londonba2014

Certainly does! Wonder if AGP might see something similar.

Agent69

Anywhere in the Canary Islands will do nicely. A bit more up market than the Costas, where there's probably lots of people willing to pay a premium for 4hrs in J.

BAeuro

I doubt BA would consider a LH aircraft to the Canaries in the Summer. There are a lot more popular destinations which see a higher frequency of flights. Maybe a Sat service to TFS in the winter could work, but even that’s a push.

As it stands, BA are planning 5x weekly to Tenerife and 3x weekly to Lanzarote from LHR in late May. That is minimal compared to AGP/PMI which is up to 5 daily.

londonba2014

According to BT - plans for long haul aircraft on short haul this summer https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...t-haul-routes/

Rubecula

Similar story, behind a paywall, in today's Times' business section under the headline "BA ready for surging demand". Having been optimistic about the opening up of international travel I am currently in wait and see mode.

oneworldglobetrotter

It seems the article originated in Bloomberg. And that BA will only do it tactically if they are seeing strong demand so it might be difficult to book these far out in advance if it does come to fruition. I wonder what aircraft they have in mind. Maybe some of the LGW long haul 777’s?

RGS5526

If BA start using three-class aircraft regularly on shorter routes, rather than just on an ad hoc basis, are we likely to see the CW seats sold as a higher class beyond Club Europe? Those paying current CE fares could go into the WT+ cabin. If this was tried and was successful, could it lead to changes to seat types and layouts on the A320 family fleets?

tom139

What you typically see is CW and WTP sold as Club Europe with lots of moans from pax seated in WTP.

EDDLEGLL

I think the chances for this are 0.00%. There’s no demand for anything beyond Club Europe, and the whole continent is completely used to the converted-economy seating arrangements that are in place virtually everywhere.

Even for the very long routes (Cyprus, Canary Islands), where an occasional wide body swap is much appreciated, I can’t see any scope for what you’re suggesting unfortunately.

BA6501

Whenever the 777/787 were on the MAD route, WT+ was always part of the Y cabin (and F, if available, would be the J overflow).

1Aturnleft

​​​​​​On the contrary I think there is a demand for such hard product on said bucket and spade routes, all be it somewhat limited - particularly from posters within this forum. However I fear this won't be nearly enough to sustain the long haul model and brands like CW and WTP on a permanent basis. At best it would be a Madrid style service with a European F&B and service with a Worldwide hard product.

But when it comes down to it, why would BA operate a 788 on a leisure route that can be handled by a 321neo?
Unless there's a massive cargo demand on a particular route, the numbers just don't stack up in terms of operation. The only way I could see it happening is if multiple daily services are consolidated to a single widebody rotation.

13901

The rumour I'm hearing is about A350s and possibly 787s, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen.

sheppy26

Hi everyone! It is good to be back - I have been probably like many of you having to focus on other things for the last year or so!

I am hoping that we are starting to see the light at the end of this particularly long tunnel and have spent the evening trying to catch up with all the Aviation moving and shaking that I have missed out on for so long. And I came across the talk of BA Long Haul A/C on S/H routes. Just to add my thoughts - I have a flight booked from LHR to TFS and back in September - on the days in question there are actually 3 flights to choose from with some pretty hefty prices attached. So I was wondering, wouldn't this make a good choice for merging the flights onto say a 777 instead? I obviously don't know the maths behind a flight, but even basic 777 flight crew of 13(?) versus 3x A320 crew of 6 making 18 in total must on it's own enable some savings for the airline, whilst also introducing potentially new punters to the long haul product? Just a thought?

Jumbodriver

But even an LGW 777 carries only 60% more passengers than an A321. So you need 2 777s to replace 3 A321s. And 1 777 burns more fuel than 3 A321s in any case. Plus other operating costs are much higher.

The only potential revenue bonus is that you can sell more CE seats, but only if you accept that a good chunk of them will be annoyed they are in W and not J.

I hope nobody thinks this will be any more than the odd flight in the high peak.

BA6501

Seating capacity of an A321neo and that of a 777, on BA, isn't as different you might think... 220pax vs 219 on the least dense 777 (12F) config. 336 on the densest 777.