Per this link, BA is not resuming OAK in 2019. Excuse me why I keel over in shock.

https://www.routesonline.com/news/38/ai ... on-in-s19/

I’m sorry to see it didn’t work, but not surprised. Hopefully BA will make SJC work long term.

It doesn't surprise me at all. First of all, I think the 777-200ER was WAY too big for that market. I think a 787-8 would have been the best (Does BA have 787-8's?) I took a snapshot of the waiting area for a BA flight to LGW back in May and the crowd was pretty dismal. I really think Norwegian took the cake on that route!

wedgetail737 wrote:

It doesn't surprise me at all. First of all, I think the 777-200ER was WAY too big for that market. I think a 787-8 would have been the best (Does BA have 787-8's?) I took a snapshot of the waiting area for a BA flight to LGW back in May and the crowd was pretty dismal. I really think Norwegian took the cake on that route!

They have 788's but they don't use them at LGW.

Sad but not really surprising. Amazing how so many people on the forum defend that this flight was a for sure thing coming back. I love OAK but the writing was on the wall.

Norwegian ran them out of Oakland pure and simple....

It's actually good news that BA as well as Level are leaving OAK. They were only there to put Norwegian out of business--absolutely no other reason that BA and Level started flying to OAK.. Now the Norwegian routes to LHR and BCN will be more profitable. Of course everything may be lost if Norwegian goes under.

Do they really need OAK? Seems like SFO is much more lucrative with multiple daily flights and even A380s in the summer. Plus SJC seems to be holding its own. I would guess BA pulls some premium traffic out of the Bay Area which has to be better then the back of the plane travelers looking for the cheapest fare.

Not a shock but definitely good news for Norwegian. Perhaps it will return in the future with a smaller plane (788) to a different/more attractive airport (LHR), but serving all three airports does seem a little excessive for a carrier like BA.

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

Sad but not really surprising. Amazing how so many people on the forum defend that this flight was a for sure thing coming back. I love OAK but the writing was on the wall.

It wasn't necessarily a bad idea. OAK is actually pretty convenient to San Francisco itself by BART. It's the closest major airport to wine country. It's only marginally farther to Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Big Sur than SFO is (SJC is closer to those attractions though).

OAK is not a bad gateway for people visiting Northern California for tourism. It also serves a large population base. Not necessarily a bad idea for someone to launch a leisure oriented route to OAK, just apparently didn't work.

On the flip side of a flight in doubt of coming back, people thought for sure the LH SJC-FRA flight wouldn't come back this year. It did.

Happy to see BA go - as some say they were only there to fight DY.
On the other hand, sorry to see LEVEL go...their BCN service was convenient and prices were good, especially for Y+.

Makes me wonder if BA will hang around on LGW-FLL with DY beefing up there as well.

oldannyboy wrote:

Happy to see BA go - as some say they were only there to fight DY.
On the other hand, sorry to see LEVEL go...their BCN service was convenient and prices were good, especially for Y+.

Not really a loss to see Level go since Norwegian also operates Oakland - Barcelona. And let's not forget, the reason Level was set up in the first place was to fight Norwegian off. But as Level is generally more expensive than Norwegian and has now moved over to the primary airport they cater to a different market.

BoeingGuy wrote:

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

Sad but not really surprising. Amazing how so many people on the forum defend that this flight was a for sure thing coming back. I love OAK but the writing was on the wall.

It wasn't necessarily a bad idea. OAK is actually pretty convenient to San Francisco itself by BART. It's the closest major airport to wine country. It's only marginally farther to Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Big Sur than SFO is (SJC is closer to those attractions though).

OAK is not a bad gateway for people visiting Northern California for tourism. It also serves a large population base. Not necessarily a bad idea for someone to launch a leisure oriented route to OAK, just apparently didn't work.

On the flip side of a flight in doubt of coming back, people thought for sure the LH SJC-FRA flight wouldn't come back this year. It did.

Very true about the LH SJC flight. That flight (to me) doesn't seem to be in risk because the route itself isn't good, but more because of the product being flown.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

oldannyboy wrote:

Happy to see BA go - as some say they were only there to fight DY.
On the other hand, sorry to see LEVEL go...their BCN service was convenient and prices were good, especially for Y+.

Not really a loss to see Level go since Norwegian also operates Oakland - Barcelona. And let's not forget, the reason Level was set up in the first place was to fight Norwegian off. But as Level is generally more expensive than Norwegian and has now moved over to the primary airport they cater to a different market.

Makes me wonder what is going on with OAK if everyone is looking at jumping ship? I totally believe OAK is capable on handling international service like this and would be very sad to see what has built up there over the last 5 years all disappear

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

BoeingGuy wrote:

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

Sad but not really surprising. Amazing how so many people on the forum defend that this flight was a for sure thing coming back. I love OAK but the writing was on the wall.

It wasn't necessarily a bad idea. OAK is actually pretty convenient to San Francisco itself by BART. It's the closest major airport to wine country. It's only marginally farther to Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Big Sur than SFO is (SJC is closer to those attractions though).

OAK is not a bad gateway for people visiting Northern California for tourism. It also serves a large population base. Not necessarily a bad idea for someone to launch a leisure oriented route to OAK, just apparently didn't work.

On the flip side of a flight in doubt of coming back, people thought for sure the LH SJC-FRA flight wouldn't come back this year. It did.

Very true about the LH SJC flight. That flight (to me) doesn't seem to be in risk because the route itself isn't good, but more because of the product being flown.

What's wrong with the product?

Brickell305 wrote:

Makes me wonder if BA will hang around on LGW-FLL with DY beefing up there as well.

Also wonder what, if anything, will happen to LGW-TPA now that both are competing directly.

axiom wrote:

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

BoeingGuy wrote:

It wasn't necessarily a bad idea. OAK is actually pretty convenient to San Francisco itself by BART. It's the closest major airport to wine country. It's only marginally farther to Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Big Sur than SFO is (SJC is closer to those attractions though).

OAK is not a bad gateway for people visiting Northern California for tourism. It also serves a large population base. Not necessarily a bad idea for someone to launch a leisure oriented route to OAK, just apparently didn't work.

On the flip side of a flight in doubt of coming back, people thought for sure the LH SJC-FRA flight wouldn't come back this year. It did.

Very true about the LH SJC flight. That flight (to me) doesn't seem to be in risk because the route itself isn't good, but more because of the product being flown.

What's wrong with the product?

It's Lufthansa Cityline and not the normal Lufthansa aircraft. A few slight differences, but just another ding in my book. Wish they would put the normal Lufthansa planes on this route.

axiom wrote:

What's wrong with the product?

Too expensive maybe. Flying a route costs a lot of money and if you don't haul enough passengers or they don't pay enough you make a loss on it.

It seemed a little doomed from the start, going against Norwegian pricing. I never noticed BA attempting to offer one way pricing on the route; when I was booking tickets for my parents they could fly Norwegian premium for ~$700 or BA economy for $1800. Easy decision.

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

PatrickZ80 wrote:

oldannyboy wrote:

Happy to see BA go - as some say they were only there to fight DY.
On the other hand, sorry to see LEVEL go...their BCN service was convenient and prices were good, especially for Y+.

Not really a loss to see Level go since Norwegian also operates Oakland - Barcelona. And let's not forget, the reason Level was set up in the first place was to fight Norwegian off. But as Level is generally more expensive than Norwegian and has now moved over to the primary airport they cater to a different market.

Makes me wonder what is going on with OAK if everyone is looking at jumping ship? I totally believe OAK is capable on handling international service like this and would be very sad to see what has built up there over the last 5 years all disappear

Eh hopefully it's just a slight correction to some recent over-exuberance. If Norwegian goes under, then all bets are off.

I am surprised this did not last. It is probably the case of having better use/better financial return elsewhere. The Bay Area is a large population, lots of money, but hopefully Norwegian can stick around and this isn't a more macro turn down for the long haul market.

reality wrote:

It's actually good news that BA as well as Level are leaving OAK. They were only there to put Norwegian out of business--absolutely no other reason that BA and Level started flying to OAK.. Now the Norwegian routes to LHR and BCN will be more profitable. Of course everything may be lost if Norwegian goes under.

That's probably true for BA, however, LEVEL has a similar business model to Norwegian, so I don't think Norwegian was taking all that many customers from LEVEL.

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

axiom wrote:

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

Very true about the LH SJC flight. That flight (to me) doesn't seem to be in risk because the route itself isn't good, but more because of the product being flown.

What's wrong with the product?

It's Lufthansa Cityline and not the normal Lufthansa aircraft. A few slight differences, but just another ding in my book. Wish they would put the normal Lufthansa planes on this route.

There is no difference in the product. It is exactly the same.

This OAK flight from LGW might be moved to SFO.

[twoid][/twoid]

777-500er wrote:

This OAK flight from LGW might be moved to SFO.

Ok I'm curious, is this speculation, or do you know something more?

Cheers

Ben

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

axiom wrote:

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

Very true about the LH SJC flight. That flight (to me) doesn't seem to be in risk because the route itself isn't good, but more because of the product being flown.

What's wrong with the product?

It's Lufthansa Cityline and not the normal Lufthansa aircraft. A few slight differences, but just another ding in my book. Wish they would put the normal Lufthansa planes on this route.

I thought I read that it will be changed to LH, maybe with the retirement of the A-340s?

Brickell305 wrote:

Makes me wonder if BA will hang around on LGW-FLL with DY beefing up there as well.

I was wondering the same thing with BA and AA (along with Virgin) having flights to LHR out of MIA.

AirFiero wrote:

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

axiom wrote:

What's wrong with the product?

It's Lufthansa Cityline and not the normal Lufthansa aircraft. A few slight differences, but just another ding in my book. Wish they would put the normal Lufthansa planes on this route.

I thought I read that it will be changed to LH, maybe with the retirement of the A-340s?

All CL 340s are returning to mainline.

777-500er wrote:

This OAK flight from LGW might be moved to SFO.

Problematic of having many flights bunched together at SFO. You already have flights from SFO to the London airports, on various carriers. OAK at least meant some relief from that, as well as providing convenience for those in the East Bay. Kind of defeats the purpose, by moving it to SFO.

I'm surprised none of the international LLCs have tried SJC. It's only about 35 miles from SFO. While SJC is thus 35 miles farther from the city of San Francisco and Napa and Sonoma Wine Country, it's closer to other attractions like Paso Robles Wine Country, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, Yosemite, etc.

axiom wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

It's Lufthansa Cityline and not the normal Lufthansa aircraft. A few slight differences, but just another ding in my book. Wish they would put the normal Lufthansa planes on this route.

I thought I read that it will be changed to LH, maybe with the retirement of the A-340s?

All CL 340s are returning to mainline.

Well that is great news indeed. I flew the cityline product out of SJC last year and it is definitely was not the same from the food to the level of crew service as their product out of SFO. Glad it is being changed!

CrawleyBen wrote:

[twoid][/twoid]

777-500er wrote:

This OAK flight from LGW might be moved to SFO.

Ok I'm curious, is this speculation, or do you know something more?

Cheers

Ben

I haven't heard anything about a BA move to SFO but I have heard from a friend who works for a ground handling company at SFO that Norwegian is looking at running flight ops out of SFO in summer 2019. No idea if that is new flights or at the cost of OAK service, but they were over at SFO the other week interviewing ground handlers o.0

Hope that doesn't come at the cost of OAK

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

CrawleyBen wrote:

[twoid][/twoid]

777-500er wrote:

This OAK flight from LGW might be moved to SFO.

Ok I'm curious, is this speculation, or do you know something more?

Cheers

Ben

I haven't heard anything about a BA move to SFO but I have heard from a friend who works for a ground handling company at SFO that Norwegian is looking at running flight ops out of SFO in summer 2019. No idea if that is new flights or at the cost of OAK service, but they were over at SFO the other week interviewing grand handlers o.0

Hope that doesn't come at the cost of OAK

I'm in regular contact with Norwegian though my work at Gatwick, so will post if I hear anything official from the airline itself.

Cheers

Ben

dfwjim1 wrote:

Brickell305 wrote:

Makes me wonder if BA will hang around on LGW-FLL with DY beefing up there as well.

I was wondering the same thing with BA and AA (along with Virgin) having flights to LHR out of MIA.

I genuinely don't see what BA gains with the flight. They started it after Norwegian began LGW-FLL I guess as a way to take them on directly. However, it really only serves as a cheaper way to get between So. Fla and London than their MIA-LHR service. And now it's not even preventing DY from expanding.

axiom wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

It's Lufthansa Cityline and not the normal Lufthansa aircraft. A few slight differences, but just another ding in my book. Wish they would put the normal Lufthansa planes on this route.

I thought I read that it will be changed to LH, maybe with the retirement of the A-340s?

All CL 340s are returning to mainline.

So LH is keeping them? I assume they will be repainted in LH colors? That would be nice to see at SJC!

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

axiom wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

I thought I read that it will be changed to LH, maybe with the retirement of the A-340s?

All CL 340s are returning to mainline.

Well that is great news indeed. I flew the cityline product out of SJC last year and it is definitely was not the same from the food to the level of crew service as their product out of SFO. Glad it is being changed!

I can say, 100%, that it has always been the same. They are literally the same hard and soft product, and the inflight crew are mainline FAs

AirFiero wrote:

axiom wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

I thought I read that it will be changed to LH, maybe with the retirement of the A-340s?

All CL 340s are returning to mainline.

So LH is keeping them? I assume they will be repainted in LH colors? That would be nice to see at SJC!

Not sure about the painting. They may add LH titles back, at least. Essentially the only thing that is definitively changing is the pilots: mainline will now fly the birds, rather than CL pilots. And the flight numbers, of course!

BoeingGuy wrote:

I'm surprised none of the international LLCs have tried SJC. It's only about 35 miles from SFO. While SJC is thus 35 miles farther from the city of San Francisco and Napa and Sonoma Wine Country, it's closer to other attractions like Paso Robles Wine Country, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, Yosemite, etc.

It's a little weird there's more Asia service than Europe; are there any other US airports like that?

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

PatrickZ80 wrote:

oldannyboy wrote:

Happy to see BA go - as some say they were only there to fight DY.
On the other hand, sorry to see LEVEL go...their BCN service was convenient and prices were good, especially for Y+.

Not really a loss to see Level go since Norwegian also operates Oakland - Barcelona. And let's not forget, the reason Level was set up in the first place was to fight Norwegian off. But as Level is generally more expensive than Norwegian and has now moved over to the primary airport they cater to a different market.

Makes me wonder what is going on with OAK if everyone is looking at jumping ship? I totally believe OAK is capable on handling international service like this and would be very sad to see what has built up there over the last 5 years all disappear

The ONLY problem with Oakland? Is that SFO is across the Bay and accessible by BART.. Had Ih3 I-380 bridge been started and completed? OAK and SFO would have been the East and West Terminals to the San Francisco Bay and would have been better to and for the Bay area than either would be alone.

axiom wrote:

BayAreaFan0 wrote:

axiom wrote:

All CL 340s are returning to mainline.

Well that is great news indeed. I flew the cityline product out of SJC last year and it is definitely was not the same from the food to the level of crew service as their product out of SFO. Glad it is being changed!

I can say, 100%, that it has always been the same. They are literally the same hard and soft product, and the inflight crew are mainline FAs

Interesting as that was not my experience. I usually fly from the bay to Germany 5x-6x a year. Maybe it was more of a difference between the A380 vs the A340? Or maybe it was an off day? I am not sure. I live closer to SJC but after my experience with the cityline flight I choose to drive further to SFO for the flight. If stuff has changed I would be willing to try SJC again.

If Norwegian starts ops out of SFO hopefully it’ll be new routes like MAD and MXP!

ucdtim17 wrote:

BoeingGuy wrote:

I'm surprised none of the international LLCs have tried SJC. It's only about 35 miles from SFO. While SJC is thus 35 miles farther from the city of San Francisco and Napa and Sonoma Wine Country, it's closer to other attractions like Paso Robles Wine Country, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, Yosemite, etc.

It's a little weird there's more Asia service than Europe; are there any other US airports like that?

I’d guess it’s the tech connection. Stronger ties to Asia than Europe?

AirFiero wrote:

ucdtim17 wrote:

BoeingGuy wrote:

I'm surprised none of the international LLCs have tried SJC. It's only about 35 miles from SFO. While SJC is thus 35 miles farther from the city of San Francisco and Napa and Sonoma Wine Country, it's closer to other attractions like Paso Robles Wine Country, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, Yosemite, etc.

It's a little weird there's more Asia service than Europe; are there any other US airports like that?

I’d guess it’s the tech connection. Stronger ties to Asia than Europe?

There is a huge Asian population in the San Jose metro area plus SJ is not a tourist destination like San Francisco is.

I don't think it was OAK that made this route not work - but LGW. That said, OAK-LHR wouldn't really add any value to the market pair that an additional SFO-LHR wouldn't take care of. And yes, LHR slots are few and far between.

btbx11 wrote:

I don't think it was OAK that made this route not work - but LGW. That said, OAK-LHR wouldn't really add any value to the market pair that an additional SFO-LHR wouldn't take care of. And yes, LHR slots are few and far between.

I agree. The difference between BA and Norwegian, apart from the price, is that Norwegian offers connections in Gatwick where BA doesn't. This makes the BA flights rely 100% on local demand while the Norwegian planes can capture some transfer demand to/from mainland Europe.

Of course Gatwick isn't the only European airport that Norwegian serves from Oakland, there are more. That might be a problem for Norwegian, the passengers spread out over too many flights.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

I agree. The difference between BA and Norwegian, apart from the price, is that Norwegian offers connections in Gatwick where BA doesn't. This makes the BA flights rely 100% on local demand while the Norwegian planes can capture some transfer demand to/from mainland Europe.

Did that come out the way you intended? BA have over 80 flights a day out of Gatwick most of which are European or domestic. Their flight from Oakland arrives at 09:40 local, so most of the flights are available and bookable as connections. Norwegian have more like 50 flights a day, and their Oakland flight lands at lunchtime after many of these have departed. Or were you thinking of the tie up with Easyjet? Those aren't true connections in the same way. Connect BA to BA on the same ticket and you have baggage transferred between flights, and use the international transit facility and dedicated transit security within the same terminal without crossing the UK border (unless you're connecting to a domestic flight, obviously - even then the baggage is transferred). Connect Norwegian to Norwegian and the same applies - they have no UK domestic flights though. But connect Norwegian to Easyjet and you need to cross the UK border, reclaim your baggage, hand it back over at the Gatwick Connects desk in the baggage hall, make your way landside to North Terminal on the inter-terminal train and pass through security with everyone else.

Edited to add - BA have 618 departure slots a week at Gatwick, so an average of 88 departures a day. Norwegian has 341 departure slots a week, averaging 49 departures a day, both in the peak weeks of summer season.

Andy33 wrote:

PatrickZ80 wrote:

I agree. The difference between BA and Norwegian, apart from the price, is that Norwegian offers connections in Gatwick where BA doesn't. This makes the BA flights rely 100% on local demand while the Norwegian planes can capture some transfer demand to/from mainland Europe.

Did that come out the way you intended? BA have over 80 flights a day out of Gatwick most of which are European or domestic. Their flight from Oakland arrives at 09:40 local, so most of the flights are available and bookable as connections. Norwegian have more like 50 flights a day, and their Oakland flight lands at lunchtime after many of these have departed. Or were you thinking of the tie up with Easyjet? Those aren't true connections in the same way. Connect BA to BA on the same ticket and you have baggage transferred between flights, and use the international transit facility and dedicated transit security within the same terminal without crossing the UK border (unless you're connecting to a domestic flight, obviously - even then the baggage is transferred). Connect Norwegian to Norwegian and the same applies - they have no UK domestic flights though. But connect Norwegian to Easyjet and you need to cross the UK border, reclaim your baggage, hand it back over at the Gatwick Connects desk in the baggage hall, make your way landside to North Terminal on the inter-terminal train and pass through security with everyone else.

Edited to add - BA have 618 departure slots a week at Gatwick, so an average of 88 departures a day. Norwegian has 341 departure slots a week, averaging 49 departures a day, both in the peak weeks of summer season.

I think there were just too much capacity on the route out of OAK.

dfwjim1 wrote:

AirFiero wrote:

ucdtim17 wrote:

It's a little weird there's more Asia service than Europe; are there any other US airports like that?

I’d guess it’s the tech connection. Stronger ties to Asia than Europe?

There is a huge Asian population in the San Jose metro area plus SJ is not a tourist destination like San Francisco is.

I had described in my previous post how SJ is closer to many tourist attraction and only marginally farther to some others than SFO is. It would be very viable to use SJC as a gateway for tourism in the area.

ucdtim17 wrote:

BoeingGuy wrote:

I'm surprised none of the international LLCs have tried SJC. It's only about 35 miles from SFO. While SJC is thus 35 miles farther from the city of San Francisco and Napa and Sonoma Wine Country, it's closer to other attractions like Paso Robles Wine Country, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, Yosemite, etc.

It's a little weird there's more Asia service than Europe; are there any other US airports like that?

SJC has 2 flights to Europe and 3 to Asia. I don’t believe PVG is daily either. It really isn’t that much of a difference.

SLC is at the extreme though. Up to 4 flights to Europe and none to Asia.

If BA leaves OAK, then it might be good for it to check how viable is a LGW-SMF.
SMF might well be marketed as yet another Bay Area / Napa region airport as OAK.