Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:08 am
I found it very interesting when I read that BA was not selling UVF-TAB routings on their new tag flights linking the islands. BA do have the legacy route rights to link the islands (a BOAC inheritance). Perhaps as was mentioned earlier they decided not to apply to activate the rights and link the islands or, if that was not an issue, they felt that the market was not large enough to actively promote. It's a pity though as the T&T - St Lucia market stands to lose a lot of capacity. BW currently fly POS-SLU 3/week if I have it right, I suspect they would try to move back to daily in short order. One also wonders whether, if the market suggests the capacity would be useful, BA would later apply for revenue operations on the route.
I have flown BA on the LGW-ANU-TAB on a few occasions as a cheaper alternative to flying into POS. The ANU-TAB and vice-versa always had a few people solely on the sector so there was consistently some traffic. The issue here may have been the changes in the POS-ANU air services over the years. BWIA always operated at least one jet flight daily between the islands, latterly alternating between KIN services 5x weekly and LHR 2x weekly with flights to YYZ, JFK and MIA in previous years. When Caribbean Airlines (BW) came in, though, KIN flights became a mix of nonstops and 1-stops via ANU, SXM and BGI and LHR was ended. It thus meant that ANU had just 2 or at most 3 weekly POS services from BW. LI by then had 2 daily ANU-POS (1 nonstop, the other via SLU ironically enough) and so had their own market presence. In spite of that the ANU-TAB held its own, perhaps due to the lower BW capacity impacting the market.
BTW POS-LGW is 3-weekly following the switch, I had a look recently.
Trintocan.
