jimbo99

Had a call from EVA (London) today. My June BR68 LHR-TPE flight has been cancelled, having "gone non-operational" ...

The OP told me that they've cancelled all flights on Tuesdays and Thursdays during June.

This after they just went from 6 flights to 7 flights a week amid some fanfare. London flights are usually pretty full.

I suppose they want the aircraft for China?

I had a Thursday Elite flight. Can't give me Wednesday (gold waitlisted), can give me Friday (but only aisle seat available is at the back).

elitevergreen

Hi Jimbo99, Do you know if this is a temporary change just for the month of June ? As we've got a Thursday flight in September, fingers crossed we won't be getting a phone call from the agent.

jimbo99

I didn't press the London girl - my experience is they know almost nothing. I think EVA are pretty short term in their thinking - happy to chop and change routes and aircraft types on a whim. It is unusual for them to interfere with London though. At the moment September is still showing as having flights available Tues/Thurs.. Probably it will be OK, but who knows.

LHR-BKK is a real gravy train for EVA. Cancelling these flights will be a real annoyance to UK travel agents who have alot of pax on these flights. This seems very short sighted of EVA.

Nothing on EVA's website, of course.

ak333

They did the same thing for Seattle in June - we had five flights a week, June shows four. But back to five in July...

coolfish1103

It's probably a temporary cut as the aircraft get deployed to popular routes such as LAX. However, if it remains as a permanent cut, then it just means CI is really hurting them somehow w/the nonstop, which does not make sense as the profits should only come between Bangkok and London (or the protests in Bangkok actually mattered?).

cathaylonghaulff

Might be worth checking the yields on CI and BR I heard CI have done pretty well offering really low fares and of course non stop

jimbo99

Could be - though not many people fly through so I feel they don't really compete. On LHR-BKK-TPE, when I re-board at BKK I see very few familiar faces.

coolfish1103

Well, I dont think the market overlap since one is TPE-LHR v.v. and another is BKK-LHR v.v. But if CI is taking all the TPE-LHR v.v. passengers away from BR's one stop service via BKK, it could mean severe damage on TPE-BKK v.v..

By the way, CI is doing pretty well in Miyazaki (at least on the load).

jimbo99

Credit to EVA... Wednesday was confirmed within a few hours (out of the Q bucket, I am booked in L).

coolfish1103

They are shuffling their aircraft utilization from May 2010 for mainland China. They are finally deploying 74E on some of those not so profitable routes.

Kaohsiung - Guangzhou: M90
Kaohsiung - Hangzhou: M90
Kaohsiung - Ningbo: M90
Kaohsiung - Shanghai: 74E
Kaohsiung - Shenzhen: M90

Taichung - Hangzhou: M90
Taichung - Shenzhen: M90
Taichung - Xiamen: M90

Taipei - Beijing: 77W/74W/332
Taipei - Chongqing: M90
Taipei - Dalian: M90
Taipei - Fuzhou: 332/M90
Taipei - Guangzhou: 332
Taipei - Hangzhou: 74W/77W/332
Taipei - Kunming: 332/M90
Taipei - Nanjing: 332
Taipei - Ningbo: 332
Taipei - Qingdao: 332 (M90 on 1 flight: 29APR10 to 25JUN10)
Taipei - Shanghai: 74W/74E
Taipei - Shenzhen: 332
Taipei - Tianjin: 332/74E
Taipei - Wuhan: M90

Taipei Songshan - Xiamen: M90

cathaylonghaulff

Thats because you always sit in the cargo hold to get the cheap seats and you forgot to mention they change crew at BKK

exwannabe

Yes, and they now have an MD-90 as the 3rd flight on the morning TPE-BKK route.

Anybody know what I can expect on this critter in C ? (not that I care much on the short leg)

ak333

That's a real rarity (although not surprising at the moment). Is this flight 211? What day? Maybe this is a one of...

coolfish1103

Catering should be the same.

Seating is like domestic U.S. planes, pitch is approximately the same or worse (depending on which version of the M90). They are going to run out of planes if more spaces are released for flying to China. The 2 77Ws they have in Everett won't cut it.

hcshih

Those 2 77Ws should have been in the hand of BR. Both Boeing & BR's websites say so.
However no idea whether they have been deployed. I'm pretty curious which routes these 2 77Ws (and the last one still waiting for delivery) are for.