Originally Posted by
Crampedin13A
I think it is a combination of the Canadian based YYZ-UK market mostly going with AC, TS even EI but also in a shift of the massive connecting traffic from India. At one time BA had a huge chunk of it but now even VS and Qatar have started YYZ timed for connections from India, EK, ET, EY has now put a daily 380 on plus all the European Star and ST carriers picking up the connecting traffic BA used to get.
It's not that BA lost connecting traffic, it's that they can now fill their planes with more lucrative point to point traffic, without the need to fill planes up with conncting passengers. You can see it in pricing where BA seem happy to price themselves out of the North American market (ex-Delhi). Business class very often sells out in advance too.
The direct UK-India aviattion market is underserved. It's capacity constrained by bilateral agreements that limit UK carriers to what Indian carriers can match. Indian carriers (AI and 6E) have huge aircraft orders and will expand services as soon as they can. They want to take back the business that middle east carriers have picked up. Increased Indian services should then allow UK carriers to increase their services, it's a huge growing market. NB India is BA's second biggest foreign market (after the US).