Originally Posted by
allamericantx
I'm in discussions right now that a permanent British Airways nonstop will be added from Austin to London in the next year or so.
The only market in the United States, as small as Austin, that has a non-stop to London is RDU. They have only been able to make that work with some type of corporate guarantee and the 757 aircraft. The way I see it AUS has three major problems.
1) A minimum of a 767 is required because of the distance.
2) Inadequate Immigration/Customs facility for a 767.
3) A more substantial guarantee/contract than RDU because of the size of the aircraft.
The best thing would be for the city council to start planing to move the airport operation over to a private company. That way someone who knew what the heck they were doing would be in charge of the matter.
Originally Posted by
aamilesslave
If you're referring to AA's RDU-LHR service (and previously RDU-LGW before the open skies agreement), it's never been smaller than a 767-300. It was a 777-200 for quite a few years, too.
Whoops! That makes the above argument fall apart a bit :-). If the customs/immigration facility was upgraded and with the addition of the BMI LHR slots, maybe this could happen.