British Airways

[Butts]

I’m surprised that BA Cityflyer and their mainline long haul operation haven’t moved to the approach of other European carriers where the only free alcoholic drinks in economy are wine and beer.

At least they haven't replicated "BA Proper" where you get SFA on short haul !!

 

[D1511]

I'm flying BA proper for the first time in ages next week, Eurotraveller from Edinburgh -Amsterdam via Heathrow (I know .....but I had loads of Avios that are going to expire!)
Living one DLR stop from LCY at Pontoon Dock meant that all my BA flights (Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Palma) were always on Cityflyer Embraers, so I think I might be in for a rude awakening next week, especially as my Silver has expired since then.......although my carbon footprint has certainly improved. (Speaking of which, I checked Eurostar, which was £1000 return + the price Edinburgh to London, so not even close to being competitive at all.)
It'll be my first whirl in a neo though, so that might be worth something......
I've got a 1hr 15 and 1hr 20 connection out and back respectively, both through T5, so what chances of my luggage arriving on the same aircraft as me both ways? Small I'd guess.....

 

[Butts]

I'm flying BA proper for the first time in ages next week, Eurotraveller from Edinburgh -Amsterdam via Heathrow (I know .....but I had loads of Avios that are going to expire!)
Living one DLR stop from LCY at Pontoon Dock meant that all my BA flights (Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Palma) were always on Cityflyer Embraers, so I think I might be in for a rude awakening next week, especially as my Silver has expired since then.......although my carbon footprint has certainly improved. (Speaking of which, I checked Eurostar, which was £1000 return + the price Edinburgh to London, so not even close to being competitive at all.)
It'll be my first whirl in a neo though, so that might be worth something......
I've got a 1hr 15 and 1hr 20 connection out and back respectively, both through T5, so what chances of my luggage arriving on the same aircraft as me both ways? Small I'd guess.....

Never mind your baggage that's pretty tight for yourself, just over an hour. Any delays and you could struggle.

Shame you've shredded your silver and the benefits that go with it as unlike LCY they all have Lounges.

On BA Mainline it's just "bread and water" in cattle as well.

 

[D1511]

Never mind your baggage that's pretty tight for yourself, just over an hour. Any delays and you could struggle.

Shame you've shredded your silver and the benefits that go with it as unlike LCY they all have Lounges.

On BA Mainline it's just "bread and water" in cattle as well.

I did think that at the time of booking, but there are pretty regular flights to both destinations, so I reckoned they'd just chuck me on the next one.....and probably a better chance of my luggage arriving simultaneously!
There was a similar tightish one returning from Mallorca to City and then on to EDI, but I didn't need to worry about that as it was the same EMB 190SR operating both service! I was in the same seat and there was the same bit of rubber seal dangling from the over window air vents and my tissues were still in the seat pocket!

 

[cactustwirly]

Never mind your baggage that's pretty tight for yourself, just over an hour. Any delays and you could struggle.

Shame you've shredded your silver and the benefits that go with it as unlike LCY they all have Lounges.

On BA Mainline it's just "bread and water" in cattle as well.

BA mainline is the same price as easyJet more or less. Can't have your cake and eat it.

Shame it's a NEO, the older aircraft are better as you have the comfortable seats all the way through

 

[Airline Man]

The problem is that British Airways make huge profits and so are not really interested in competing much.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 12 Jan 2024 ==


You are correct but why do you think BA put their first class passengers on buses?
The answer is that their revenue management are no doubt very good at their jobs and have done their job for years and they clearly do not think that paying for an extra bus is worthwhile for what is usually 8 people
Do bear in mind that BA have just made 617million profit in Q3 2023 and they did not achieve that by making stupid revenue management decisions regarding first class passengers

British Airways summer profits surge 50% despite air traffic control outage

Strong leisure demand drives record performance for owner IAG

travelweekly.co.uk

It’s not a Revenue Management decision, I spent most of my career in BA’s Revenue Management department and we only dealt with maximising revenue on aircraft, most noteably through overbooking. Putting passengers on buses is for operational reasons. Now working at the airport for them, BA have enough problems in getting enough buses for a ‘coaching departure’ for ALL passengers. Having seperate buses for First and Business passengers would be even more of a nightmare. Most aircraft have only eight First Class seats. Imagine the scene if a First Class passenger boarded a bus at the beginning of the boarding process and had two wait twenty odd minutes on a bus for the last First passenger strolling from the lounge only to find nearly every other passenger on the flight.

 

[ainsworth74]

Most aircraft have only eight First Class seats. Imagine the scene if a First Class passenger boarded a bus at the beginning of the boarding process and had two wait twenty odd minutes on a bus for the last First passenger strolling from the lounge only to find nearly every other passenger on the flight.

Surely BA should take a leaf out of Lufthansa's approach and, in that situation, put their First Class passengers in a Bentley to take them straight to the aircraft it could then shuttle back and forth collecting the First Class passengers as they turn up to the gate?

 

[Acfb]

Surely BA should take a leaf out of Lufthansa's approach and, in that situation, put their First Class passengers in a Bentley to take them straight to the aircraft it could then shuttle back and forth collecting the First Class passengers as they turn up to the gate?

It's rather different at Frankfurt though as Frankfurt Airport has the First Class Terminal. I did have the experience of being transported across the apron at Frankfurt in 2019 in a Porsche though when our flight from Edinburgh was late and we were trying to make the connecting flight to Zurich as we were going first class to Hong Kong with SWISS that evening. SWISS also put us in a minibus to the lounge on the way back from Hong Kong in Zurich.

 

[ainsworth74]

It's rather different at Frankfurt though as Frankfurt Airport has the First Class Terminal. I did have the experience of being transported across the apron at Frankfurt in 2019 in a Porsche though when our flight from Edinburgh was late and we were trying to make the connecting flight to Zurich as we were going first class to Hong Kong with SWISS that evening. SWISS also put us in a minibus to the lounge on the way back from Hong Kong in Zurich.

Absolutely, it's definitely not a serious suggestion on my part

 

[Cloud Strife]

Surely BA should take a leaf out of Lufthansa's approach and, in that situation, put their First Class passengers in a Bentley to take them straight to the aircraft it could then shuttle back and forth collecting the First Class passengers as they turn up to the gate?

This service is actually offered in Wrocław Airport for about 40 quid per passenger. I don't remember what they're using, a Mercedes of some sort I think.

I saw one self-important pillock use it once after getting off a Ryanair flight, but a little birdie told me afterwards that it was some muppet from the council that got it for free.

 

[nlogax]

Surely BA should take a leaf out of Lufthansa's approach and, in that situation, put their First Class passengers in a Bentley to take them straight to the aircraft it could then shuttle back and forth collecting the First Class passengers as they turn up to the gate?

Doesn't LHR have a fleet of 7-Series beamers to do exactly this..?

Remote stands and BA buses really are the great levellers

 

[RailWonderer]

Delays at Heathrow are horrid. When BA gets more widebodies they need to use some on flights to and from Manchester and Dublin - they have far too many slots on these routes it's a waste while they could consolidate and have fewer flights and a couple of widebodies, which would allow more resilliency in the schedule. They need to ask BAA not to give those slots away again to keep reliability.

 

[TravelDream]

Delays at Heathrow are horrid. When BA gets more widebodies they need to use some on flights to and from Manchester and Dublin - they have far too many slots on these routes it's a waste while they could consolidate and have fewer flights and a couple of widebodies, which would allow more resilliency in the schedule. They need to ask BAA not to give those slots away again to keep reliability.

You may want to look at this thing called slot sitting.
Heathrow has a use it or lose it policy. Nobody voluntarily gives up valuable slots so often they have to 'sit' on them running short-haul flights with the smallest plane BA has (A319) at Heathrow.

Whilst it may seem to make no sense, BA wants low risk routes to nurse some of their slots.

Air France-KLM does it too big style. Look how many tiny jets they send to Heathrow. Ideally they'd like to give slots of partner Delta/ Virgin Atlantic, but slot times often don't suit long haul routes.

BAA hasn't existed for many years now. Heathrow is owned by Heathrow Airport Holdings which is owned by a number of major investors including Ferrovial (big Spanish infrastructure company), Qatar Investment Authority (Qatar's sovereign wealth fund), Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (a Quebec government pension fund) and GIC (Singapore Government's investment arm/ sovereign wealth fund).

They don't handle slots though. Airport Coordination Limited do.

 

[Butts]

Delays at Heathrow are horrid. When BA gets more widebodies they need to use some on flights to and from Manchester and Dublin - they have far too many slots on these routes it's a waste while they could consolidate and have fewer flights and a couple of widebodies, which would allow more resilliency in the schedule. They need to ask BAA not to give those slots away again to keep reliability.

More time in the Lounge

 

[Watershed]

More time in the Lounge

Unfortunately often not, because they tend to hold you on the aircraft after boarding in case the slot comes forward.

In fairness it often does, but it's hardly a great experience.

 

[Butts]

Unfortunately often not, because they tend to hold you on the aircraft after boarding in case the slot comes forward.

In fairness it often does, but it's hardly a great experience.

If only they'd built the 3rd Runway decades ago ?

It's far more relaxing flying from Edinburgh/Glasgow to anywhere but Heathrow.

 

[route101]

At least they haven't replicated "BA Proper" where you get SFA on short haul !!

I wonder why Cityflyer still offer the bar service while mainline short haul don't. When I used Cityflyer they kept it quiet there was a bar service, you had to ask and cans etc were kept out of sight.

 

[Butts]

I wonder why Cityflyer still offer the bar service while mainline short haul don't. When I used Cityflyer they kept it quiet there was a bar service, you had to ask and cans etc were kept out of sight.

Due to the ratio of crew to passengers and the Aircraft configuration I believe.

 

[TravelDream]

I wonder why Cityflyer still offer the bar service while mainline short haul don't. When I used Cityflyer they kept it quiet there was a bar service, you had to ask and cans etc were kept out of sight.

The initial plan was that Cityflyer would also go buy onbaord - not far off a decade ago now.

But Butts has answered above. Basically all flights have 2 cabin crew. They haven't worked out how to offer both Club service and economy buy on board due to time limitations.

 

[Butts]

The initial plan was that Cityflyer would also go buy onbaord - not far off a decade ago now.

But Butts has answered above. Basically all flights have 2 cabin crew. They haven't worked out how to offer both Club service and economy buy on board due to time limitations.

The Cabin Crew job on mainline must be a lot easier than it used to be when they used to have to serve everyone onboard with say for example a Breakfast.

Now they just have to bung out the "bread and water" and then attend to the small minority who avail themselves of Buy Onboard.

 

[Tom]

Basically all flights have 2 cabin crew.

Cityflyer flights now all have 3 crew following the densification of the E190s

 

[Watershed]

The initial plan was that Cityflyer would also go buy onbaord - not far off a decade ago now.

But Butts has answered above. Basically all flights have 2 cabin crew. They haven't worked out how to offer both Club service and economy buy on board due to time limitations.

All Cityflyer flights now have 3 crew as the aircraft have been had additional seats fitted. That brings their capacity above the 100 seat threshold for needing 3 crew.

 

[Cloud Strife]

When BA gets more widebodies they need to use some on flights to and from Manchester and Dublin - they have far too many slots on these routes it's a waste while they could consolidate and have fewer flights and a couple of widebodies, which would allow more resilliency in the schedule.

The problem is that Heathrow (and other major hubs) have a very clear policy that you have to either use your slots or give them back. The end result is that BA have to use them for something that is pretty low risk, so the best bet is a very short haul domestic or near international flight where you can funnel passengers into their long haul operations cheaply.

With Dublin, this is an incredibly busy air route, and business passengers will pay for the sheer flexibility offered by IAG on that route.

BA are also covering themselves in case the UK decides to finally ban slot leasing. It's been spoken about for years, but the general idea is that airlines would no longer be permitted to obtain and then lend out slots to other carriers, they would have to either use the slot themselves or give it up. It's difficult to restore service once you've cut it back for a variety of marketing-related reasons, so those LHR-MAN flights are also serving a purpose by emphasising that BA are a player in London to Manchester transport.

Also don't forget one thing: people will happily fly at stupid times and with stupid connections if the price is right to their destination. While some might regard 5-6 hours in Heathrow as a nightmare, others might be quite happy to spend the time shopping there.

 

[zero]

Putting passengers on buses is for operational reasons. Now working at the airport for them, BA have enough problems in getting enough buses for a ‘coaching departure’ for ALL passengers. Having seperate buses for First and Business passengers would be even more of a nightmare. Most aircraft have only eight First Class seats. Imagine the scene if a First Class passenger boarded a bus at the beginning of the boarding process and had two wait twenty odd minutes for the last First passenger strolling from the lounge only to find nearly every other passenger on the flight.

Obviously Qatar Airways and Doha Airport have a very different operational environment to Heathrow and BA, but faced with this situation QR would not make anyone wait for 20 minutes - when I was the only F pax at the time boarding was called, they waited for about 3 minutes then dispatched the bus with just me on it, and the bus returned to the gate to pick up the rest of the F pax later. I also had an almost private bus when I was the straggler strolling from the DOH lounge in J.

 

[berneyarms]

Delays at Heathrow are horrid. When BA gets more widebodies they need to use some on flights to and from Manchester and Dublin - they have far too many slots on these routes it's a waste while they could consolidate and have fewer flights and a couple of widebodies, which would allow more resilliency in the schedule. They need to ask BAA not to give those slots away again to keep reliability.

Seriously?

BA operates between 5 and 7 return flights a day between Dublin and London Heathrow, while Aer Lingus operate between 11 and 12 return flights.

Heavy demand exists for flights all day long between the Dublin & Heathrow, and the notion that consolidating that into a small of number of flights would work is just daft.

The flexibility of having flights operating at different times all day long is key to meeting that demand.

It also offers absolutely critical strategic connectivity for the Irish economy - it’s not going to change anytime soon.

 

[TravelDream]

Cityflyer flights now all have 3 crew following the densification of the E190s

I'm obviously out of the loop.

The only other thing I can think is that the Alex Cruz years were the LCC-ization of the airline and I think they realise they went too far with some of the cuts.

It’s not a Revenue Management decision, I spent most of my career in BA’s Revenue Management department and we only dealt with maximising revenue on aircraft, most noteably through overbooking. Putting passengers on buses is for operational reasons. Now working at the airport for them, BA have enough problems in getting enough buses for a ‘coaching departure’ for ALL passengers. Having seperate buses for First and Business passengers would be even more of a nightmare. Most aircraft have only eight First Class seats. Imagine the scene if a First Class passenger boarded a bus at the beginning of the boarding process and had two wait twenty odd minutes on a bus for the last First passenger strolling from the lounge only to find nearly every other passenger on the flight.

It's a cost decision. Maybe with a mix of poor operational planning.

If you fly Air France First, they have a car take from the lounge to the aircraft. Even aircraft with an airbridge and agent collects you at the lounge and takes you down to the aircraft in a car.

And it's more common than not that business class passengers have a separate bus, never mind first.

 

[RailWonderer]

Seriously?

BA operates between 5 and 7 return flights a day between Dublin and London Heathrow, while Aer Lingus operate between 11 and 12 return flights.

Heavy demand exists for flights all day long between the Dublin & Heathrow, and the notion that consolidating that into a small of number of flights would work is just daft.

The flexibility of having flights operating at different times all day long is key to meeting that demand.

It also offers absolutely critical strategic connectivity for the Irish economy - it’s not going to change anytime soon.

BA and Aer Lingus are both IAG so if they wanted to move more slots to BA they could easily do that. It's so wasteful and inefficient to have a 15:10, 15:15 and a 15:50 - there's flexibiltiy and there's waste. You could still replace 14 narrowbody flights daily with 6 narrows and two or three widebodies and have plenty of flexiblity and more reliability at the airport. The whole system is just shortsighted, capacity being clogged up by a long stream of A320s when just a 787 or 777 would hoover up a few of those and you'd still have plenty of flights. It really is over the top.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 Jul 2025 ==

Also don't forget one thing: people will happily fly at stupid times and with stupid connections if the price is right to their destination. While some might regard 5-6 hours in Heathrow as a nightmare, others might be quite happy to spend the time shopping there.

Again, if they flew widebodies at the busiest times the prices wouldn't be exessively higher either - see Asian airlines that do this, plus Turkish Airlines on routes to Frankfurt and Heathrow.

The problem is that Heathrow (and other major hubs) have a very clear policy that you have to either use your slots or give them back. The end result is that BA have to use them for something that is pretty low risk, so the best bet is a very short haul domestic or near international flight where you can funnel passengers into their long haul operations cheaply.

Heathrow and BA need to communicate better about how to increase capacity, reliability and efficiency and the use of widebodies, even though more expensive to run, aren't so if they replace two or three narrows. The route has so many flights per day that you could cut several and still have flexibility, and those late night ones only run because BA and Aer Lingus have the slots and want to offer something cheaper at stupid hours that wouldn't be needed if widebodies were run at busier times reducing the price surge for mid-morning flights.

BA are also covering themselves in case the UK decides to finally ban slot leasing. It's been spoken about for years, but the general idea is that airlines would no longer be permitted to obtain and then lend out slots to other carriers, they would have to either use the slot themselves or give it up. It's difficult to restore service once you've cut it back for a variety of marketing-related reasons, so those LHR-MAN flights are also serving a purpose by emphasising that BA are a player in London to Manchester transport.

It's actually very easy to restore services after they're cut back, airlines are always doing this - suspending servies then reintroducing them.

 

[berneyarms]

BA and Aer Lingus are both IAG so if they wanted to move more slots to BA they could easily do that. It's so wasteful and inefficient to have a 15:10, 15:15 and a 15:50 - there's flexibiltiy and there's waste. You could still replace 14 narrowbody flights daily with 6 narrows and two or three widebodies and have plenty of flexiblity and more reliability at the airport. The whole system is just shortsighted, capacity being clogged up by a long stream of A320s when just a 787 or 777 would hoover up a few of those and you'd still have plenty of flights. It really is over the top.

That would be political suicide for Aer Lingus in Ireland.

I really don’t think you get how important the frequency and regularity of flights between Dublin and London Heathrow is to the Irish economy and how strategically important they are politically in Ireland.

Reallocating those slots to somewhere else would be a massive issue politically in Ireland - that connectivity is seen as critical to the Irish economy. Both BA and Aer Lingus know that - the route is a massive money spinner for them both. Load factors are very high, be that point to point or connections to/from long haul at Heathrow and Dublin.

Aer Lingus have one return working using an A321LR during downtime between transatlantic flights.

You can post about how inefficient it may be as much as you like, but reducing the frequency on the route is simply is not going to happen.

I am guessing that you don’t fly on the route very often or really understand the nature of how important those slots are viewed in Ireland.

 

[RailWonderer]

I am guessing that you don’t fly on the route very often or really understand the nature of how important those slots are viewed in Ireland.

I've flown it a couple of times and was near fully booked, but I'm not following Irish politics. If the decision to reduce frequency even a bit would be politically controversial then that's another story. Most changes to flight frequencies are of no interest to the news media. And if Aer Lingus want more slots, Gatwick and Luton are close alternatives.

 

[berneyarms]

I've flown it a couple of times and was near fully booked, but I'm not following Irish politics. If the decision to reduce frequency even a bit would be politically controversial then that's another story. Most changes to flight frequencies are of no interest to the news media. And if Aer Lingus want more slots, Gatwick and Luton are close alternatives.

With respect you really don’t have to follow Irish politics to understand the importance of the Heathrow slots to the Irish economy. Just think about it for a minute.

Ireland is an island with no other way on or off it except through flights and ships.

The country relies on aviation and in particular the connections offered at hub airports like Heathrow, Amsterdam, Paris CDG and Frankfurt. That is why frequency on DUB-LHR is key.

Gatwick or Luton don’t offer anything near the connectivity that Heathrow does and Ryanair covers them.

Heathrow is absolutely key for both passengers and freight and I would guarantee that reducing the Heathrow slots that Irish airports have would be a massive political issue here in Ireland.

At the time of Aer Lingus privatisation the single biggest issue was the continued status and retention of the airline’s slots at Heathrow. That should tell you all that you need to know about how important they are.