TedToToe

Totally in crystal ball territory, I know, but what are people's thoughts on this flight returning in 2023? Without it, I guess it's IB via MAD. Any thoughts and previous experiences appreciated.

Coates55

Have used IB a couple of times on this route and has worked perfectly fine ( albeit this was in business class)..

vectismanpaul

I personally think it will depend on how demand for tourism in South America recovers.
Hopefully, the twice weekly summer seasonal from Gatwick may return in the medium term say 2023 onwards.

TedToToe

Ah, yes, I should have mentioned, definitely planning to be in J.

ermis177

Tourism is back trust me but it�s probably another reason BA isn�t flying there at the moment. Flew from Bogota to Madrid with IB last week. They had 2 flights on the day and the one I was on was overbooked. Same with other destinations in South America.

corporate-wage-slave

If we are in silly and fairly meaningless speculation mode - and we are here - then I would give a reasonable but not overwhelming chance of BA's return to Lima.

Positive reasons
- Past experience has shown that a BA service does not cannibalise IB's service and prevents leakage to Star / Styteam
- Avoiding transfers even MAD, but particularly USA, has extra advantages to many travellers, particularly older travellers, for which BA can charge
- it's a nice hybrid route, bit of cargo, bit of F&F, plenty of tourism, small bit of business. The lack of business travel therefore won't stop re-instatement
- ideal for 787s and 350s
- seen as a growth area of tourism / nature tourism
- more stable politically than some other parts of South America
- bit of a favourte for staff travel

Negatives
- This is naturally LGW but they just have thirsty 777s
- Peru is not a constituent state in the USA
- Bit expensive to run in terms of crew rest times (but then Cheapo-Crews in LGW mitigates that).
- Route will be more price sensitive than some other places.

TedToToe

Excellent analysis, as always corporate-wage-slave , thank you.

mikeyfly

Regular excellent premium fares coming and going - around �1k mark for exEU departures (not just OneWorld). Keep an eye on the premium fares thread

Cymro

Not to take away from the excellent analysis, but isn't that a problem for just about every LGW long-haul route?

Where there is a high level of O&D, potentially price sensitive travellers who may nevertheless be willing to pay a premium for non-stop (i.e., relatively expensive I, T, and <N fares, but relatively few in higher fare buckets) and potentially long flights (South America, Caribbean, Indian Ocean, maybe eventually Thailand/Bali?) isn't every single LGW route ideal for a 787 or 350 and absolutely terrible for a 777? In fact, isn't a 777 pretty terrible for everywhere except the East Coast and Middle East?

Is BA looking at moving away from 777s in Gatwick any time soon?

13901

It's a bit of a trade-off. A brand-spanking new 787 or 350 will undoubtedly be less thirsty than a 77E (say in the region of 15/20%) but on the other hand they either have a hefty price to pay as a lease or as asset to be depreciated. A Gatters 77E has no such qualms and, indeed, Alex Cruz made the point that, as per-seat cost, this was one of the factors that made it possible for BA to be at the same unit cost as Norwegian at LGW (when Norwegian was still around).

Anyway, going back to the chances of Lima of returning: my uneducated PoV is that demand simply isn't there, especially from a point-to-point market as it is from LGW. The Peruvian community in the UK is quite small; Wikipiedia (best I can find right now) says that there are less than 10,000 Peruvians in the UK vs more than quarter of a million in Spain or 100,000 in Italy. On the other side, I don't think there are large business links between the UK and Peru. That leaves tourism and, as c-w-s says, since it's not the US then it's not that attractive to the majority of the British public.

If LHR wasn't slot-constrained, BA had the assets and less emphasis on ROIC/ensuring a route becomes profitable very quickly I'd love to see more flights to "exotic" destinations, maybe with 'tiny' planes like the 787s. But since neither of those conditions exist I doubt BA will be very adventurous in terms of routes. If it's not a slam dunk it's really hard for a route to be started up. Over the years we've seen the loss of many 'niche' routes: Caucasus, Beirut, Dar-es-Salaam, Entebbe, Monrovia/Freetown, Colombo...

London Dude

Lima is South America's second largest city, and it's a foodie's heaven with some of the world's top-rated restaurants. Add to that Machu Picchu, and I'd say it should make for a very attractive destination for a certain type of upmarket tourism, which might well warrant a five-a-week 777/787/A350 service from LHR perhaps?

13901

If only it were true.

The previous attempt, from memory of the monthly/yearly stats I used to read from the Business Objects report, weren�t good. I don�t know about the yields, but those mustn�t have been good either. It also was almost a route guaranteed to give you onload two weeks out as a staff passenger using his yearly bookable, which was saying a lot.

Don�t forget that unfortunately BA lives in a world of very finite resources. Planes, people - especially in the current circumstances - and crucially slots. Since those are of a fixed amount, and can�t easily be increased, to open a route means to close down, or reduce, another. And in this situation BA will need to get the most out of the investment. I already mentioned that, for most business cases, a ROIC > 15% and repayment period in less than 3 years had to be the minimum. Whether we like it or not, there�s more money to be made in flying to Nashville, or Austin, than to LIM. I wish HAL built the third runway but kept it half empty to recover disruption and the other half for new and underserved destinations. Then I wake up

Plus, and that�s another biggie, BA lost his �mate� down there. The end of the LATAM JV and the airline going in bed with Delta has meant that there�s little potential for partnerships with local players�which you need unless you�re a moron like myself and like to suffer on a bus to the Cordillera Blanca or Cusco. Almost costed me the marriage, that one.

London Dude

That makes sense, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were aiming for an even higher ROIC now, as the WACC for IAG's BA operating unit soared from 8% in FY2019 to 11.2% in FY2020 because of COVID.

futuramadramallama

Sorry, what does this mean? (That a staff passenger was almost guaranteed a non-revenue seat as "early" as two-weeks pre-flight, because loads were not sky-high?)

13901

I suspect so�.

Yeah, sorry. Basically if you have enough seniority (i.e. years of service) in the airline BA would give you one or more tickets with a J or F priority every year (or they�d give it in lieu of a bonus to show they pretended to care). These tickets, unlike normal standby, give you the opportunity of being confirmed ahead of the departure of the flight so that you could check in online and so on. This is obviously dependent on loads, with a logic that has actually been explained to me more than once but that I could never understand. Simply put, if the flight�s wide open, with lots of unsold seats, then off you go. LIM was one of the few routes where, when I searched for a flight, they system said �available to book� rather than �waitlist�.