Mikey Mike Mike

My apologies - in my excitment, I typed this

not
I accept that having aircraft sitting around i

where it should have read

I accept that NOT having aircraft sitting around is good business etc etc

apologies

simons1

Interesting thread.

The situation for Norwegian always was going to be challenging, BA operating mainly from LHR which is rammed and Norwegian from LGW which is a bit more flexible. However I find the 'I wish IAL would buy Norwegian and get them out the way' line a bit bizarre, surely competition is good not a "problem"?

On the other hand if (and it is an if) Norwegian really are losing tens of thousands of £ on every long haul flight then that isn't a business model likely to last.

Returning to the OP's question, I suspect BA will get through this season in a bit of a ragged way - it was fairly unique with the Gatwick slots and the 787 issues. However by next summer I'm sure it will be on more of an even keel. The broader issue for me is whether BA's IT is really up to what they need it to do (website, Fly etc).

Mutu

We should not lose sight of the fact that BA was relatively late in placing its large-ish orders for 787 and 350 and so is well down the pecking order.. At the time of the orders this possibly suited BA albeit the delays in placing orders were when management held the airline hostage to achieving efficiencies in operating costs and productivity before committing to new frames.
Of course global growth and BA demand has picked up dramatically in recent years (but for how much longer) and the flying programme has expanded to a host of new SH destinations to really sweat the 32x frames into a profitable operation, and LH destinations with (other than CTU) perhaps surprising success.
I would hazard a guess that ASK growth has been quite dramatic with only modest frame increases (helped by densification of course) - so yes the fleet IS being worked harder than ever with little slack.

TWCLAM

VERYYYYYYYY good and fair point that I missed myself tbh due to being a bit dim at times but i'll defend my omission based on their pax demographic being better to suited to LGW than LHR if all things were equal slots wise.



Quantas have a Pilot issue that's bizarrely taken them by surprise and this summer they are running 747's domestically on the Perth - Sydney route because someone walked into the office one day and went "oh shi*t we dont have the trained crew to run our 737s" ( the backbone of their sizeable domestic fleet) so I think it's fair to say that not picking up on staffing issues, which BA currently do have a problem with, isn't unique to them and while we might find it strange it clearly isn't a BA exclusive issue. You have EY letting is pilots go and work for EK for the next 2 years which is just mind bending as well. Aviation staffing is obviously some form of black magic none of us ( seemingly including aviation employees themselves) understand

I think picking up on C-W-S's point the cost cutting policies / tight fleet control that BA exercised is unfortunately one of two options out there( although the OP ask's the correct question of why BA /airlines in general seem to struggle to find the 3rd and best option.) The other is to have too many and that can lead to your whole operation becoming at risk. Good example would be Emirates who have an amazing product in many ways but if it wasn't for the very deep pockets and tbh surely illegal levels of state aid anywhere else they would've gone to the wall( already) because of buying too many planes and not using them effectively ( yes there are well known other factors).

BA could probably do with a little more padding fleet wise but whilst it can be justifiably infuriating to pax at times have they, maybe, taken the better option ( as none of them seem able to find the aforementioned 3rd option)

Mixbury

Which is the other?

corporate-wage-slave

Bling Air

simons1

Ha....that old chestnut again.
https://www.emirates.com/english/abo...sidy-myth.aspx

What makes you think EK is not using the fleet effectively anyway?

TWCLAM

I stand very much corrected and appreciate your highlighting that to me @simons1

Mixbury

Thank you, I haven't flown them since the mid 90s, BOM-DXB I think. Shame what's happened to Dubai.

rapidex

EK are about 600 pilots short, and are towing aircraft from stand to stand to make it look like they are fully crewed.The EY crew leasing deal gets them out of a bind for now, after their HKG recruiting roadshow was a flop.

One of the agencies recruiting A320 pilots for mainland Chinese airlines, Wasinc is offering a £60k sign on bonus, and a £25k finders fee to anybody who gets one of their mates in.QF is not the only airline short of pilots.

rossmacd

This is interesting, but I'm struggling to understand why towing aircraft from stand to stand shows that they are fully crewed? Surely if the aircraft are grounded and unable to fly is the biggest indicator of crew shortages? Maybe I'm missing the point

RoyalSwazi

dkc192

Yeah I don't get the part about towing from stand to stand either.

simons1

Sounds a bit far fetched to me too. They normally park them down the slope or at Al Maktoum.

Not saying they aren't tight for crew, but they have always had aircraft parked around this time, during Ramadan and then the summer. And next year they will have a/c parked because of the runway works.

rapidex

The towing of aircraft is to conceal the fact there is nobody to fly them.