citiflyerUK

Yes. Originally SAS operated CPH with the Q400, and then leased Avro RJ equipment and launched Stockholm and then Oslo. The SAS Q400 famously had landing gear issues and were withdrawn and swapped for CRJ900s. The leased planes were returned so the routes were dropped. Even earlier than this Malmo Aviation operated using RJ aircraft.

BA operated CPH and ARN. Dropping CPH and now ARN. This leaves Billund as the only Scandinavian destination.

Flynonstop also operated to Kristiansand and had planned to launch Oslo and Bodo but went under.

Estonian also announced LCY-Tallinn at one point but then cancelled it before the first flight.

paul4040

But the fact is that not enough people are flying on the route for BA to wish to continue it.

BA won't put the route back unless they will make money. They already know that it doesn't make them money.

Kgmm77

I think the fact BA have replaced a monopoly route with one with two direct competitors says a lot.

But things do change over time (DUB has gone from LGW & LCY BA services to no services to LHR & LCY services all in 5 years).

MNManInKen

^

I still don't understand what sort of "saving" you have in mind. Whether to fly on that route or not is a business decision. Unless you want to take a pot of money to BA to subsidise the route, I can't see what you're hoping to achieve.

As for other carriers: I'm pretty sure the industry will be well aware of BA bailing out and if others can make their business case work, they may go for it but I don't think a petition is going to make any difference to their case either...

dera

Both probably after seeing the LCY pricelist for commercial aviation.

onobond

No strong believer in petitions ruling out red figures, my first question seeing the LCY-ARN flights beeing cancelled is whether any of the 3 flights will be replaced with a new LHR-ARN flight?

NFH

http://www.britishairways.com/cms/gl...ty-Airport.pdf

BA has some really inappropriate destinations from LCY, for example UIP, ANE, CMF, FLR, IBZ, MAH, PMI and GRX. If you don't recognise most of these IATA codes, then it proves my point. It's madness to drop ARN, as it is to exclude TXL, PRG and BCN for example. I don't understand how BA chooses its destinations from LCY; many of them would be more appropriate from LGW or more appealing to FR's clientèle.

alexwuk

I still marvel no one's tried LCY-SIR in winter on fri/suns recently... SX came close to breakeven with LCY-BRN despite no GDS access, no AOC (monthly renewals), no economies of scale (Dornier328s!?), no FFP and some of the highest prices for any european route ex-LCY

Kgmm77

BA's LCY strategy is actually fairly consistent.

Financial services destinations year round, skiing destinations for weekends in winter, and a few popular second home sun spots in summer.

FrancisA

Surprised no one has mentioned it, but what makes LCY work is supposedly proximity to city of London and small size leading to quick processing of departures and arrivals.

ARN on the other hand is miles from centre of Stockholm, with all the usual problems of arriving or departing a remote major airport. Given that, what real advantage does LCY offer over LHR for the whole route experience?

I would suggest the answer is little and that is was BA's commercial statistics show.

dera

LCY-BMA would make more sense.

Often1

The advice here may be a bit convoluted and tinged with humor. But, the bottom line is that a petition will not work.

While a relatively hopeless task in the near-term, you need to convince BA or some other carrier that net revenue for this route exceeds some other route and that the carrier ought to pull aircraft off that route for this one. That is a Herculean task.

seawolf

An effective petition would involve £££ and lots of it.

henners

Not really - although BMA is much closer in, the fabulous links for ARN mean it's generally quicker into the city, plus the quietness of ARN means you don't have all the other delay nonsense you get at Heathrow.

It'd be like comparing LHR to LCY if the Heathrow Express went non-stop to Piccadilly Circus and Bank, and Heathrow had two more runways than it needed.

As someone who lives near LCY and spent a long time working in Stockholm, I'm very sad to see the service go - but agree that a petition will (and should) change precisely nothing.

For the question about weird holiday destinations from LCY, that's an answer to the challenge of it being a business airport: most aircraft do a rotation to a boring business destination early in the morning, and again in the early evening. So that the plane doesn't sit idle all day, BA slots in a middle of the day rotation to a non-business destination (beaches in the Summer, pistes in the Winter).

I suspect the LCY-ARN cancellation is a result of the sector length. At 2.5 hours, by the time the morning plane gets to ARN it's too late to be useful for business folks coming back to LCY, so either they do what they initially did and the plane sits at ARN all day, or they do what they then tried and slot in a quiet pair of flights back to LCY in the middle of the day. The morning and evening flights may have been a roaring success (they were always full when I used them), but if the overall utilisation is rubbish then, sadly, BA are right to drop the service.

darthlemsip

So madness is dropping an underperforming route? Also, not everyone is geeky enough to know every IATA code, so, no, it doesn't prove your point at all