Originally Posted by
skipness1E
And yet there's no sign of a modern fleet renewal. I wonder how front and centre LGW short haul is post the recent BA Club changes? To be honest none of us can say what BA will do, the whole LGW hangar may well be useful for consolidated LHR maintenance as well.
Is a £13M profit with 25 aircraft that are long since paid for in the main, a business case for a fleet renewal? Are they really just going to stagger on flying LHR hand me down A320s against the competition flying NEOs?
Surely IAG have other options to make more money out of LGW short haul than BA can? I think long haul will be more than fine with new B78Xs but how many more years do we think it'll be before short haul sees a single NEO? EVERYONE else has moved on at LGW in some way to the MAX or NEO in some way.
BAEF is still a relatively new subsidiary, and the aircraft they have signify some sort of investment in it when BA itself didn’t know how BAEF would perform at first. Their schedule is growing, and their fleet are relatively well maintained (MEDK aside). There would have been no way that they would have got rid of the 20 odd fleet of A320 family aircraft to order a whole new fleet of NEO aircraft for a subsidiary that is still relatively young and still proving its worth and profitability.
However, BAEF has been doing well and if it continues to do so will potentially see an order for some NEO’s eventually or perhaps see some NEO’s make their way down from LHR, which fits the low-cost model that they operate on.