When will BA increase capacity to/from SFO ?

Having taken this flight again recently (284) and chatted to the lounge staff (brilliant as always) when will BA increase capacity to/from SFO ?

The flight I was on was full according to the crew and the lounge staff said that the flights were very very well subscribed, so what does the future hold for the route ?

We were on an OF lowJ 744 which has inherent issues as we all know, and we also know of the issues surrounding deploying the A388 to SFO.

Will BA send an A388 when able ? Will they keep 2X744 and perhaps bolster the offering with an extra rotation ? Maybe 3 or 4 times a week on a 772 ? ( that could even work as say 4 weekly ex LGW if LHR slots are the issue ?)

Anyway, over to you, thoughts and opinions ?

cs

This is my route, and while I can't answer your question about whether we will see an upguage, I strongly concur that it is needed. In my experience both flights are always packed, especially in the premium cabins, especially during the summer months. Perhaps a summer-seasonal upgauge to A380 or a third daily? (UA already adds an extra frequency during the summer on this route)

But even in winter it seems there is more demand than capacity here.

Does anyone think that some of the airlines currently flying Europe-SFO might be hanging back a bit on this until they see how Norwegian's expansion affects capacity on SFO and other routes?

I can't forsee Norwegian's less than daily service to OAK impacting existing (or future) SFO-Europe service at all.

Even if it did Norwegian would mostly be skimming off the "less desirable" low fare paying tourists and VFR travellers, right?

Loads are a terrible indicator, especially during holiday periods when people are purchasing the cheapest fares long in advance and burning redemptions to sit up front.

All that matters is PRASM and BA likely runs that on a daily basis. At that point, the question becomes where to find the aircraft, so the net revenue for the new frequency has to exceed that for some other route.

SFO used to have 3 daily flights from what I remember (one was to LGW). SFO was mentioned as one of the possible airports when BA ordered the A380 and SFO can take it, but not at the gates the BA lounge is connected to.

I think SFO is slated for more capacity, it's just that there aren't enough frames to go around.

PRASM?

http://aviationglossary.com/passenge...at-mile-prasm/

(I had to look it up )

Also known as yield if I'm not mistaken !

Thanks to Often1, I am aware that loads and yields don't correspond, however from the conversation I had in the lounge it was suggested that the route is performing well and carrying lots of connecting passengers also.


cs

This is interesting!

SFO has always been one of the 'cash cows' for BA. It does have a high leisure passenger load but there is a high premium demand also. Remember that 'cheap' Premium fares (so I and A Class) do make money as they are so inflexible and of course they are limited to a set number of seats per flight. For example I wanted a CPT trip later in the year and with the recent sale A class was full on quite a few days so I had to be flexible......

So the long and short of it is I am pretty sure that SFO does fine for BA and does contribute to profits etc.....

The A380 I do believe is slated for SFO and I think that its a tie between SFO and MIA as to which route is getting it first. Going forward I think that SFO would be run much like LAX with a mixture of A380 and 777-300's depending on the seasonal demand. This of course brings me back to my point that I keep making that I do think BA may need more A380's (assuming that they are more cost effective which I doubt BA really understands the financial performance yet). For sure SFO as one of the longest routes in the network will be one where BA will want to get rid of the 747-400's as they just use too much fuel compared to the 777-300 but that would reduce Y capacity and it sounds as if there is a strong Y demand (which will make money).

The final thing that I have noticed is that the fleet retirement of the 747-400's seems to be stalled a bit. We know some of that is due to the JNB saga but I just wonder if this will be stretched as much as possible as there do seem quite a few routes at the moment (due to the improvement of the economy globally) that are getting very full and could do with a bit more capacity. A 777-200 if there were one free (and it would have to be one of the ones that ply the SE Asia routes to have enough range to get to SFO) could be used to shore up capacity but BA does not have many of these and so I don't think that there is one free. I guess an extra 747-400 3 times a week might work if they slow down retirements......

FD.

Indeed!

Any revenue manager worth his/her salt will have most of the planes leaving at 100% load (more like 90%+ in real life) by adjusting the prices such that demand matches the capacity.

The revenue (PRASM) that these flights commanded will determine whether capacity will be cut, maintained, or increased.

And if capacity is increased, the revenue manager better get those new planes up to 100% load as fast as possible.

You're mistaken

Yield doesn't take consideration load factor. If the flight goes out with a single passenger on an F fare, the average yield is off the charts, but the flight would be incredibly loss-making. The PRASM would be terrible, though.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airlin...assenger_Yield

So in all these new words where does cargo fit in ?

Assuming you guys have the answers and SFO won't be seeing extra capacity ? And if that is the case how is SFO performing ?


cs

Amazing how far this route has come, since I first flew it on TWA in the early 1980s. Back then I don’t believe BA was daily year-round, stopped in YVR on some days, and the summer supplement was flown by an Airtours 747.