G-VIIF is due back from AUH in the next 24hrs as it is scheduled to operate BA121 to CVG tomorrow afternoon.

Pilot37

G-XLED also spending time in the LHR sick bay it seems…

I think the old Laker hangar (Hangar 6), is all that's left of the once enormous hangarage at LGW, all the BCAL engineering buildings are long gone, and I believe Hangar 6 has asbestos issues?
BA see Maintenance as a cost to be controlled where as Lufthansa managed to make Lufthansa Technik into a world leading 3rd party maintenance provider. I cannot imagine BA building a new maintenance hangar ever again, they'd go third party before they'd spend that sort of money. At LHR, Technical Block A dates from the 1950s, TBB and TBD were demolished which leaves TBA, TBJ/TBK (the B747 hangars from the 1970s) and the Cathedral Hangar. Nothing at LHR us under 50 years old, and TBA has acres of empty office space due to....asbestos. GLA hangar dates from around 1966 when Abbotsinch became the new Glasgow Airport, which leave Cardiff which was opened with a wad of public sector funding in 1993. The early 90s build ex BMI hangar at LHR is now used by United who actually do invest in such infrastructure.
Management will put it off and keep kicking the can until the infrastructure falls down and they can offshore most of it.
Bottom line, can anyone see BA under IAG building anything new in the UK ever?

Side question before I reply, I've heard BA are moving in Hangar 7 at LGW.

As for building, there is a desire to rebuild the LHR Base but it's never going to be happening. Apart from how damn hard it is to build anything in this country, but TBA besides being riddled with asbestos is also listed.

That’s positive news if BA are moving to Hangar 7. Are you able to say whereabouts that is at the airport? Many thanks.

It’s ok I have just looked it up. It is actually advertised for sale/ lease on several sites with photographs.
I believe it is the former Virgin hangar opposite the Boeing hangar.

That's the rumour on the street, clearly not having a hangar was an exceedingly stupid idea (a bit like letting the lease for TBN expire, or the disbanding of the cabin maintenance team) made by the previous management. Whether this is a true rumour or another "We're going back to Melbourne" only time will tell.

Hangar 7 was built for Dan Air, went to FLS then back to BA, then latterly Virgin Atlantic. It's the one behind the 170 stands north of the main taxiway.

Many thanks. I managed to find some photographs online. It was even advertised on Rightmove lol!

Just looked too- I note the advert says it's suitable for 1 x 787 or 2 x A320s. So would still mean the 777s going off to LHR for light MX. Unless or until BA move use some 787s there. If Virgin had it however, wouldn't they have used it for 747s and A330s at Gatwick?

It can take one B777 easily, Virgin used to use it for B747-400 maintenance.

Agent underselling it then on the website, but yes I had assumed it had been used for larger with Virgin. If it's refurbished, I guess there's a very slim chance they changed the layout.

Possibly. You can see from outside they the high centre part of the door to accommodate the 747 tail is still there, and it doesn’t look like lots of recent work has been done. I hope that rumour turns out to be accurate, it will be good
to see such a big hanger in use and as others have said BA needs to space if it’s committing to a growing fleet at LGW.

Looks like 773 GSTBG is off to Teurel as 9171 later today

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9c073cf24.jpeg

Hanger 7 in her glory years.

G-MIDO has gone to LGW

This must be the 23rd Aircraft for BAEF. Wasn’t it mentioned that there would be 24 for the summer? Wonder what the 24th would be.

TTOB/E are said to be likely but perhaps it will instead be one of the EUYx with sharklets as these have flown from gatwick a fair bit in the past

It is indeed aircraft number 23.

All the A320s are second hand, G-MEDK was BMED, G-MID* are ex BMI. G-TTOB/E ex GB Air. The G-GAT* are a mixed bag, some ex Wizz Air. Spot the running theme, none were delivered to BA.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say G-MIDS will be next. Not really based on anything apart from that G-MIDO sat on the ground at LHR for nearly 3 days before heading over. G-MIDS hasn't flown since Sunday. Probably means nothing though :)

Isn’t G-MIDS scheduled for retirement this year? Along with MIDT and some A319s???

I have a feeling the A319s may be staying a little longer.
One has recently returned tom service from Madrid and there is some expectation the remaining two in Madrid may also return.
The smaller aircraft seem suited at the moment to keeping up frequency on business routes that no longer require A320 andA321 capacity.

I think you're right actually. Looking at Jethro's fleet listing it does show only G-MEDK and G-MIDO as transferring to Euroflyer imminently. Maybe it's just 23 aircraft for now?

I thought it was 23 for this summer? Perhaps BAEF have been able to get more crew trained, I think that’s the bottleneck right now. There are certainly enough incoming NEOs and a few A319s at MAD that could be used if the training department are replacing crew faster than they are leaving. The use of DAT from Heathrow suggests otherwise and there were rumours of Avion coming back mentioned on the board. I wouldn’t bet against TTOB/E being the next to go to BAEF.
BA have quite a few slots leased out at Gatwick, so that’s one issue that isn’t a constraint.

The ex GBL aircraft are not really misfits at LHR other than their reg sequence. They were ordered to BA spec unlike the loose loaded ex bmi aircraft.

G-MIDO entered service with BA Euroflyer this morning. I wonder if there will be aircraft 24 this summer as the plan stated. Perhaps a bit later as peak summer season approaches.

BA Summer Schedule Changes
 

Been a while since my last post, but here’s a full list of changes that I have found starting for the summer:

• Barbados changes from 77W to 781 (+ an extra flight every other day)
• Bengaluru changes from 772 to A351
• Boston:
  • BA213/12: loses A351, changes to an A388
  • BA239/38: loses 789/1, changes to a 777/77W
• Cape Town loses its daily 77W
• Chicago:
  • BA295/94: changes from a 789/1 to a 777
  • BA297/96 changes from a 777 to a 789/1
• Cincinnati changes from a 777 to a 788
• Delhi:
  • BA143/43 changes from a 777 to a 788
  • BA257/56 changes from a A351 to a 788
• Dubai:
  • BA107/06 changes from a A388 to a 788
  • BA109/08 changes from a 781 to a 777
• Hong Kong (BA31/32) changes from a 788 to a 777
• Hyderabad changes from a 788/9 to a 777/77W
• Johannesburg:
  • BA55/54 changes from an A388 to a 77W
  • BA57/6 changes from a 789 to an A388
• Male changes from a 77W to a 789
• Montreal changes from a 777 to a 788
• Nashville changes from a 788 to a 777
• New Orleans changes from a 788 to a 789/1
• JFK (BA113/12) changes from a 781 to a 777/77W
• Philadelphia changes from a 777 to an A351
• Riyadh changes from a 789/1 to a 777
• San Diego changes from an A351 to a 777
• Singapore & Sydney:
  • BA11/10 (Singapore) Changes from 789 to an A388
  • BA15/14 (Sydney via Singapore) changes from a 77W to a 789
• Tokyo Haneda:
  • BA5/4: changes from a 77W to a 789
  • BA7/6: changes from a 789 to an A351
• Toronto (BA99/98) changes from a 777 to an A35K

This list isn’t exhaustive, and doesn’t include any short haul (as these are mainly frequency changes rather than actual fleet changes)

This is a completely amateur perspective and could just be me, but does the A350 fleet seem quite under utilised?

Not really. I've just had a look at the planned scheduled for the period between May and September this Summer season, and the 18-strong A350 fleet will operate an average of 428 return sectors or, basically, 14 return sectors per day. The 789 fleet, which consists of 18 frames equally, will only operate 305 return flights or 10/day. The 77M (of which, if I'm not mistaken, there are 18 in the fleet) do an average of 396 return sectors/month.

The thing is, unlike other aircraft, the 350s are fairly "clumped" together. While it's common to see 788s and 789s swap around and trade places, the 350s are consistently (i.e. on a daily basis) scheduled on the ACC, AUS, BLR, CPT, DEN, GRU, HND, LAS, NBO, PHL, PHX, YVR and YYZ routes for the period in analysis.

787-8 BJA is now re designated as a 78E and internally as a new subfleet - V8. No return to LHR on the books just yet.

Should be around mid-month, or so the plan said. She's also undergoing a heavy maintenance input so there might be delays if they found something they need to fix.

Is 78E the designation for all 787 that will have Club Suites?

for the 787-8 that does.

78B - 787-8 without club suite
78E - 787-8 with club suite

789 - 787-9 without club suite (*all currently have old club)

781 - 787-10 with club suite (*all have the club suite)

Thank you. Useful info.
Sorry I was asking about the 787 -8 and didn't make it clear.

Interesting to see the A380 going back to Singapore ... I wonder if BA take the opportunity to send aircraft to Manila maintenance after completing a revenue flight to SIN ?
Something that they haven't done since January 2020

As opposed to the current process of flying them empty LHR-MNL-LHR

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...singapore.html

That would be interesting

78N will be the code used for the retrofitted 787-9’s once they’re done.

78E - Eight
78N - Nine

what about the 777?
Whats the mening of the codes behind that ? 77L 77M etc.

Airlines use different descriptors to show different configurations, as not all 777s are the same.

What BA uses isn’t the same as Lufthansa or AA for example.

The excellent Aerolopa website will show you the various configurations.

I think the OP was asking why BA selected 77L and 77M (for example) for the CS configured aircraft as a follow on from the response to the new B78E and B78N codes, the meaning of which was explained above.

So to clarify - do the L, M, T, S, G and H codes for the B777 fleet signify anything specific?

Pilot37