mikeyfly

No reliable way, just wait and see. And rotations don’t necessarily happen for a full schedule too so doesn’t have to be full period end of October to end of March …you can check on Google Flights in seconds

TheEscapist

Thanks for the response.

Frustrating as it'll be the breaker between Club Suite on the 77W or Q Suite for a few more Avios - but I guess I'll just sit it out!

mikeyfly

If Avios rich I�d take the Q Suite option and not look back.

Dorsetboy

Its very relevant because the incoming MLE flight provided the equipment(in 90% of cases) for the outgoing SYD flight according to speedbird.online.
Timings stay the same for W23 so unless MLE changes then it�s pretty certain SYD will get the 789 throughout. Having just taken the 773 down to SYD I have to say the CS were a delight.

Pilot37

Not sure that will be the case. For this Winter BA only had 10 B77W with CS to operate MLE and SYD (amongst other destinations) and both routes were guaranteed CS - so the timings worked. For MLE next yr - if BA stick to the B789 - there are 18 to choose from and by the time the W23/24 timetable kicks in - BA are anticipating all B77W�s will have CS (16) - so MLE could get 1 of 18 B789�s and SYD could get 1 of 16 B77W�s without those routes being mutually tied to the same plane.

Pilot37

JD1905

This lasted long!

I thought given the above post and the distance, this would be a secure CS route - but seems to not be the case. That is the BA option to the far East out of the window for me now.

Flying Doctor

So CS on SYD.
I wonder if this is to take on the 'Project Sunrise' flights that are alleged to start in 2024/25. Non stop LHR to SYD and MEL is going to be highly, highly attractive for business travellers (the PER flights apparently massively exceeded expectations) and as far as I know BA will not retaliate or set up LHR-SYD non stop (would require a specific subfleet which we know is something BA does not like doing) though if QF starts taking all the high revenue business I suspect this might not last that long.... The issue for BA is of course this would be a separate subfleet for 2 routes wheres for QF it is for JFK, LHR, CDG, FRA and then of course they can expand further into Europe or the East Coast USA whereas the only expansion for BA would be New Zealand which even the Project Sunrise reconfigured fleet cannot manage, and its a very small market, limited business travel etc......
FD.

Radiation Station

BA is taking club suite equipped aircraft away from the route to SYD.

13901

I don't think reality is so clear-cut. Just from the top of my head:

1. There's an opportunity cost (missed revenue) from not having a SIN uplift, which the direct will need to offset by having higher tariffs. How higher, it depends on a lot of factors. And I do wonder what impact Russia closure will have on the EU routing.
2. Business travellers might not necessarily flock to the direct flight. When I book flights on Concur the system shows flights ranked according to this logic: airlines with whom we have a contract, then cheapest on the day, then least CO2, then shortest.
3. QF is ordering 12 A35Ks. Very roughly, that fleet should enable 3 direct daily services from SYD and 2 from MEL, or the other way round. And they'll have 52 seats in Business; all in all, not an enormous % of the passengers. They might skim the very cream of those who want to pay a hefty fee, but the Europe-Australia market is a lot larger than that (and mostly flies on EK and TK).
4. Unless QF finds more slots, the direct will replace the QF1 SIN stopover at LHR. Much like the PER direct, that would be a big reduction in capacity on the route, capacity that BA can intercept.

All in all, I think the direct will be an interesting proposition and a great improvement in competition. I must admit, I for one won't ever even consider setting foot on it. I don't mind spending 20+ hrs on a train, I've done it quite a few times in Central Asia in the cheapest possible berth (6-people compartments) but on a plane? No thank you.

Flying Doctor

Sorry folks, yes got this the wrong way around - this was for November 2022 not 2023 - so its being taken off.....
I guess that with the rest of SE Asia starting to open up which we can see with fares getting a bit more back to historic levels etc there are other routes where CS is going to be more important.
I am not sure I agree with the SYD thing. Direct non stop might not be the modus operandi of choice for those with the luxury of time but for business it will be the way forward. The same as when the 747-400 revolutionised travel to SE Asia and the US West Coast with large planes able to go non stop etc and more recently with ever longer non stop hauls. EK et al have tapped into a market that is different and they do it very well but for many non stop is always going to be the best option so I suspect that these services LHR MEL and SYD will do quite well. That they are on much smaller airframes won't matter that much - more flights can be added in if needed (yes I know LHR is capacity constrained but that is sortable, dropping a couple of domestic rotations from BA to loan slots to QF on a revenue share is not that hard to envisage) as there will be a premium on these routes and the SIN traffic can just be picked up with the bigger frames to SIN direct from LHR (which suits BA better etc). So a win for all.
FD.

13901

I guess it depends on the businesses. All the companies I worked for since leaving the airline world had either a M-class limitation on any trip, or a 'cheapest-on-the-day' rule. Sure, the head honchos will fly full flat but the big numbers - especially of technicians, engineers, those who actually did stuff - flew down at the back or on the airline with whom we had arrangements. Concur or the travel agency made sure of that.

And, respectfully, I don't think the comparison between the A35K for Sunrise and the 747-400 is warranted. The 744 (and the 77W more so) well and truly enabled longhaul missions. They made possible those flights ranging from 8 to 13 hrs that are the core of longhaul flying; flights that before were either not so economical or well and truly impossible without stopovers. That was a quantum leap because, well, those flying ranges cover the overwhelming majority of all routes in the world. ULR missions are a lot more 'niche' and connect rather minor markets, no disrespect to Australia.

Confus

HA is where I�m watching. They�ve made no secret of their intention to launch LHR when they receive suitable aircraft, and if they do then I wonder how BA would retaliate. If BA is to create a ULR sub-fleet then they would want a small batch of routes for it, not just one, and this could fit the bill.

Mwenenzi

To me you are way over thinking the possible QF ultra long haul to LHR. QF are also looking at AU-USA ultra long haul. ULH is not everyone and corporation's often have contracts.
Many different airline fly UK-EU to/from AU. TK does not fly to AU. The geographic position of the ME3 give them an enormous market when considering 3-4-6-8 hrs flying time from there home airports.
BA used to fly into MEL. But with QR-BA cross ownership and QR-BA codes shares can't see that happening again.
New QF slots at LHR would be problem. Given the BA-QR commercial links can never see BA leasing/selling slots to QF Qantas.

13901

You're right, my antipathy for Al Baker led me astray! It's obviously the ME3s that are doing the bulk of the flying.
I suppose a hypothetical LHR-XXX-MEL route would be cash-positive, as I understand that LHR-SIN-SYD is (otherwise it'd be gone), if the stopover was as good as SIN is in terms of providing good-yielding contributions both on the outbound and inbound. BKK isn't that, unfortunately: it sells aplenty, that flight has always been full, but not at as good a yield as the US. Nashville, I remember, broke some record for the fastest break-even of a new route; AUS wasn't that far behind. I don't know how the other 'new' ones will perform - I get New Orleans or perhaps Portland, but the appeal of Pittsburgh or Cincinnati are a bit hard to decipher for me - but the longer US routes perform, the harder it'll be to fly to anywhere that isn't there. From a financial PoV, it's hard to argue (as much as I'd love to) that BKK, KUL, ICN, HAN or whatever are worthier to be opened over Cincinnati, St Louis, Akron or whatever other place in the US BA doesn't fly to.

Flying Doctor

There are lots of reasons the US routes do so well.
Firstly the worlds' biggest economy has a lot to do with it.
Secondly the interconnections with AA and now Alaskan make it easy to get around with a single booking etc/airline group so that makes it easier.
Thirdly the smaller airframes (787-8,787-9) are ideal for these smaller routes and are way more fuel efficient than say the old 767.
Also flight times are much shorter and there is no 'double overnight' - most US destinations are fly outboound during the day, 2.5-3 hour turnaround and back. This compares well to all the SE Asian routes which are 12 hours each way at least with 8-10 hours dead time during the day waiting for the late evening to come back.
There is then also the lack of a decent partner apart from CX which at the moment is a skeleton of an airline...... And it is China focussed to be honest anyway - need someone a bit further south for the Singapore region for faster connections....
I think MEL for the huge amount of extra cost of the 10 day crew trip, multiple airframes etc just won't add up. SYD does because its the biggest city. Even though with project sunrise you need even more crew and pilots it will be far cheaper than stops and all the crew changes.......
So reality is that the US will see more routes faster but I do think that BA will have core routes operating to SE Asia. For example in South America it does offer even down to SCL which is a 15 hour trip each way and believe it or not that makes a pile of money from what I understand and BA are very happy with it.
The US destination that I want to see if BA try to tackle is HNL. with the time difference of GMT-11 and a distance of around 7,250 miles (so similar to Chile) it is designed for the 787-9 but coming back would be interesting - a 14 hour flight and then 11 hours forward - so leave at say 4pm HNL to arrive around 6-7pm the following day into LHR...... (or would they do earlier to try to get back into LHR for lunchtime like the US West Coast????)
FD.