Originally Posted by
scolbath
It's not quite as bad as that - looks like the corresponding flight is BA239 which leaves LHR at about 7pm and arrives BOS at 10:30pm so about 9.5h for the RON. I've taken the eastbound quite a few times and the load varies but can be reasonably full. The late westbound is probably the alluring part as much as the eastbound - it allows people to finish a day in London, and can scoop late(er) connecting traffic from the continent.
9.5 hours of a day plus an inevitable minimum 1.5 on the LHR end. That means 45% utilization. By comparison, from what I have read AC's schedule is (was) built for the 787 to fly 18.5 hours a day for eight days before an overnight visit for a 12-hour, in-depth maintenance layover. That's a 77% utilization. So every 3.5-ish flights means the schedule needs an extra frame to accommodate. That means that a 7 day weekly needs 2 more planes in the fleet to compensate for that time on the ground based on an 7-8 day rolling schedule. We're talking millions of £ per annum.