Quoting anstar (Reply 8):
London Heathrow – Los Angeles Service reduced from 2 to 1 daily during following:
18NOV13 – 11DEC13 VS023/024 Cancelled
19JAN14 – 19FEB14 VS007/008 Cancelled
20FEB14 – 09MAR14 VS023/024 Cancelled |
Cancelling flights to and from
LHR like this for part of the Winter timetable is a common ploy used by both
LHR based airlines,
BA and
VS. The EU regulations specify that slots not used on at least 80 per cent of occasions in any given season will be confiscated and redistributed. So during periods of low demand both airlines will cancel one of their daily flights on a multi-flight route. With careful monitoring they will shuffle the pack to maintain an 80 per cent plus operational level for each slot. Hence the cancellation of a different
VS LHR LAX rotation over different periods of the timetable.
Other airlines have found other ways of preserving
LHR slots. In the Winter Season of 2006-07 the then British Mediterranean Airways operating as a
BA franchisee caused a bit of a stir when a section of the British media discovered that they were positioning a 320
LHR-
CWL every day before repositioning it back to
LHR on the following day. This went on across the whole of the Winter season. The first such rotation occurred on 1/2 November '06. The last was on 23/24 March '07.
A couple of years earlier
QF wet leased a BAe146 from the now defunct Flightline to operate between
LHR and
MAN as a "feeder" to its
LHR services even though its then partner in the JSA,
BA, had plenty of flights on this route. It was suggested here on a-net that on occasion the number of passengers on these
QF 146 flights reached as many as 22 although 5 was a more common load. This was another slot sitting exercise.
So, returning to the
VS LHR /
LAX service the actual number of winter season flights flown between
LHR and
LAX is more likely effectively determined by the EU and not by
VS itself.
http://www.businesstraveller.com/new...-to-transfer-transatlantic-flights
