Originally Posted by
etiene
Completely agree and did not mean to suggest otherwise. BA are painted into a corner here and cannot repeat their hand-me-down strategy at LGW this time out. Not sure if they had meant to but got snookered by pandemic fallout or if this was intentional over the course of a decade or so, but at this point they’d have to needlessly refit brand new cabins to move LHR aircraft to LGW. No chance.
I don’t think it's anything to do with the pandemic. It's more to do with the fact that all but 4 of BA's 77Es were delivered in a relatively short space of time. But, I wouldn't say that there was "no chance" of the hand-me-down policy continuing. Just as the 77Es are split between two different engine types, range and crew bunks, and distributed across LHR and LGW, then so too could the 781s. So, if the business case is there, then a number of LHR 781s could find themselves re-fitted at the front end and operating out of LGW. Didn’t BA do something similar to 3 ex LGW 4 class 77Es recently? Yes, they were oddballs, but BA don't do anything if the finance doesn’t stack up!