Britair From United Kingdom, joined Aug 1999, 933 posts, RR: 17 Posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 14 hours ago) and read 2620 times:
British Airways is to begin flying from London City Airport for the first time as it takes further steps towards simplifying and strengthening its UK regional operation.
British Airways CitiExpress, a wholly owned subsidiary of British Airways, will start operating from London City in April 2003 with the launch of three new routes to Frankfurt, Glasgow and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
Using RJ100 aircraft, the new London City routes are aimed primarily at the European and domestic business markets. In addition British Airways will give its key Manchester network a major boost with the introduction of three new routes and extra capacity, to be announced in the New Year.
Strategy
British Airways CitiExpress has also signed a heads of terms with Eastern Airways with the intention of transferring its 12 strong fleet of 29-seater Jetstream 41s and its associated engineering hangar at Glasgow to the Humberside-based airline. This will be the first part of an accelerated strategy to move to an all jet regional operation.
British Airways CitiExpress plans to withdraw from 21 regional routes and will no longer fly from Cardiff and Leeds-Bradford airports.
Eastern Airways plans to operate routes from Leeds Bradford to Aberdeen, Southampton and Isle of Man; Newcastle to Birmingham, Aberdeen, Southampton.
David Evans, British Airways general manager UK business, said: "As part of our own regional Future Size and Shape review in April we said that we needed to simplify and strengthen our business.
Key challenges
"One of the key challenges in achieving a more efficient business is in reducing the number of different types of aircraft we have in our fleet. Accelerating our move to an all jet fleet will help improve our operational and financial performance in the coming years.
"It will also allow us to concentrate our efforts on key markets and launch new routes which customers have been asking for. We are delighted to be launching three routes from London City Airport as well as some more regional routes. We are also planning to add extra frequencies to certain markets from April 2003.
"The proposed withdrawal of all services from Cardiff and Leeds-Bradford has been a tough decision to take but it was crucial to underpin the rest of the operation as we move forward.
"Due to redeployment opportunities within the company and the proposed transfer of some employees to Eastern we hope the overall impact on job numbers will be minimised. This will be the subject of consultation with our staff representatives and trade union partners in the coming weeks."
Growing network
Richard Lake, Eastern Airways managing director, said: "We look forward to finalising the deal and serving passengers on six new routes as well as using all of the 12 additional Jetstream 41s to help support our growing network."
British Airways CitiExpress carried a total of 5.5 million passengers to and from the UK regions and Europe in 2001/2.
The new routes from Manchester and the extra frequencies and capacity which will be added from April 2003 will be announced in the New Year.
(I know the aspects of the route transfers were posted but thought I would post the whole thing including the LCY routes and Eastern Airways deal. Cheers )
GKirk From UK - Scotland, joined Jun 2000, 24627 posts, RR: 58 Reply 1, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 14 hours ago) and read 2598 times:
BA, the airline for 3 cities.
Thank God Eastern are taking over, they should become the National Carrier now...British Airways dont seem to know what there doing, especially as they reorganised the routes only 4 months ago...
When you hear the noise of the Tartan Army Boys, we'll be coming down the road!
Britair From United Kingdom, joined Aug 1999, 933 posts, RR: 17 Reply 2, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 14 hours ago) and read 2586 times:
Come on! What do you expect with Easy/Go, bmiBaby, Ryanair, Buzz etc etc all over the UK regional scene now???!!!!!!!! BA used to operate a comprehensive (and profitable) regional network, but times have changed.
We can't win!! First BA is criticised for monopoly, high fares, saturation etc etc ,then the low fare carriers arrive and we're still criticised because we cannot compete on price and rationalise our network!!
David_itl From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2001, 7168 posts, RR: 14 Reply 5, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 13 hours ago) and read 2551 times:
Got to give them a bit of credit here: it does look as though MAN is get the "treatment" in transforming their operations here into a "real" hub: more destinations & greater frequencies should, in theory, provide a better backdrop for an enhanced MAN long-haul strategy in a few years time.
Groobster From United Kingdom, joined May 2001, 310 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 10 hours ago) and read 2421 times:
Who wants to bet that BA GLA-LCY wont work...especially with RJ100s...
Ever tried doing Glasgow to London on the train? Its the journey from hell!
Someone in my office has just booked Manchester to London Euston return on the train, £265!
The more flights the better as far as I'm concerned, and if BA price it right and get the timing correct, I'm sure it will work as the rail network is poor.
RayChuang From United States of America, joined Jun 2000, 7716 posts, RR: 5 Reply 11, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 9 hours ago) and read 2366 times:
Groobster,
Given the state of passenger rail in the UK, I would rather fly GLA-LCY on an Avro RJ85/100 than take the train! This isn't like in France or Germany, where passenger railroads are fast and convenient.
Backfire From Germany, joined Oct 2006, 0 posts, RR: 0 Reply 14, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 7 hours ago) and read 2297 times:
"BA to launch new routes from London City" ?
I can't believe you fell for the spin on that headline.
BA to launch a couple of poxy routes -- er, by the way, we're getting shot of 20+ other routes, a dozen aircraft, putting a few jobs on the line just before Christmas...
Arsenal@LHR From United Kingdom, joined Mar 2001, 7791 posts, RR: 22 Reply 15, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 7 hours ago) and read 2285 times:
I'd rather fly to Glasgow from London than take the train anyday. Now we have a choice of all the 5 London airports to get to GLA. LGW,LTN,LHR,STN and now LCY.
David_itl From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2001, 7168 posts, RR: 14 Reply 16, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 7 hours ago) and read 2273 times:
If I were a betting man, I'd make a beeline for the bookies now and lay on a bet for a MAN-Pisa service....as one of their bods just been on Northwest Tonight, not allowed to reveal destinations but "Italy" may well be one of the countries. Interviewer said, "Will it be Pisa?" Answer = "Pisa is in Italy!"
Britair From United Kingdom, joined Aug 1999, 933 posts, RR: 17 Reply 17, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 7 hours ago) and read 2266 times:
GKirk, I hardly think comparing the ScotAirways and British Airways scenario is valid or fair! They are two very different companies, needless to say BA has a much stronger brand and greater resources. Also ScotAirways decided to put all its resources into LCY-EDI instead of half the schedule to EDI and half to GLA. This made the LCY-EDI route more of a frequent shuttle type operation.
Britair From United Kingdom, joined Aug 1999, 933 posts, RR: 17 Reply 20, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 6 hours ago) and read 2262 times:
Backfire, London City Airport has been built up to be an important and in many cases very profitable destination (just ask VLM, ScotAirways, Swiss, Aer Lingus, Augsburg Airways etc etc), so it was a natural progression rather than a "poxy" decision, especially in light of the rapid expansion of Canary Wharf and the Docklands.
The loss of regional routes is more down to the fact that the Jetstream 41's are being withdrawn. This is in line with the CitiExpress strategy of becoming an all jet operations asap. This isnt so unusual in the regional airline game, as you no doubt appreciate. Finally, job losses are not nice ever, but as far as I know everyone concerned will be offered relocation or positions with Eastern Airways. OK, not ideal you might say but better than a P45 and a pat on the back! Stations like Leeds have never had BA staff in them (we are handled by Servisair), so it is not as drastic as it sounds.
John walton From United Kingdom, joined Nov 2000, 117 posts, RR: 0 Reply 21, posted (10 years 6 months 1 week 4 hours ago) and read 2208 times:
NCL has dedicated British Airways check-in agents, and staff who work in the British Airways executive lounge. Will these jobs still be justified for LGW,LHR and BRS rotations?
Does anyone know whether T3 will be using their own check-in staff or BAs? I know at MME they use BMIs check-in staff, but (I guess) handling options are slightly more restrictive at MME.
I don't think BAs removal of regional routes was simply down to them phasing out propjets such as the J41. If this was the case they could have reduced frequencies and used larger aircraft. It's more a move towards hub operations in London and Manchester. I guess they feel concentrating operations will be more profitable. We'll see.
As for the train fare thing, its like anything, if you book in advance you can get a good fare. I travelled on Virgin Trains just last month between Newcastle and Bristol for just £40 return, which is about £100 less than BA were offering by air. Granted the train takes longer, but on the new LCY-GLA route BA will quickly be substituting turbo props. Again, we'll see.
On the whole though, I think the break up of BAs "monopoly" at the regional airports is good news for pax.
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