RB211

Not sure how much that reflects intended reality.

rb211.

tattikat2

Yes, who knows for sure.
The later of the 2 daily flights always was an A380. It was the first flight of the day that used to be a 747.
If they decide not to reinstate an A380 on this route then they'll need to substitute 2 new plane types on this route.

RB211

Indeed - it's currently a 789. Demand and profitability will drive everything; I could see single daily service going for quite some time.

rb211.

gengar

Just a note, I was poking around at some bookings next summer and noticed the 77Z (12F 48J 32W 127M) on LHR-LAS.

EDIT: As per below, these are all to be retrofitted to three-class 77L by September 2021 as per LGW & LHR selected 777s go 10-abreast (3-4-3) in Y 2018 onwards

tunis97x

Ah, I think that's just the current 4-class G-YMM* layout with no CS

gengar

Yeah, and I forgot that as per LGW & LHR selected 777s go 10-abreast (3-4-3) in Y 2018 onwards , the 77Z are all supposed to be converted to the 77L (48J 40W 184Y) three-class with the Club Suite. So it's likely not indicative of anything.

minichr1s

I'm booked in F late next year on LHR-LAS, will this be an enforced downgrade?

Thanks

flygod

How realistic are all these changes?

If the 747s have been scrapped, and the A380s stood down, where are all the 777s and the 787s coming from to run the replacement services?

I know BA have new aircraft arriving monthly, and services to some airports may drop frequency, but will there be enough? Or is this Pie in the Sky planning?

Will we, one day, wake up to - say - four flights a week to Denver? Or San Diego dropped for LAX - or kept, and LAX dropped to one a day?

alex67500

That's how bad the situation is looking at the moment. Say a vaccine comes out in Q1 next year (approximately realistic), and then it takes 9-12 months to get enough people vaccinated that it becomes viable for a company to risk sending staff on non-essential business trips again. Imagine the economic impact those 2 years will have had and translate that into travel budgets. LAX and SFO once a day isn't surprising, even on a 777 or smaller, until probably summer 2022. Plenty of time to take delivery of more efficient aircraft. That's the start of recovery, not the point where we're back to last year's numbers.

Flying Doctor

I agree. You can actually see how you can save a lot of airframes very quickly. JFK at 3/day not 10 - that is 7 airframes saved. No Australia - that saves another 2. JNB and CPT once daily each, at least another 2-3, LAX daily instead of 2-3/day, another 2-3 frames. So it goes on. In fact you can rapidly end up with far too many aircraft even with all the 747-400's gone and the A380's gone in all but name for the foreseeable future. And that is before you get into second tier US destinations which may well not get a direct service back until well into 2022 and even then not a daily one. Add on top that airframe manufacturers are on their knees there will be plenty of slots to occupy with brand new airframes for a while. Finally, as if you need a nail in the coffin, even with 787's on some of the previously highest traffic routes there is a long way to go before needing multiple 777-300's a day on the main routes. There is simply no demand and that doesn't just come back overnight.
In terms of recovery indeed, assuming v1 of the clinically used vaccine is highly effective it will simply take months and months to get everyone vaccinated to an extent that business travel can restart in anything like the way it has been for the last 30-40 years. That assumes quite a lot for this vaccine by the way and the more likely scenario of a partially effective vaccine, that not everyone wants, with a virus that could mutate etc and you can see how far off 10 flights a day to JFK seems at the moment.....

FD.

BAeuro

BA have taken control of Vueling’s LHR slots in S21. They have provisionally listed San Diego as the route which will operate these slots and the aircraft is down as an A350. So I guess this tells us their plans for SAN.