 1979 - this could mean two TE DC10s working the LHR-MIA-LHR routing on some days for differing airlines !
BA agreement ends October 1980
Air New Zealand start Auckland- Papeete - Los Angeles - Gatwick B742 in own right twice weekly August 1982
kiwiandrew From New Zealand, joined Jun 2005, 8435 posts, RR: 14 Reply 11, posted (1 year 2 weeks 6 days 18 hours ago) and read 3420 times:
Quoting rutankrd (Reply 10): Co-incidentally ZK- NZS leased to National from april 1979 - October 1979 - this could mean two TE DC10s working the LHR-MIA-LHR routing on some days for differing airlines !
Thanks, I was sure that I had not dreamed this up.
Moderation in all things ... including moderation ;-)
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21679 posts, RR: 23 Reply 15, posted (1 year 2 weeks 6 days 12 hours ago) and read 3311 times:
Quoting rutankrd (Reply 14): Prior to the use of the TE DC10 BA operated to LAX via JFK with a 707 !
I thought they were using the Super VC-10 on LHR-JFK-LAX then. It continued to HNL-NAN-SYD. Or did they switch back to a 707 after they ended the South Pacific service?
LHRBFSTrident From UK - Northern Ireland, joined Nov 2006, 632 posts, RR: 0 Reply 18, posted (1 year 2 weeks 6 days 7 hours ago) and read 3041 times:
Quoting rutankrd (Reply 14): Prior to the use of the TE DC10 BA operated to LAX via JFK with a 707 !
So no non stopper.
San Francisco was MORE important to BOAC/BA
That's what I always thought too, but according to my, ahem, Junior Jet Club Log we flew as a family LHR-LAX non-stop on May 24th 1978 on G-BDXE.
On the return all the LAX-LHR flights were oversold, so we were told by the BA staff at LAX to drive to SFO, because there was a 'new' non-stop service that had just started (IIRC only 3x week at that point) so we flew G-BDXB home from SFO on May 31st 1978.
I don't know if that was in addition to the stopping service and/or the rtw service and/or the TE DC-10.
I'm sure SFO was a much more important station to BOAC through the 1960s, but this was BA in the late 1970s which was in its pre-Lord KIng basket-case state. IIRC I read in a previous thread here that SFO saw an interruption in BA service for a period in the mid/late 1970s, but I can't find the post now.
Next up: LAX-LHR NZ002 Y SkyCouch! LHR-LAX NZ001 Y
VV701 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 6679 posts, RR: 17 Reply 20, posted (1 year 2 weeks 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 2666 times:
Quoting cedarjet (Reply 12): Did the TE DC-10 service replace BA metal to LAX or augment existing service?
Here is a description of the operation quoted from:
Gaskell, Keith. "British Airways. Its History, Aitrcraft and Liveries", Airlife Publishing (Shrewsbury, England, 1999) pp 84-5.
"British Airways first use of the DC-10 came about through a leasing arrangement with Air New Zealand (ANZ) which was entered into during the mid 1970s to solve a serious capacity problem on the Heathrow to Los Angeles service [which I believe was previously operated by Boeing 707 320Bs with a restricted passenger load plus luggage but no freight]. To remain competitive with Pan-Am and TWA . . . the airline badly needed to replace its 707s with wide bodies, but 747s were much too big and TriStars just did not have the necessary range. ANZ offered the use of spare DC-10-30 time and agreement was reached through an interchange of aircraft at Los Angeles begining in [1] May 1975 . . .
"Every day ANZ would operate a DC-10 from Aukland to Los Angeles [TE001], whereupon the aircraft would be transferred to British Airways for the service to London [BA598]. Meanwhile another DC-10 would be operating . . . from Heathrow to Los Angeles with BA [BA599] and then on to Aukland for ANZ [TE002].The aircraft remained in full Maori-style livery [with the koru unfurling fern frond symbolising new life on the tail], but between Los Angeles and Heathrow were operated . . . by British Airways' flight and cabin crews.
"DC-10s proved to be ideally suited to the lengthy Los Angeles route with their . . . 24 first and 219 economy seat configuration and their ability to uplift substantial cargo loads. Another benefit to both airlines was the ability to carry passengers [and freight] between London and Aukland on the same aircraft. By 1978 with one year of the . . . agreement still to run British Airways introduced 747s to Los Angeles five days a week and re-deployed the DC-10s onto five Miami and three Montreal services, plus two to Los Angeles [at weekends] in order to feed the aircraft back into ANZ's network.. These revised arrangements increased the amount of DC-10 flying so that . . . two aircraft were being used by British Airways , one quarter of ANZS's fleet. The . . . interchange agreement ended in [30] April 1979."
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21679 posts, RR: 23 Reply 21, posted (1 year 2 weeks 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 2517 times:
Quoting VV701 (Reply 20): To remain competitive with Pan-Am and TWA . . . the airline badly needed to replace its 707s with wide bodies, but 747s were much too big
Why were 747s much too big for BA but not for Pan Am and TWA? Both carriers had daily nonstop 747s LAX-LHR by 1971 or so. I would have thought that BA, with an extensive connecting network beyond LHR, would have been the carrier that could have made the best of use of 747s on that route.
VV701 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 6679 posts, RR: 17 Reply 22, posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 days 22 hours ago) and read 2315 times:
Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 21): Why were 747s much too big for BA but not for Pan Am and TWA?
As I indicated those were the words of Ian Gaskell. So I can only guess. Perhaps it was because those were the days when BA was controlled by the British government and many considered that 'BA' stood for 'Bxxxxx Awful'. There was even a school of thought that the (temporary) switch from 'British Airways' to 'British' branding:
starting in June 1980 (when the first aircraft ,741 G-AWNC, was rolled out with 'British' titles) and ending in December 1984 (when 732 G-BKYG was rolled out in Landor livery with restored 'British Airways' branding) was to avoid this connotation in the lead up to privatisatrion of the airline. If this was the case then BA might have been a poor third on the LHR-LAX route.
Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 21): I would have thought that BA, with an extensive connecting network beyond LHR, would have been the carrier that could have made the best of use of 747s on that route.
Again I do not know. However back in those days my recollection is that generally passenger feed into hubs was strategically very much less developed and sophisticated than it is today. In this specific case it is worth rememmbering that we are talking of 1975 and that BA was only formed by the merger of the short haul operations of BEA and the long haul operations of BOAC in April 1974. Also the American LHR operators had been operating what were defined specifically as feeder flights that were integrated into their trans-Atlantic operations from LHR since well before that date:
So I am guessing that a perceived advantage that BA might have had with its newly extended network was more than balanced by the focus of their Americamn competitors in providing feed at LHR with their fleets of European based short haul aircraft.
Viscount724 From Switzerland, joined Oct 2006, 21679 posts, RR: 23 Reply 23, posted (1 year 2 weeks 4 days 10 hours ago) and read 2134 times:
Quoting VV701 (Reply 22): Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 21):
I would have thought that BA, with an extensive connecting network beyond LHR, would have been the carrier that could have made the best of use of 747s on that route.
Again I do not know. However back in those days my recollection is that generally passenger feed into hubs was strategically very much less developed and sophisticated than it is today. In this specific case it is worth rememmbering that we are talking of 1975 and that BA was only formed by the merger of the short haul operations of BEA and the long haul operations of BOAC in April 1974. Also the American LHR operators had been operating what were defined specifically as feeder flights that were integrated into their trans-Atlantic operations from LHR since well before that date:
So I am guessing that a perceived advantage that BA might have had with its newly extended network was more than balanced by the focus of their American competitors in providing feed at LHR with their fleets of European based short haul aircraft.
Pan Am's and TWA's own 5th freedom feed at LHR was very minimal compared to the huge BA/BEA combined network, both longhaul and shorthaul. Looking at 1972 and 1973 TWA and Pan Am timetables, Pan Am only had 5 daily eastbound departures from LHR, including 2 to FRA and 1 each to AMS/CPH/HAM. TWA's only 5th freedom service east of LHR comprised 2 daily flights to FRA.
However, in those days of government ownership, many BA decisions were questionable.
VV701 From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2005, 6679 posts, RR: 17 Reply 24, posted (1 year 2 weeks 3 days 22 hours ago) and read 1975 times:
Quoting Viscount724 (Reply 23): However, in those days of government ownership, many BA decisions were questionable.
Is this relevant to what we are discussing?. You say "Pan Am's and TWA's own 5th freedom feed at LHR was very minimal compared to the huge BA/BEA combined network". My response is to ask what combined network? Was there any such thing at the time of the agreement to use ANZ DC-10s on BA's LAX-LHR-LAX rotation? I do not think there was.
My guess was made in the knowledge that the formation of British Airways in April 1974 was little if anything more than a political and branding exercise. It did not result in the integration of BEA, BOAC and British Air Services into a single operational unit. This did not occur until three years later in April 1977. Then a major reorganisation took place. At long last this reorganisation integrated what had been known for three years as British Airways European Division (previously to that, BEA), British Airways Overseas Division (BOAC) and British Airways Regional Division (British Air Services comprising Cambrian Airways, Northeasrt Airlines, BEA Scottish Airways and BEA Channel Islands Division).
This 1974 establishment of three independent operational divisions of what was named "British Airways" was emphasised by the livery worn by the aircraft operated by BA RD. The names of their former operating airlines persisted on all their aircraft even after they were re-branded with the BA Negus & Negus livery. 'cambrian', 'northeast', 'scottish' or 'channel islands' titles were painted on their aircrafts' lower forward fuselages. This distinguished them from the former BEA fleet which also operated both Viscounts and Tridents, the types operated by BA RD. It is illustrative of how fragmented BA was in the first three years of its existence.
The 1977 integration did not occur until the arrangement between BA OD and ANZ had been operation for two of its four years. It included for the first time the establishment of single operational functional-based departments to control all aspects of BA's operation. They ranged from Flight Operations to Engineering. Until then they had remained very much as they had been before the 1974 merger. Until 1977 Flight Operations in BA ED and BA OD had been separate. So could there have been a "combined" network?
As I see it UNTIL 1977 very few of the potential advantages of the 1974 merger had been exploited. And my guess is that at long last this integration and the establishment of a combined network for the first time could well have been one factor that resulted in the growth in passenger numbers on BA's LHR / LAX route that in turn resulted in the ANZ DC-10s being replaced by BA 747s a little under 12 months later.
On the other hand the PA and TW fleets of short haul aircraft operating into LHR from continental Europe served and had served for many years just a single purpose. It was to feed these airlines passengers for its trans Atlantic flights. Unlike BA's, their short haul and long haul operations were clearly very integratred. So yes, there were relatively few such flights. But every single passenger on those flights boarded one of their trans Atlantic flights after arriving at LHR.
There is no reason to doubt what Mr Gaskell wrote. The "Acknowledgements" section of his book starts:
"A project such as this can only be tackled successfully with a great deal of help and encouragement and my thanks go to the many people from British Airways . . . who have given me every possible support."
He then goes on to thank specific individuals ranging from some working for "BA Operations Control" to the "BA Archive and Museum Collection".
Of course, as I clearly stated, my comments were no more than guesses that fit what I know of the situation back in the mid 70s. They may be wrong. But I cannot see any reason to think that the ANZ arrangement was done for purely political reasons which is what I think you may be obliquely suggesting. Is there any alternative possibility?
25 tayser: slightly off topic, but KLM in MEL back in the day.... wowsers, blast from the past.
26 Viscount724: Not correct..PA and TW carried a lot of local 5th freedom traffic between LHR and Europe on those flights also. You're overlooking that BA and BEA in
27 bobnwa: I remember being a pass rider on a NZ DC10 from HNL to LAX during the late 70"s
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