Falklands
 

Just received the following story in my inbox: Flightadar: All About the Falklands

It's a pretty interesting description of air travel from, to & around the Falklands, including the latest journey by a Lufthansa A350 that carried a few researchers headed to Antarctica.

Is there any reason BA don't operate to the Falklands? Assume there isn't enough demand for 3 daily non-stops, but a weekly add on to a GRU (though maybe not EZE) flight could be feasible? I always wanted to go, perfect way to use a GUF... :D

There is a weekly UK Falklands Island shuttle (or at least there was pre-COVID) operated by AirTanker on behalf of the UK MOD using a civil standard A330.

I dont know how you get a ticket and there are certainly no Avios to collect.

Look on Flightradar24 for G-VYG* to find the flights.

LAN used to operate a weekly flight I believe, but was scrapped.

For the AirTanker services, you have to book via the Government of Falklands office phone line/email (based in London). It’s a fixed price ticket of £2222 return! (Economy that too!)

https://www.falklands.gov.fk/more-in.../getting-here/

Talesfromtheroad posted a great trip report the other week. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip...d-islands.html

At that price point, you would think BA would consider operating this route.

I used to fly that route in the 90's flying the Tristar 500. I doubt it has changed much since then in terms of the economics, its not really a commercial route but one servicing the needs if the garrison and those who service it.

There are commercial elements, a lot of merchant naval stuff and crew on fishing boats but I doubt there is a real commercial need for the long range flight. Its certainly spartan when you get there.

Beautiful in a Highlands and Islands sense. All types of weather in a day and can be "exciting" to land in frequent, strong crosswinds with plenty of rotor streaming and mechanical turbulence.

As a route, a commercial operator would have fewer restrictions than the military, but suitable diversion airports will always be an issue.

I guess pre-pandemic, BA needed as many planes as they could considering their highly profitable operation, so perhaps this wasn’t really worthwhile for them?

Fascinating trip report, but Jet2 livery with boarding by rank? If BA don't start this route I think I'll go via SCL... :D

Considering that the population of the archipelago is less than 5,000 that the flight operates only twice a week, that it's mostly military personnel onboard and the length of the route... I think it won't happen for a while. Although it'd have been cool and certainly preferable than the n-th flight to Whateverville, USA, that BA were launching prior to Covid*.


*My personal opinion, no offence to the resident of Whateverville intended.

As an aside, an AirTanker 330 went there earlier this week and was mentioned on another site I follow. It had a stop in Dakar, presumably to refuel.

It was carrying 3000 doses of COVID vaccine from the UK.

More likely Dakar?

I'm blessed with a certain level of ignorance when it comes to the detailed touristic appeal of the Falklands and potential load factors, but if this would tag on to a GRU flight (this has historically been done for SCL and EZE if I'm not wrong) it wouldn't quite need the load factors of a stand-alone route.

Also, a decent connection might open up demand. I'm certainly not going to spend £2.2k for a Jet2 experience to the other end of the world. But a 2k J fare, maybe combined with a few days in Brazil - now we're talking!

And Lufthansa operated an A350 service Hamburg - Mount Pleasant this week with some governmental survey teams heading to/from the Antarctic. Flight time 15 hours and 37 minutes.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/d-aixp LH2574
https://simpleflying.com/lufthansa-c...st-flight-yet/

BA doesn't need to try to grow demand at the moment, rather the post Covid world is for more likely to see a retreat to the Core business. Tag on, or shuttle fIights are seldom worth doing as they have lighter loads and the aircraft is not being utilized very efficienty. I very much doubt we will see BA on a route to Mount Pleasant.