5 day package deals in the capital would be a good seller :)

As indeed would long weekends in Manchester!
 
Slow and steady is the right term, but, it's paying off.

BA by the end of the year will serve 12 destinations using the BA brand:

London Heathrow
London City
Nice
Alicante
Malaga
Ibiza
Palma Majorca
Mykonos
Salzburg
Chambery
Billund
Gothenburg

The list then jumps to 14 with the following IAG airlines routes:

Dublin (Aer Lingus)
Cork (Aer Lingus)
Madrid (Iberia)
Barcelona (Vueling)

(I have deliberately omitted Tenerife and Rome as extra destinations with Vueling due to the routes ending this summer)

And lastly, 20 with OneWorld and/or full BA codeshare:

Doha (Qatar)
Hong Kong (Cathay Pacific)
Helsinki (Finnair)
New York JFK (AA)
Chicago (AA)
Philidelphia (AA)

It's getting there. Slowly but surely, it's getting there. But I bet many thought hell would have frozen over before BA operated 12 routes from Manchester again!

Can add a further 3x British Airways bookable routes to the growing list of destinations available from Manchester as they now signed an codeshare agreement with Loganair

Inverness
Glasgow
Norwich
 
Can add a further 3x British Airways bookable routes to the growing list of destinations available from Manchester as they now signed an codeshare agreement with Loganair

Inverness
Glasgow
Norwich

I think these BA codeshares are only bookable when connecting to or from a BA flight. I do not believe they are bookable under a BA codeshare as a standalone flight.
 
BA Have restarted the 3rd daily Billund on Wed/Thu after a brief stop again in Sept and early oct.

It's bookable as such all the way into next Sept barring a few weeks in August, so, nice to see little increases.
 
New route time, and we have a random pair. Cambridge and Gothenburg:

BA8235 MAN 0720 CBG 0805/0830 GOT 1130
BA8236 GOT 1625 CBG 1725 /1750 MAN 1835

Mon/Tue/Thu from Oct 30th

Will be interesting to see what the aircraft does either side of these flights as clearly the aircraft starts/ends its day at MAN but I cannot see another flight that gets the aircraft to MAN (such as extra BLL flights).

I also highly doubt the MAN-CBG-MAN sectors will be bookable as stand alone flights,

Publicly viewable in the OneWorld timetable, and also now in GDS so should be bookable soon, but great to finally have Gothenburg back!

dcd0ux.jpg
 
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This is what a confirmed summer Thursday looks like for BA flight departures (not including OneWorld or codeshares, just BA flights)

0645 BA1385 Heathrow
0720 BA8235 Cambridge/Gothenburg
0835 BA1387 Heathrow
0855 BA8246 Billund
0940 BA1389 Heathrow
1200 BA1391 Heathrow
1400 BA1395 Heathrow
1545 BA1399 Heathrow
1740 BA1403 Heathrow
1815 BA8248 Billund
1950 BA1407 Heathrow
2040 BA8250 Billund
2125 BA7315 Ibiza

With no doubt more to be added. Like I say, this is just a Thursday.
 
The BA Gothenburg flights have started, although they still don't appear on the BA website.

It's been operated by OY-NCN this week.

It means that BA has 4 different sets of night stopping aircraft this winter.

The shuttles have 2 night stoppers, then we have Sun Air Sun-Thu and Cityflyer Fri-Sun! Getting back to the good old days.....almost!
 
BA seem to have resolved their ongoing dispute over pay and conditions with the "mixed fleet" crew. These are the "cheaper" crew who make BA more price competitive in the market.

This should make the shuttle less at risk of cancellations due to crew shortages. However, in my view, resolving this dispute on a sustainable basis was an essential prerequisite for BA to get their cost base to a level (no pun intended) where they could dip their toe in the market outside of London. Time will tell.
 
Here is a link to a recording of Alex Cruz's recent World Travel Market Interview.


Of interest, he is asked about more BA regional flying, including long haul (just after 45:00 in the recording). He does not deny it is being evaluated, but there is nothing imminent.

Good to see it no longer being shot down, but don't expect anything revolutionarry emerging from CityFlyer!
 
An interesting interview however I only hear talk of Cityflyer possibly expanding their current "leisure" routes from the regions, rather than a reintroduction of major European or longhaul services - as maybe I had hoped.

However at the end of the day expansion is expansion and will be welcomed.
 
Don't forget, airline CEO's rarely announce their bigger plans unless they are ready to go. The grander plan is still work in progress.
 
The other point to remember is that Alex is clearly under pressure over what I would describe as "core" services such as IT infrastructure, on board catering and on board hard product.

He might want a distraction, but I'd bet he doesn't want to open up any further public issues/questions such as BA in the regions.
 
You do wonder if any discussions have been made regards for the "up for grabs" Monarch slots. There would be no room at the inn for T3 ops as it stands but imagine a grand shuffle round with easyJet inceasing based aircraft by 3 committiing to split terminal ops (8 each in T1 and T2), Flybe going T3 to T1 to open out some space at T3 for BA and Ryanair.

But in the meantime, back to reality.. let's hope the tweaking means bringing forward the 2nd E190 that operated inbound on Sunday from Ibiza before heading to London City to arrive on the Saturday to allow an extra route or 2 to be introduced on Saturday afternoon and night (perhaps Sunday morning as well?) before heading down to London City in the afternoon.
 
The Cityflyer base is actually very easy to expand.

One aircraft already spends as much time LCY based as it is MAN based. It arrives Thursday which means BA were willing to forego this aircraft working LCY on a Friday, one of the busiest travel days, so that it could work MAN flights.

In that respect, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that this aircraft could actually be based all week, and thus offer the already served routes 2/3 weekly and appeal more to those markets. That in itself would make MAN a 'proper base' with 'proper frequencies' on the routes.

Option 2, as said, could utilise the second based aircraft, and that in itself could offer another 2 weekly flights. For me, Florence and Faro should be prime candidates, both routes I feel would utilise the J cabin.

Option 3 could be to use a couple of away based aircraft. This is how BHX and BRS get their flights, so why not MAN?

People were very quick to write these flights off as 'BA needed to do something with the aircraft while LCY was closed', and to a tiny degree, it was true.

But let's not forget, LCY has been closed on Saturdays for years and years, it's never stopped Cityflyer expanding before, so something changed. Also, LCY is closed Saturday's and Sunday mornings, so, as alluded to in the first paragraph, it doesn't explain why BA are happy for the MAN aircraft to miss out Thursday evenings, Friday's and pretty much all day Sunday too!

These flights also have to make money in just the same way the LCY flights do, if they don't, they will be pulled, regardless of the aircraft is 'spare' or not. DUB has lost their night time Ibiza that ran this summer, and I hear some other flights (not MAN thankfully) are being 'evaluated' with a decision due in about Jan/Feb. Like I say, this shows that the fact the aircraft are spare means nothing, they will still put them where the best money is to be made.
 
I would love to see a regular (perhaps 1-daily) Manchester-London City service instated, akin to those from Edinburgh and Glasgow. An Embraer 175 would suit brilliantly and serve leisure and business travellers alike.
 
If British A/W thought it was feasible, they would be operating now. In the future ... anything can happen.
 
If British A/W thought it was feasible, they would be operating now. In the future ... anything can happen.

I see what you mean, and yes anything is possible in the future but I don't think this quite reflects the historical position or the possible future scenario that may play out.

This is not a question about feasibility. From BA's perspective it is about achieving a certain return on investment. Since 2008, BA's position has been that this return has not been possible on regional flying, due to a number of factors including BA's market positioning, historical cost base and economic weakness in the regions.

In recent years, BA's market positioning (regardless of what they profess to the contrary) has been to fall in line with low cost competition, with a sprinkling of Club World at the front. Their cost base has been chipped away with things like the mixed fleet contracts and the regions are undergoing something of an economic renaissance which may be underpinned by political devolution. Finally, how much more money can BA make flying yet another LHR-JFK rotation? This is probably comparable to the money they could make on a MAN-JFK rotation. This all makes BA better placed to achieve that desired return on investment in the regions.

BA cannot really jump in, get their feet burned and withdraw - that would set them back 10 years. It will be hard for them to regain market at places like MAN. Competition to all points heading east, and strong westbound networks by TCX, VS/DL and the other US legacies makes it tough to see how they could implement a network with the right critical mass in the right markets to be a success and make money.

If anything happens it will be a fascinating story to follow. Hopefully it comes to pass one day, in the meantime we can enjoy TCX and VS continued expansion.
 
BA Cityflyer schedule S18

Thu
BA7310 LCY 1940 MAN 2040
BA7315 MAN 2135 IBZ 0115+1
Fri
BA7316 IBZ 0155 MAN 0340
BA7317 MAN 0540 AGP 0940
BA7318 AGP 1025 MAN 1230
BA7324 MAN 1315 PMI 1700
BA7325 PMI 1755 MAN 1940
BA7313 MAN 2025 IBZ 0015
Sat
BA7312 IBZ 0050 MAN 0240
BA7321 MAN 0550 ALC 0940
BA7317 MAN 0600 AGP 1000
BA7322 ALC 1025 MAN 1220
BA7314 IBZ 1045 MAN 1230****
BA7318 AGP 1045 MAN 1250
BA7323 MAN 1315 NCE 1635
BA7319 MAN 1415 JMK 2015
BA7332 FLR 1710 MAN 1845**
BA7324 NCE 1720 MAN 1845
BA7331 MAN 1930 FLR 2250**
BA7315 MAN 1930 IBZ 2320
BA7320 JMK 2100 MAN 2310***
Sun
BA7316 IBZ 0005 MAN 0150
BA7321 MAN 0540 ALC 0930
BA7325 MAN 0555 PMI 0940
BA7322 ALC 1025 MAN 1220
BA7326 PMI 1025 MAN 1210
BA7315 MAN 1250 IBZ 1640
BA7313 MAN 1445 IBZ 1835-then goes elsewhere.....
BA7314 IBZ 1725 MAN 1910
BA7311 MAN 1955 LCY 2055

**FLR new and away based.

Still lots being added! But all barring Florence and the Sunday ALC are bookable from the above schedule. FLR is likely to be added later for its own press release. We could also get more routes if the 3rd base is used, but it could well be a back up aircraft again.

To summerise, S17 saw 18 weekly flights. With this timetable, we are already at 30 flights and hopefully more to come. At this moment in time, it’s a 3 aircraft base.
 
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