GBM.flights

BA used to fly LCY-FAO on E190. Different E190 used or weight restricted?

https://airlineroutes.wordpress.com/...07/ba-lcy-s11/

CaptainMiles

I would love to see those numbers too.

I looked harder. See this Embraer doc, section 3.3 "Takeoff Field Length". Portugália has the CF34-10E7 engines on its E190s. The most they can weigh in summer (ISA+15) with ATTCS on in t/o mode 1 is about 41000 kg takeoff weight (page 3-17).

The standard E190LR has a basic operating weight of 27900 kg (Portugália may have slightly more or less depending on options, but it'll be around that). Portugália's configuration is 106 seats, so that's 10600 kg of payload at full pax. We're already at 38500 kg and we haven't even loaded any fuel. Ouch. We only have 2500 kg left for fuel. Not enough. Surely gotta offload some pax.

CaptainMiles

Yes, different E190. BA uses the E190SR version which has shorter range but also lighter empty weight. The lighter weight is very useful to fly out of short runways such as LCY. The shorter range does not bother them because they cater to London business markets such as PAR, BRU, FRA, GVA, ZRH. These are all within 500 nm and being basically business routes are usually for short trips by businessmen who do not carry much luggage, reducing the average weight per pax. FAO and AGP summer routes are oddballs because those are longer legs full of families carrying all kinds of luggage for long beach vacations. Perhaps their saving grace is that families have children, who weigh less but still take up a seat. I would love to see BA's dispatch sheets for those AGP and FAO flights.

TP uses the E190LR version, which has longer range but weighs a bit more. This makes sense because LIS is at the end of the continent, and all routes will tend to be much longer. The shortest sensible routes for an E190 out of LIS will be to places like BIO, BOD, MRS, PXO, all of which are longer than the longest typical business routes out of LCY. (* yes, I know TP also flies the E190 to silly places such as FAO and MAD.) Further, LIS has no alternates nearby: nearest alternates are FAO, OPO, SVQ, which stretch the need for bigger fuel reserves to reach the alternate. Whereas LCY has many alternates within 30 miles (LHR, LGW, STN, LTN). So the LR version makes good sense for TP's typical missions.

Now the problem comes when they try to operate the LR out of LCY's short runway. Severe weight limitation. No wonder they haven't started the route yet.

CaptainMiles

I found that Alitalia flies the E190LR LCY-FCO, which is 884 nm compared to the 985 nm LCY-LIS. Almost there. So perhaps this is doable. But FCO has many alternates nearby (eg, CIA) that LIS does not. Does anyone here know a Portugalia dispatcher that could shed some light?

igor82j

Does anyone know what happened to the lie-flat service to BOS?
afaik, they have (had?) two planes with the new biz class, leased from Azul, CS-TOT and CS-TOS.
The first one keeps flying to JFK, and as for the second one, there has been no data, at all, recently... I'm flying to BOS tomorrow, and the old biz product is announced.

GBM.flights

according to PT press OXB gets another weekly frequency. from 2x to 3x as of 28MAR (Tuesday flight). [PT only]

Also in the news TP finished 2016 with 11.7 mio pax (3.5% up vs previous year [PT only]

GBM.flights

TP press release and which routes contributed most to increases.

IAN-UK

traffic up by a third sounds like increases in frequency across a number of routes, or a new route.

CaptainMiles

I would be curious as to where the decreases were. There have to be some significant decreases somewhere. Let's see.

• 11.724 million pax is 3.5% increase. That means that in 2015 they had carried 11.327 million, for an increase of 397,000 pax.
• "Ponta Aérea" increased 80% to 300,000. That means they were 60,000 and are now 300,000. This "Ponte Aérea" alone accounts for 240,000 of the increase That leaves 157,000 to account for.
• USA increased by 186,000. So now we are 29,000 over. Somewhere 29,000 were lost.
• Europe increased 4% to 8.99 million. That's 346,000 right there. Even if Europe includes the Ponte Aérea and we eliminate double counting, there is still 106,000 here. So now we are 135,000 over. Surely some market decreased by 135,000.
• But wait... Africa grows by 75,000. Wow, now we have a 210,000 surplus. Where were the 210,000 lost?

Answer: Brazil, and the South and Central America. Panama gone. Manaus direct gone. Etc. The press release pumps up the good results, but hides the fact that Brazil is significantly lower.

This actually is cleverly written in the final paragraph: "Altogether, and mainly due to the increases reported for North America and Africa, the company’s Intercontinental routes accounted for a 3 per cent growth in 2016, with 2,74 million passengers in the whole, some 70,000 above 2015"

So Intercontinental was up 70,000. That math is 186,000 (USA) + 75,000 (Africa) - 191,000 (Brazil and Latin America).

This shows a clear strategic shift from the Brazil market to the US (and in 2017 Canada) markets.

CaptainMiles

Traffic up a third in December sounds like they had some major disturbance in December 2015. Which they did. They had an announcement of strikes over the holidays, and to preempt that they allowed people to cancel and change and refund. People did. When the strike was called off the planes were flying around empty around the holidays in 2015.

oliver2002

If you look at the map in the wiki, the heavy reliance of TP on Brazil traffic becomes evident. Brazil crashed badly in the last two years, so now they are redeploying their fleet to other markets.

The big question is how their major Brazilian investor can survive the recession.

tff

TP has already loaded schedules for ABJ:

[KVS Tool 8.4.2/Diamond - Timetable]
[KVS Tool 8.4.2/Diamond - Timetable]

TAP-A343

When will TAP announce all the new 2017 destinations?

GBM.flights

I think they will drip the news as routes become bookable at least judging by the what we've seen so far.
Out of the original 11 new European destinations, 3 African + 1 in North America we have already:

Europe (5/11):
STR; LPA; ALC; OTP; BUD

Africa (1/3):
ABJ

North America (1/1):
YYZ

oliver2002

My guess they are waiting for a firm schedule on the A330 deliveries before going public with their plans?

The A343 is still scheduled to fly to GRU, albeit on 1x weekly starting in the W17-18 schedule. Its shows as being replaced by A332. So the new A330-900 are not showing yet. YYZ is also loaded with A332.