Betteronacamel

Concorde was massively iconic in the UK for all sorts of reasons not least of which was that it was partially British built and was a very aspirational plane to fly on. The 747/744 is close to many people's hearts as it was the backbone of BA's long haul fleet for nearly 50 years and I think the plane that many of my generation grew up with and still enjoyed flying on many years later. It had a character lacking in the 777 and some of the more modern Identikit aircraft.

I honestly think that they would be queueing around the block if BA did a farewell flight - perhaps like one of the old Concorde away day trips down to the Bay of Biscay and back - with a proper sign-off reception back at LHR. If it wasn't a charity trip (nice idea) I am sure that BA could raise enough fare to cover the cost. But I think it is a shame just to let her die out without a chance for some to enjoy a fond farewell. I simply cannot believe that there would not be some good PR out of this (and Lord knows that BA could do with some of that).

My 10 cents.

Prospero

I absolutely agree with you. Any business case for a farewell flight in today's brutal commercial environment will be a very tough one to fight through. However, I was responding to a different point Dave Noble was making, which is to say the historic significance of the 747 to BA is profound as already noted by BA itself.

FlyerTalker39574

There’s some who may not have had an annual event for their company yet. Perfect opportunity.

bmibaby737

think of the amex points you’d earn!

BA or bust

Went past CWL last week and saw them all (12-13 of them) dotted about the airport. Very sad...

I am quite keen to work out how I can convince SWMBO that I should acquire an F seat for my study.

FlyerTalker39574

If they have a star alliance Amex card, they may get enough points to fly LH’s B748.

BOH

I may be misunderstanding something here but wouldn't it be a relatively easy business case if BA were confident they could sell some 1 hour farewell flights at say £500 a pop? Particularly if these were 1-way flights (to CWL for example) then part of the business case is already made as a lot of the costs of this last flight will already have been accounted as part of the 744 fleet withdrawal. There are about 10-12 744s still at LHR that will need to be flown out, these are the ones.

At £500 I do think they would sell out in a matter of hours.. To maintain social distancing. lets say 150 seats on offer at £500 each would generate £75,000 income.....for a flight that has to happen anyway! Up-thread I read BA has had some negative publicity recently re taking delivery of 787 / 350 whilst making thousands redundant (I haven't read this myself)....what great PR BA could create out of this though....maybe a few seats on each flight being auctioned for charity etc etc.

Notwithstanding what others have pointed out, if there is a sudden increase in Covid-19 outbreaks again then of course this would influence things and plans would need to change. But heavily promoted as taking all social distancing into account with a strict limit on # of tickets / charity auction of some seats...plus these flights need to happen anyway (this part I think is really, really key to promote as it mitigates the Greta crowd) I really can't see a negative PR angle at all.

LondonElite

To paraphrase a post above, why don’t you get in touch with BA and feel the temperature. You could even volunteer your time to make this happen or present them with your business case. I’m serious, in case you think this is snarky.

BOH

No I didn't think your reply was snarky, I will start with their overall H/O PR which I believe is still Victoria Madden? Would anyone on the BA staff side be able to PM me her e-mail address as I appreciate senior folk at big companies often do not use [email protected] for example.

Happy to try.

DYKWIA

Daily Mail

"BA infuriated their soon to be redundant staff by flying meaningless jolly flights for wealthy plane spotters"

BOH

"BA generate much needed income by selling seats on iconic 747s on their very last positioning flights out of Heathrow Airport"

It's all about whether you see a glass as half-full or half-empty. And you have failed to take into account the flights are happening anyway so hardly meaningless? Please keep up

DYKWIA

Oh come on, it's BA and the Daily Mail... do you really think they'd put a positive spin on it? They'd get "soon to be redundant Sophie and Alfie" in for a compo-face photo, with some champagne swilling photos of people in BA F.

BOH

....like I said, all depends whether an individual has a glass half-empty or glass half-full approach to life and achieving anything or simply shooting everything down

RoyalSwazi

Meanwhile, in other news FIFA have decided to cancel all future World Cups as people are bored of watching Germany vs Brazil. A spokesperson told the media “it seems it’s not needed to have a rerun of the final every fourth year. The environmental impact, risk of spreading disease and massive savings for television networks, sponsors and spectators are too great to ignore”

I’d love for BA to have a proper farewell, but I’m realistic enough to see why they won’t. If we’re lucky they’ll do a fly by over the Thames and Buckingham Palace.

gliderpilot

doubt they’d be offering champagne on any final flights. Yes, Theres always a risk at incurring DM wrath but they do very occasionally do positive reporting... I think it would depend on how the flights were organised and marketed.

On the wider piece, QF were at pains to point out they were bringing in new and fuel efficient aircraft and this was a send off, not a party as such. The focus was on seeing out an aircraft that they had operated for almost 50 years. Lots of retired staff and passengers out there to talk to the press about the human side etc.

this thread really boils down to a few key questions.

1) is it technically possible to run these flights? I would say it’s likely. The aircraft are still serviceable, the crews are still current, QF has shown flights can be run from a covid pax point of view. Potential issues with handling at destination airport or whether the flights end up back at Heathrow and then flown out after (ala Concorde).

2) is there Sufficient demand for these flights to cover their costs? Again, likely. QF has shown that there certainly was in Australia. The BA Twitter team highlighted to me the other day that there have been receiving a lots of requests for running final flights.

3) is there sufficient will across BA departments to make it happen? Engineering, management flight ops etc. It sounds like there is internal debate, with management happy if they cover their costs. Engineering wise it may take additional efforts to service aircraft for pax rather than ferrying. QF seemed to manage this though.

4) is it a good PR move for BA? This is the one that is most up for debate I think. We have seen the pros and cons debated already. I can see both sides and it may very well depend on the wider Covid-19 situation.