Newsstand - United gets more cash to burn through, sells slots at LHR

British Airways has bought four trans-Atlantic take off slots at London's Heathrow airport from rival United Airlines, a source with knowledge of the transaction said Saturday.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/031011/eu_fin_com_britain_british_airways_2.html

SOme people think that when TWA sold its ORD-LHR route to AA it was the start of a very bad slippery slope.

$19 million doesn't seem like a lot of money in the grand picture. Maybe they were just gates they had no expectation of using in years to come? I've always seen empty gates in that long corridor UA uses.
-edited for spelling, because I'm tired after flying all day-

[This message has been edited by tom911 (edited 10-12-2003).]

Maybe they were from the EWR-LHR flight that was cut. (or was it to elsewhere?)

Gates in T3 at LHR are common-use. No airline 'owns' any of them. It was ATC slots that UA sold.

Probably a combination of the loss of EWR-LHR service and moving from 777s to 744s on select other routes mean UA does not need as many slots as they once did.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by SEA_Tigger:
Probably a combination of the loss of EWR-LHR service and moving from 777s to 744s on select other routes mean UA does not need as many slots as they once did.</font>

Didn't PanAm (from whence the slots came to UAL) have rights to fly beyond LHR to other places not in the USA?

Like my SFO-LHR flight (in 1998) that continued to AMS?

Given the coming full liberation of intra-EU flights, combined with the rise of the LCC in Europe and the change to non-stop ETOPS flights makes such a flight (London to Amsterdam) rather unattractive to a U.S. based airline. Plus, the LHR-AMS passenger can fly British Midlands and get their MileagePlus credit.

There has been the usual screwed-up reporting of this in the press.

There is no such thing as "transatlantic slots". Only landing and takeoff slots at Heathrow. BA are free to use them for whatever services they want to.

I am glad to se BA taking their chance to expand. Over the last 10-15 years their competitors, such as Virgin and BMI have expanded their number of slots far more than BA.

United are still running a "connector" 767 service from London to Brussels, which is mad for a bankrupt company given that Star Alliance partner BMI does the same route. In fact a BMI service leaves just 15 minutes before the United one. Presumably that will now go.

Freakflyer: You are right about the perception that TWA selling their routes (it was actually all their Heathrow routes, not just ORD) that was felt to be the beginning of the end for them. United seem to be in the same situation, running out of cash, still unable to control their costs, and "selling the family silver".