BA and it’s Presence in other Uk airports

adam88

Just a quick query. Why does British Airways not have a presence in other Uk airports. Just did a quick search there and no transatlantic flights from Manchester or Birmingham. Surely they’re missing out on valuable markets here

basill

They don't have to as evidenced by the billions they make in profit each year by focusing their core operations on London. Their regional passengers will either catch a flight, train or drive to London or avail of a codeshare airline such as AA if they want to go direct. They were losing a fortune having bases across the UK and competing with rinky dink airlines that would pop up and undercut them.

afatbollix

Easyjet killed the shorthaul for the regions. No way BA could compete with that.

They do some random flights too, Manchester to Palma or Edinburgh to Ibiza. But they are using aircraft that wouldn't be used that during London city shut down.



Some other airlines fill the long haul to the main airports.

technocrat

adam88 wrote: »

Just a quick query. Why does British Airways not have a presence in other Uk airports. Just did a quick search there and no transatlantic flights from Manchester or Birmingham. Surely they’re missing out on valuable markets here

This is a curious one for me too.

With the huge population of England alone you’d think it would warrant a second BA base in the north such as Manchester which has a bigger catchment population than Ireland.

Even from a strategic point of view it would be hugely advantageous when things go pear shaped at LHR as it does on occasions i.e. strikes, weather, not to mention growth restraints!

Marcusm

adam88 wrote: »

Just a quick query. Why does British Airways not have a presence in other Uk airports. Just did a quick search there and no transatlantic flights from Manchester or Birmingham. Surely they’re missing out on valuable markets here

Many people in the UK call it London Airways!

BA has a transatlantic joint business arrangement with AA (among others) which means that MAN=PHL, EDI-PHL can be sold as BA flights. The reality is that BA has a London hub at Heathrow, effectively GAtwick is no longer a hub. Birmingham used to operate as a Euro hub - regional UK flights went there and coalesced passengers for onflight to European destination.

Virgin has a reasonable number of transatlantic routes form Manchester and other US airlines serve Manchester, Edinburgh etc.

In some ways, EI has more regionally focused transactlatic flights than BA!

No one really knows why BA retreated so hard back in to London. BA seemed happy to feed passengers from Manchester and north in to Heathrow via shuttle flights and allow everyone else to make their own way to Heathrow.

Possible reasons are aviation recessions and feeling the need to have to defend Heathrow by blocking access to slots at Heathrow by being the holders of large amounts of them. BAs modern fleet never really had a low capacity aircraft capable of long haul anyway.

BAs last TA outside London was the 767 Manchester to JFK flight.

There again BAs decision has mostly been proven correct. How many regional airports (Belfast, Bristol, Newcastle etc) struggle to fill and maintain long haul flights.

BA seems to be happy to allow other airlines to operate the regional long haul flights and just focus on premium out of Heathrow and bucket and spade from Gatwick.

davebuck

I also think BA are happy for EI to take passengers from regional airports in the UK to the USA via Dublin rather than go through a rival airline.

adam88

davebuck wrote: »

I also think BA are happy for EI to take passengers from regional airports in the UK to the USA via Dublin rather than go through a rival airline.

IAG would be very happy of this arrangement anyway.

kevinandrew

One of the reasons IAG started sniffing around Aer Lingus in the first place was because of how effective the airline had become at serving the UK regions, Aer Lingus became a genuine transatlantic competitor and threat for BA in some key markets such as Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester via the Dublin hub. 

One of the downsides of abandoning all long haul flying from the regions and focusing on a single hub is that you have to ensure that your hub is always the most favoured option otherwise rival hubs and non-stop options threaten your business. It was around 2014 onwards when BA started feeling the pinch on UK regions, KLM and Aer Lingus were the main culprits and both had more coverage, more flights, competitive pricing and their own unique selling points to lure people away from Heathrow and British Airways. 

The response from IAG was to take Aer Lingus into the business and create a win-win situation for all, Aer Lingus is set on a path of transatlantic growth with its value model in full swing while BA is kept on its toes while turning its attention to higher yielding business. Obviously they couldn't do much about KLM but with another 2-4% of the transatlantic market comfortably in IAG hands, it doesn't matter as much and reduces the battle with KLM to Asia and the Far East. 

A more recent threat is the resurgence of Virgin Atlantic, still a tiny airline in the grand scheme of things, more than half the size of Aer Lingus in terms of passenger numbers, Virgin has quietly returned to growth thanks to Delta. The joint business with Air France-KLM, Delta and Virgin gives them more footing across the Atlantic and they have the brand, know-how and cost base to attempt transatlantic from the UK regions and be successful at it. Manchester alone see's New York, Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Orlando and Barbados, a lot of which happens to be prime IAG business. 

It remains to be seen how successful the Flybe (Connect Airways) partnership will be for Virgin, it could pose a real threat to BA, IAG and others but Virgin have failed at regional flying before and one airline that was almost bankrupt partnering with another near bankrupt airline isn't exactly promising and it faces its own strategic issues too. Do they focus on one hub (LHR) or carry with all the recent regional expansion and split regional feed between LHR, LGW, MAN, GLA etc which would be a very risky move.

sporina

Flew with BA from London City Airport to and from Venice recently and we got complimentary food on board - why was this? only a 2 hr flight? v unusual

Locker10a

sporina wrote: »

Flew with BA from London City Airport to and from Venice recently and we got complimentary food on board - why was this? only a 2 hr flight? v unusual

Not really unusual, this was standard on BA and most legacy carriers until 2/3 years ago. BA changed to buy on board as they went more low cost to save pennies and rake in more profits, however CityFlyer based out of London City is actually a separate branch of BA and as they serve a premium market from London city they retained the old school proper airline model.

sporina

Locker10a wrote: »

Not really unusual, this was standard on BA and most legacy carriers until 2/3 years ago. BA changed to buy on board as they went more low cost to save pennies and rake in more profits, however CityFlyer based out of London City is actually a separate branch of BA and as they serve a premium market from London city they retained the old school proper airline model.

well its been a long time since I had a complimentary meal on a short haul flight - guess it depends on how often one flies - and with whom..

what do you mean by "premium market"?

L1011

sporina wrote: »

well its been a long time since I had a complimentary meal on a short haul flight - guess it depends on how often one flies - and with whom..

what do you mean by "premium market"?

Its not *that* uncommon; its just that Aer Lingus dropped it a very long time ago and Ryanair before them - that's the bulk of shorthaul travel from Ireland!

KLM do full hot meal service on flight slightly longer than DUB-AMS, so DUB-AMS-somewhere else connection is probably the cheapest to experience that in Economy. You'll also get a can of Heineken or a snipe of wine with it. "Free" in the ticket price.

The DUB-AMS leg would be a sandwich and the same drinks service. Lufthansa and TAP also have free service, Finnair and SAS just free soft drinks.

As goes LCY being premium - its a niche airport with a niche product - dearer flights on more cramped aircraft but closer to where you're going. This attracts a premium audience.

Locker10a

sporina wrote: »

well its been a long time since I had a complimentary meal on a short haul flight - guess it depends on how often one flies - and with whom..

what do you mean by "premium market"?

London city airport is considered to serve a premium market, mostly of business travellers many of whom aren’t pay for their own tickets, and pay a premium for convenience and frequent schedules to higher demand business routes