LCY-BHD from 1 September 2020
Jul 2, 2020, 9:07 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: London, UK
Programs: BA Executive Club Blue
Posts: 964
LCY-BHD from 1 September 2020
From 1st September BA CityFlyer will be operating London City to Belfast City, filling the void left by FlyBe. Flights will initially operate one rotation a day Sunday to Friday.
Jul 2, 2020, 9:20 am
#2
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: London, UK
Programs: BAEC
Posts: 3,439
Jul 2, 2020, 9:23 am
#3
Join Date: May 2007
Programs: BA Blue, EI Silver, Honours Gold, Marriott Gold
Posts: 1,207
Should be a good route for them.
I guess domestic services might be the first to recover - especially from NI where rail and road are not an option. Seems like a sensible route to launch, given the BHD and LCY are both BA stations and the numbers seen on the route pre-COVID.
I guess domestic services might be the first to recover - especially from NI where rail and road are not an option. Seems like a sensible route to launch, given the BHD and LCY are both BA stations and the numbers seen on the route pre-COVID.
Jul 2, 2020, 9:27 am
#4
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: London, UK
Programs: BAEC
Posts: 3,439
Should be a good route for them.
I guess domestic services might be the first to recover - especially from NI where rail and road are not an option. Seems like a sensible route to launch, given the BHD and LCY are both BA stations and the numbers seen on the route pre-COVID.
I guess domestic services might be the first to recover - especially from NI where rail and road are not an option. Seems like a sensible route to launch, given the BHD and LCY are both BA stations and the numbers seen on the route pre-COVID.
I imagine they will drop 1 LHR rotation going forward to meet reduced flying demand and some passengers switching to LCY.
Jul 2, 2020, 9:35 am
#6
Join Date: Aug 2011
Programs: BA Gold, IHG Platinum
Posts: 325
Great news for Belfast! Not sure they will cut much from Heathrow though, it’s already quite thin and much less would leave big gaps for connecting traffic. I think BHD to LCY will be busy enough on its own right, it had to be one off Fly Maybe’s best performing routes.
Jul 2, 2020, 1:53 pm
#8
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 411
Great news for Belfast! Not sure they will cut much from Heathrow though, it’s already quite thin and much less would leave big gaps for connecting traffic. I think BHD to LCY will be busy enough on its own right, it had to be one off Fly Maybe’s best performing routes.
Anytime I have been on the BHD - LHR flights they appeared to have a large percentage of connecting traffic, so maybe LCY will serve a different market largely business traffic between London and Belfast.
Jul 3, 2020, 4:01 pm
#12
Join Date: Nov 2012
Programs: BA Silver, VS Silver
Posts: 774
This is great to see. Hopefully you are right and their are no cuts to the LHR service as a result. The LHR service was cut back quite substantially to the current levels a few years ago after Flybe introduced BHD-LCY flights, and from what I recall Flybe had quite a few rotations a day. The BA Cityflyer might just be mopping up demand from the void left by Flybe.
Anytime I have been on the BHD - LHR flights they appeared to have a large percentage of connecting traffic, so maybe LCY will serve a different market largely business traffic between London and Belfast.
Anytime I have been on the BHD - LHR flights they appeared to have a large percentage of connecting traffic, so maybe LCY will serve a different market largely business traffic between London and Belfast.
That said, BA will need to understand the imprtance of the night stopper. A 1945 dep from LCY to give a 0630 dep from BHD arr essentials for the day tripper for business (if there are any of those left?) BA fell down on this on BHD LHR before and lost a lot of business to BE (who had the advantage with a BHD crew base). EI have also always had this problem on the route with no early arrival into LHR making it of limited use for business traffic.
Jul 3, 2020, 4:58 pm
#13
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: London, UK
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BE were doing 6 rotations per day just before the end. I think some of those in the middle of the day weren’t heavily loaded but were positioning aircraft to and from the peak flights. The early and late flights were rammed, and remember there are curfews at both ends along with a longer flight on the Dash8 and due do circuitous routings into LCY.
That said, BA will need to understand the imprtance of the night stopper. A 1945 dep from LCY to give a 0630 dep from BHD arr essentials for the day tripper for business (if there are any of those left?) BA fell down on this on BHD LHR before and lost a lot of business to BE (who had the advantage with a BHD crew base). EI have also always had this problem on the route with no early arrival into LHR making it of limited use for business traffic.
That said, BA will need to understand the imprtance of the night stopper. A 1945 dep from LCY to give a 0630 dep from BHD arr essentials for the day tripper for business (if there are any of those left?) BA fell down on this on BHD LHR before and lost a lot of business to BE (who had the advantage with a BHD crew base). EI have also always had this problem on the route with no early arrival into LHR making it of limited use for business traffic.
It will also have the LHR night stopper so there’s lots of choice.
Jul 4, 2020, 7:05 am
#14
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: UK - BHD
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Posts: 912
This is fantastic news ... I was a big fan of the BHD-LCY route, though always torn each time I booked onto it because it meant another FlyBe trip.
I had the impression that the BHD-LCY traffic wasn't a big deal for the BHD-LHR operation bearing in mind that BHD lost LGW services from both EI and BE in recent years.. The complementary BHD-LHR service from EI may have influenced the BA schedule more than the competing BHD-LCY service.
Though I am definitely pleased to hear that BA are filling this gap.
I had the impression that the BHD-LCY traffic wasn't a big deal for the BHD-LHR operation bearing in mind that BHD lost LGW services from both EI and BE in recent years.. The complementary BHD-LHR service from EI may have influenced the BA schedule more than the competing BHD-LCY service.
Though I am definitely pleased to hear that BA are filling this gap.