corporate-wage-slave

With the demise of thebasource, we no longer have a resource for BA's charter services. Most of these services aren't so interesting - maybe BA has been hired by a ski holiday company to run some services to the Alps. Some involve more noteworthy groups, such as football teams and orchestras. Here is your thread for the more exclusive flying options.

corporate-wage-slave

Spotted at BFS - Belfast International / Aldergrove - Tuesday 10 August 2021.



There is an interesting symmetry here. BA's A320 G-EUYJ flew up from LGW on 10 August (departed 1155, arrived 12:53), before leaving at 02:14 in the early hours of 12 August, reaching LGW at 03:11.

And the Air Europa service went from Valencia to Belfast City, then had a 13 minute sector from BHD to BFS. It then also left BFS in the early hours to return to VLC. This is 737-800 EC-MKD.

The cause? The UEFA Super Cup game at Windsor Park between Chelsea FC and Villarreal CF. BA only normally visits BFS thanks to bad weather at BHD. I guess the Spanish team arrived at BHD to shorten their trip to their Belfast hotel, but had to use BFS on the way out due to night time restrictions. And since this game went to extra time and then penalties, it was probably running later than expected.

golfmad

That would be one way to avoid this happening.

Travelling with a cello on BA sounds like a nightmare

SHT88T

In addition to the one at Aldergrove, there were also 4 additional BA services planned into BHD for the Super Cup, but in the end only one operated.

G-TTOB arrived as BA1408 at around 1630 on the day of the game and left around 1030 the day after as BA1409

I had a brief look at expertflyer at the time and this pattern was to be repeated by the other services that were ultimately cancelled.

BAeuro

G-LCAC flew SOU-LPL this afternoon. Is this a charter?

SHT88T

Total guess but Southampton were playing Everton in the Premier League this afternoon. I wonder was it picking up Southampton to bring them home?

G-LCAC heading back to SOU as I type this.

LCY8737

Given speedbird.online already has a lot of this data, I tried piecing something together: Noteworthy Movements.

At the moment it scans for all BA flights with numbers >9000 (they tend to be something special) and for routes with less than 10 rotations in the last 90 days (so shouldn't be a regularly scheduled flight). The less than 10 unfortunately brings some false positives from routes recently (re-)started, though I guess this will fix itself as these routes continue to operate.

If somebody has another idea of how to identify noteworthy flights, please let me know.

dnajockey

I'm not sure how noteworthy but passing through Tarbes I spotted a BA A350, Jethros seems to think the latest (G-XWBI) off the line at Toulouse did the short hop at the end of July - straight from production to storage?

vectismanpaul

I believe the more regular charter flights such as series for holiday companies, specialist providers and Christmas specials tend to use the 8000 to 8999 block of numbers.

vectismanpaul

Many thanks for the link to speedbird.online. I did not know about this site. It looks very informative. Good to find somewhere similar to The BA Source.

Trent900

Any info on why ZBJC positioned Heathrow-Glasgow then on to Philadelphia this morning?

McG

Word amongst the local spotters - charter to take WWE wrestlers back to the US after their show in Glasgow yesterday.

cupsandsaucers

All I would say is NEVER never ever take AA 757 from GLA-PHL. It's the worst aircraft I've eveer been on. Honestly I'm amazed it's flight safe. Drop down TV above the Aisle likes its 1983 (that's if it works, mine didn't) seat was falling apart too.
That 787 looks a lot better!

Fraser

You'll struggle to do that again since AA retired their 757s last year.

skipness1E

And dropped GLA-PHL.