Simple answer. No slots.

Around 35% or more IIRC at LHR. Which just shows how popular an airline BA is despite the bad press!!!

It went back to row 17 (or 18?) - full to the brim in CE many times on routes such as LCA!

Maybe its a sign of the lengths people will go to to ensure they definitely get a cup of tea with their afternoon tea scone? ;-)

36 Club Europe on a LCY-NCE E190 the other day (just before the start of the Cannes Film Festival). On ex-LCY, they don't top-up extra crew members for higher CE loads, so it was mostly the CSM who hardly paused for breath to give everyone a very good service!

Our recent MLA had about 10 rows (hard to count from Row 1) and undoubtedly the majority were an annual ‘big treat’. They just didn’t look like ‘regular’ CE pax, if I may put it that way.

I think about 14 rows of CE out to IST last Monday, almost completely full. Maybe 10-11 rows coming back yesterday but with a lighter loading - theoretical Seating kept the 'adjacent' seats empty for Golds in the very front. By contrast, my flight to TIA (Tirane) in a couple of weeks has just gone up from two rows to three in CE with the addition of the third passenger...

Lis is getting busier and busier, 5 years ago I could get really cheap flights even on weekend dates, with decent flight times - not just BA (I find the flight times with BA to be awkward for my specific needs) but the low cost carriers and TAP as well. Since then, though, the amount of people travelling to Lisbon seems to have tripled, it is rare to get a truly low fare these days and all the flights I have taken, even random mid-week, mid-day ones are mostly full. Sure, mostly it is low cost flyers like myself, but when you are looking at less than £100 quid difference between basic economy and CE, I can understand the lure - 2 checked bags, priority, lounge access, food... Only way to get over this is to pretend Lisbon is a horrible destination, tell everyone how horrible the weather is and how crowded the town has become! Much better off flying somewhere nice, like Faro or anywhere south of Spain!





I want my cheap fares back. ;(

You mean that they still held the hopes and dreams of what being in Business class would mean to their lives? :D

LIS is pretty much at capacity as far as I understand it, for nearly a decade there's been talks of creating another airport to support it - but environmental impact and random political/economic nonsense has kept it from happening. LCY to LIS can be done with TAP, unsure how much of a market there is for it though (never flew from LCY myself on any routes).