gordo6

BA162/3, to be operated by a 4 class 777 in W14/15 (now A321), is loaded as 3 class 777 for S15.

Also, BA166/7 in S15 is now loaded as 6 weekly (BA167 not operating on Fridays, BA166 not operating on Saturday), thus increasing TLV service to 20 weekly.
All BA166 flights are retimed to 10:00 (as opposed to 09:05/10:30 timing on W14/15).

malioil

This is surprising as one would have assumed there would had been plenty of F traffic coming in from the US connecting onto Israel.

Irubi

I saw that when I was looking for a trip late next year and couldn't find F - I saw that one flight a day was still the 777.
I did wonder if it was a mistake, but I guess not.

Was trying to use a GUF2 voucher to LAS - considering that route is also dropping F (I had been considering going via LAX) - I guess its just not to be.

Ldnn1

The problem is that BA can’t offer First in both directions on the current 777 schedule. The overnight from LHR is useless for most US arrivals, while the previous schedule (p.m. departure from TLV) was no good for onward flights to the US.

BA could decide to allocate a second 777 or have the current one sit on the ground longer in TLV, but I guess they’ve done the maths and decided it’s not quite worth it given limited airframes.

I suppose they could potentially run 2 x 789s with First when they come online, but there’ll be plenty of other routes competing for those airframes too.

gordo6

Do they even have enough 777s available for allocating 2 for the TLV flights?
The "perfect thing" (at least for accommodating US connections and allowing F both ways) would have been to have the 777 operating BA167/162 and the A321 operating BA163/166, however it could be that the 777 is not available for operating the earlier BA167 flight.

However, from my own perspective, I like the A321s operating to TLV and prefer them to the 777s on CW. And I like the timing of the new BA166/7, so I wouldn't switch the current operations for 2 daily 777 or 789 (which would probably lead to the cancellation of BA166/7, which would be a shame as west-coast connections would, once again, become too long).

NYTA

Not sure why they would do 6 weekly instead of 7. I can think of many a Friday afternoon that I wanted to get back to TLV when I couldn't because of the flight schedule - now I still won't be able to. Who wants to fly LHR-TLV on a Saturday afternoon?!

gordo6

I think that the main reason for that is that there is no need for two morning flights ex-TLV on Saturday...

NYTA

Not so sure I agree with that. Given that LY doesn't fly Saturdays, it gives BA a big advantage in terms of ability to carry traffic on that day. I have left TLV for vacation on Saturdays before and it's my favorite day to fly from TLV because it isn't crowded. Admittedly, it's mostly low-yielding holidaymakers on those days but I think they'd make up for it with the businesspeople like me who really want to get home to TLV on Friday night and that flight would be the only option. I have, in the past, flown SFO-LHR on Virgin and then LHR-VIE-TLV on OS just to get home the same night vs. taking the double red-eye on BA.

gordo6

Agreed, however canceling BA167 on Saturdays instead (as you suggested) would also cause canceling BA166 on Sundays, which is much more needed than BA166 on Saturdays.
And I'm not sure how many Israelis would want to leave for a vacation on a Saturday morning... As most are not working on Fridays as well, I can see many preferring Fridays.

AA_EXP09

Plus, US is now an option to TLV direct from the USA.

clubman

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11D167 Safari/9537.53)

I noticed this yesterday as well when someone alerted me that they're F booking next summer has been downgraded.

This is bad news both in terms of reduction in premium seats (losing F and the smaller J cabin on the 3 class 777s means 154 less premium seats per week, and that's without taking into the account the small WTP cabin on these aircraft (just 3 rows).

And then it's bad news for those wanting to use GUFs out of TLV as...

Irubi

[QUOTE=clubman;

And then it's bad news for those wanting to use GUFs out of TLV as... [/QUOTE]

Absolutely agree ^^ - am looking to my bookings for next year for this

surryson

The size of the J cabin on a 3 class 777-200 is identical that of a 4 class 777-200 so the only reduction in premium seats is through the loss of the F cabin (98 seats in each direction per week). However, with the (re)introduction of the 167/166, adding 23 J class seats per day, 6 times a week, thats actually an overall increase of 40 premium seats per week.

Perhaps the use of GUFs and Avios on the TLV is one of the reasons that the 4 class aircraft will be deployed elsewhere in S15; An anticipation of making more money from the 14 seats.


Finally, if I were a betting man, I reckon TLV will see its fair share of 4 class 777s being used as 3 class aircraft at certain periods. I also wouldn't rule out the return of the occasional 767 covering for 321 maintenance a la Cairo.

gordo6

I think that the 767 to CAI is scheduled way in advance. If a 767 ever flies to TLV, we'll see it in the schedule - it probably won't be a last minute change.

surryson

I never said it would be a last minute change. Same timescales as CAI would be my bet. Just a hunch.