BA's reactions to May 17th openings
 

Looking more and more likely that Portugal will be the only major Euro destination that will be green-listed this month.

Good for us, as we are booked on the only London departure on Sun 30th to FAO - which it looks like is sold out entirely, with 15 rows of club and not a single seat available to reserve. Given this I am amazed there arent more flights going - I presume BA are in a position to add more at short notice once they get certainty from gov't?

I also presume the first few rows of the cabin are blocked out, not reserved, as it would be nice for us lowly Bronzers to have somewhere to sit :cool:

Last summer BA were pretty flexible - mainly in reaction to the chopping and changing travel corridors and getting people home on time. So I'm pretty sure they'll be quick to add flights if there is demand. Surprised they haven't at least swapped these to A321s, they are indeed very busy!

I think they'll be loads of flights loaded in no time if certain countries become green and allow us Brits entry. And fares will be very very high to boot! FAO was the prime example later last summer for it's short appearance on the corridors

There are actually two LHR flights and one LCY flight to FAO that day. LCY and the later LHR are fully booked!

My ~£70 'insurance' flights to FAO in August could turn out to be a good bet then. It's that or Greece right now for us (and they were really cheap flights too, damn shame we can only use one set!)

And the early LHR has a single seat for sale.
Reckon they could easily sell another 3 planses/day once the green list is confirmed.

Hi ,

How about an a380 to faro:p?

regards

tbs

And MLA if we're to continue to speculate on the Mail Online predictions !

At the end of the day, although these destinations will be on the green list and will not require quarantine, they will still require a lot of testing on return. This will put some people off and will mean 6/7 flights are not necessary.

Which source are you using for this prediction? I am hoping and praying Mexico makes as least amber, as red would scupper by first visit to family in 18 months. Thanks in advance

SZG, GIB, and FNC all have low case rates and would also be ideal for A380s!

I agree that sadly being on the green list still won’t tempt some to travel due to the testing etc

but as demand is so low at the moment in general, adding flights won’t be a problem, maybe a better bet may be to aircraft change from a 320 to a 321, or even if demand is strong, I’m sure BA will have spare 787/350s they could put on a green short haul destination

Is Portugal letting in British residents?

I believe that for the time being only "essential" travel is allowed from the UK.

I would love to watch a fully laden 380 try to stop without setting fire to the brakes in GIB!!

That crystal ball source that is riddled around these parts ;)

I guess it depends which media outlet you believe as they all seem to be reporting what you need to know and what countries will be green. I guess it remains to be seen what the actual verdict is but either way BA will be fast to redeploy resources accordingly.

I do think the multiple tests to be some sort of deterrent. I also though I read that there will be a weeks notice before countries change colour. Personally if the risk deteriorates I can’t see the government allowing people,to drift in for another week.

Never underestimate our government, they did from India for several days !

Plus upper deck deplaning would be interesting...

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1075ff5942.jpg

indeed. I saw a few websites labelling Mexico as a contender for green. Seems bizarre considering the outrageous death toll and terribly slow vaccination program here. I could understand amber due to declining hospital rates, but green seems a stretch too far. I can't see BA increasing Mexico city frequency..4 a week seem logical. Cancun on other hand...

You can sort of get a rough idea yourself by using a couple of websites.
I don't know if you're aware of the Coronavirus Update website that has data for the whole world - COVID Live Update: 154,420,873 Cases and 3,230,354 Deaths from the Coronavirus - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

A few weeks ago they started a new feature that shows the current case rates rather than just the totals for the entire pandemic. If you filter it by the cases per million of the population you'll see Mexico is currently 123rd, compared to the UK which is 117th at the moment and Portugal which is 111th.

The worst hit right now are:-

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8bf01aefbf.png


You can also see current vaccination rates and numbers at Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations - Statistics and Research - Our World in Data

The UK government have other criteria as well but this info may hopefully indicate to some extent where may be opening up soon. Based on the current figures I wouldn't be looking at going to The Seychelles or The Maldives for a while yet for instance!

Here's the current list of countries with low infection rates - you'll have to decide for yourself how much each government can be trusted to be able and willing to give genuine numbers....

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...05a2ad09ce.png


As I say, nothing official but the government will be looking at the same data as part of their decisions.

Thanks for sharing that.

The countries on the second image you could trust with the figures aren't likely to be letting people in anyway!

Fleet allocations are going to be interesting as BA has parked the majority of the A321 fleet of 28. 18 of them are CEO and all are parked, IIIRC 3 are still mid-haul -haul configuration. Of the A321s, only the 10 new A321neo are active. I think the A321ceo's all went to Madrid for deep, or semi-deep storage, not a quick kick of the tyres to reactivate them, as I understand. The choice might be to use wide-bodied aircraft, but only the 77W, A350 and A380 offer significantly more seats than an A321. Not to mention the 777 fleet seems to be busy carrying cargo and operating the remains of the passenger network.

Its not an easy juggling act, especially when activating or storing aircraft comes with a considerable cost.

yes. It sounds like a planning nightmare. How many seats difference between 787 and the 321?

hi,

I think it is quite minor

The 787-8 has 214 seats and the 787-9 has 216 seats per ba.com and the a321 neo is around 215 in a one cabin config but would be less when the middle seats are left empty for club europe

Regards
tbs

218 on a 321 CEO
220 on a 321 NEO
180 on a 320 NEO/CEO
177 on a 320 LGW config
214 on a 788
216 on a 789
256 on a 78X
​​​

Currently only for essential reasons. Source: re-open EU.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c21e379d3.jpeg

wow that's much closer than I thought. Can see why planning will be tough. At some point they'll have to bite the bullet and hope bringing planes out of storage will be worth the money. What provisions are there for ensuring enough pilots trained? Is there an exemption for time in simulator?

You may well have 15 rows of CE on a holiday route so that could be 30 less seats on the short haul configurations.

I wonder how they will treat places that are likely to be on the Amber list, presumably there will be people resident here from some of those countries, particularly EU, who would want to travel even with the pain of it being amber, eg those who haven't seen family in a long time. Will BA cancel amber destinations or keep something running. Guess once the list is announced then BA will see how many people cancel before pulling services.

​​​​​​
Yes these are the maximum configurations.
Minus 2 seats for every row sold as Club on the short-haul fleet.

Mexico is essentially operating as an amber country now and the route has been busy. I think they'd operate as some people can Q at home and then take test to release after 5 days

According to the BA Source the maximum C/Y mix would be
A321 56C 136Y = 192 (220Y)
A320 48C 108Y = 156 (180Y)
A319 36C 90Y = 126 (144Y)

788 35J/25W/154Y -> 80J/154Y
789 8F/42J/39W/127Y -> 89J/127Y

I think the wide body substitution really only works if there is very high J demand. I am assuming that Wold Traveller Plus and above would be Club Europe and ignoring cargo. I am also ignoring the opportunity costs of being able to redeploy the substituted A32x elsewhere in the short haul network and assuming that the 787 would otherwise be sat idle. None of these are safe assumptions. I think the reality is that BA does have an amount of flexibility, when you look a bit deeper substituting A32x for wide bodies does not seem a great option, while reactivating the A321ceos will cost them money. Its a good job they have a lot of slots, crew and A320s being rotated through short-term storage. My guess is there is still a lot of flexibility compared to summers gone by.

just a couple of very pedantic corrections
319 is a max of 40 CE,not 36, leaving 84 ET seats and
788 is 60 CE seats incl WTP and 154 ET seats

Currently BA are looking at all options depending on government decisions/ traffic light systems and no doubt will operate a schedule which will work for them in terms of revenue and cost, like any airline would do who is trying to catch up with business, ie there are talks already about 777s doing the likes of ATH and other destinations if demand and costs involved make it worth their while.

From speaking with friends in BA Ops, it seems that no one is really clear of which countries will be in the green/amber/red categories and, crucially, if they'll have reciprocity on the other side. The plans are, therefore, highly speculative and mostly revolve around a progressive increase in June. A380s are rumoured to be returning at some point in the summer season.

A couple of things that I've been told with a higher degree of certainty are:
1. Passenger Locator Form to be added (how, don't know) to the e-Gates from next week
2. T3 to reopen with 'leisure' routes during the summer. Which routes, depends on the list (see above)
3. Most airlines will leave T5 beside AA (AA people told me they'll just leave JFK, BA told me they keep all the routes) and QR
4. HAL plans to use T4 to host the 'red' arrivals, although that will take time just to set up the IT and see what hasn't been eaten by rats in the meantime

Bottom line = uncertainty reigns supreme still. And BA is being cautious, which isn't bad.

Point 4 is a very good idea indeed

Makes sense for direct flights but how will they handle indirect flights ? The govts policy from some destinations of banning direct flights (Dubai etc) means that "red" arrivals are coming in from hubs all over the place, mixed in with amber (or possibly even green if say Spain makes the list!)

That part of the regulations never made sense to me, would have made more sense to have people on direct flights where they could have been easily identified and not mingling with low risk passengers

It is. In practice it can be a logistical nightmare; a terminal move is usually quite labour intensive and doing it on a whim, after a tweet from Shapps has given only a few days' advance notice, will generate a considerable amount of hair pulling and swearing.

Gibraltar has just announced it won't require UK visitors to take tests to visit once tourism restarts - I imagine BA will be adding even more GIB rotations shortly!

That'll be an interesting one seeing as high winds can often divert GIB flights to Malaga and into a different set of arrival requirements. Fingers crossed Gibraltar and Spain will have a unified approach in to such matters as arrival requirements.