BOH

You don't know what airports they are being flown to. But if any are going LHR-CWL then a "747's worth of passengers" certainly is do-able. Trouble with this country is so many people will look or ways to block things, rather than ways to make things happen.

QF made it happen and it was very, very successful and they managed to gain a lot of goodwill, publicity and revenue. Some forward thinking by BA to be a little optimistic and lift the post-Covid gloom would be very welcome. Lord knows they need to do something positive amidst what has happened in the last 4 months.

skipness1E

This x 1000. Modern Britain doesn’t innovate because there’s always reasons not to do everything. It’s a mindset problem.

opus99

It doesn’t make sense in this scenario to compare QF and BA. BA is also battling a crisis with its staff. You think they’re getting bad PR now, imagine the PR that will follow on from that flight and how the unions will spin it into them not giving a damn about their staff. Honestly, it’s a cost-benefit analysis, and I think the costs definitely outweigh the benefits. Whatever flight they will hold doesn’t even cover the cost of impairment. But that aside. It’s even moreso the PR. When you actually look at the tone BA is setting to the average person, what they see is not good and a 747 farewell flight is not going to do anything but please AVgeeks and then pump
up the BA doesn’t care about their staff message. Most flyers don’t even care/know about what aircraft they’re on never mind the ones they are retiring.

bmibaby737

totally agree. The aussies have a can do attitude much like the Kiwi’s.

Dave Noble

Absolutely - I agree that most people couldn't care less about the aeroplane type and many would class taking a flight for no reason other than to go on that aeroplane type as completely cuckoo.

BarneyMcGrew

With the current climate change lobby, flying a B747 on ‘jolly flights’ would probably not be seen as being good for the planet and no doubt bring more bad press for BA.

Greta Thuderbug would be up in arms about it!

BOH

Sometimes one gets the feeling that other parts of a thread just have not been read. Because no one has suggested “jolly flights” in any way.

Here is a clue to what the thought was up-thread....how do you think the 9-10 744s currently parked at LHR are going to get to their final destination?

LondonElite

I didn’t realise that there are thousand of people willing to pay large sums for a one-way ticket to Victorville, located in a country which they cannot enter, put on by an airline needing to save money wherever it can.

BOH

Nor did I come to think of it. Is VCV close to CWL then?

LondonElite

Wow. I didn’t realise that there are plenty of people willing to pay large sums of money for a one-way trip to Cardiff from London, after a cash-strapped airline manages to get aircraft due for retirement back to to passenger standards at high costs. Come on, face it, this is not going to happen.

BOH

I think you would be very pleasantly surprised at how many people will do just that. The 744's at LHR have not yet had anything done to them that would require additional work to get them back to passenger standards either, they are simply stored and very importantly, they were stored using procedures fully expecting them to fly passengers again. The main difference between flying them empty to CWL or with pax on board is a full and currently rated CC are needed.

Just needs a will to make it happen......exactly as QF have done who are facing the exact same issues as BA regarding Covid19 restrictions, having to make staff redundant and a possibility Greta jumping up and down. No difference whatsoever, the PR angle by BA simply needs to be a) the flights are going to happen anyway because they must be flown out of LHR and b) they are charging money for the flights and for each flight, the income received is greater then any costs.

Can you enlighten us what the "high costs" are as they have been stored using procedures that fully expected them to return to pax service?

Prospero

The commercial genesis of operating farewell flights is it only needs to appeal to those that do care, as demonstrated with the retirement of the 757. First and foremost BA needs to get itself on a stable footing before putting a break-even plan into action but if BA can pull this together sometime in 2021, and direct the proceeds to a charitable cause, the outcome could be triumphant.

This is not only about the retirement of a magnificant aircraft - it is also about the many wonderful and empassioned crew members ending their long and successful careers.

bmibaby737

No, but Cardiff to St Athan is

bmibaby737

is this cockoo then?


I’m sure your hobbies would also be considered “Cuckoo” by some people.

BOH

Very true, I even believe there have even been some wrong landings in the past because they are so close together