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Why am I sitting here thinking "red rag", and "bull" ...

Are you calling me a bull?

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Why should you? I thought this was still a place to discuss rumours and gossip about BA, and had not yet become a place where only positive nice things about BA are said? There are two alternative views out there about why Silla Maizey has been sent to LGW. There are those who more likely hoping it is for the happy or more positive one. Silla might even be able to successfully ramp up the operation, in which case the outcome will still be happy.

However, the folks I am hearing this from have rarely been wrong about stuff at BA. This might be a first time.. but if I didn't not have confidence in them, I wouldn't have mentioned what they had said on here.

In the end, it will be what it will be. Either LGW will be successful financially or it will not. If it's not, I'm guessing we'll see a scaling back on SH services, and it will be used predominantly for those LH services which BA doesn't want to stop, but also are not high enough priority to move to LHR. I suspect that the loss of the third runway at LHR has stopped BA being able to close LGW entirely, as they need it as a relief airport. But with that, we're moving from what I've heard to my conjecture

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You must do a lot of flying if you can no longer count your LGW visits.

Interesting. In my experience more like 50% of the BA ground staff at LHR appear rather disinterested in providing a reasonable customer experience.

You must fly a lot to be able to draw such conclusions.

That is your opinion. Not necessarily the reality. Please forgive me if I appear lecturing however the phrasing suggests this is the absolute reality of BA operations at LGW & LHR.

I would be so surprised if the BA operation at LGW would be shut down! The JER-LGW-JER route seems to be doing very very well at the moment- my Dad flies it nearly once a week in CE and says it is rammed full in ET and close to it in CE. If they did have to stop routes like this due to no slots being available at LHR it would be a big, big slump for the island.

There are also more and more routes being introduced at LGW like San Juan, Marrakech etc, and would BA do this if they thought there was a cloudy future at LGW? The staff really are excellent at LGW on all of my occasions bar one or two. From check in to boarding at LGW, it is always a painless experience!

A few questions SRG- when are BA going to upgrade LGW Terraces to LGW Galleries and where abouts is the new check in area meant to go? It should be good for BA- the last time I was there the Bag Drop queue was very very busy, but luckily my Silver card got me to an empty CE desk- a very handy perk when travelling on a cheapy Y domestic! Faster check in= a lot more lounge time

You do. And rather condescending too.

I think andset1191 said "countless good experiences", not "countless visits". (S)he could have numerous good experiences during each visit, which, for a frequent visitor to LGW, would quickly mount-up to the point at which the accumulated good experiences become effectively countless

Uninterested?

Glad to note your later post in this thread !

BA at LHR doesnt have the slots to move anything from LGW let alone all the routes that arent served from LHR already.

A new team placed by BA to run LGW, internal refits of the 734 fleet, new check-in area etc, me thinks that BA is investing in LGW and not pulling out.

My personal feeling is that within the next 12 months we will see further good news at LGW, not news of services being pulled.

over the next 12 months BA has 3 777-300's scheduled for delivery along with the ?7 stored 744's of which i understand 1 more is scheduled to be stood back up ?

That would suggest that if no birds are removed from service that 4 777-200's could be displaced to LGW from LHR.

Longhaul from Gatters seems to do well by all accounts, so if they can find routes suited to Gatwick why not add services ? its a nobrainer in my opinion, and with a new operator at Gatwick which is eager to add flights im pretty sure that BA will be offered some fairly nice sweetners in that respect.

i do however think that BA needs to be looking at domestic and European services from Gatwick, i know that the Gatwick model focuses mainly on stand alone traffic, especially leisure but any longhaul operation needs feed, and i would suggest that the following routes need to be introduced/reintroduced on BA metal:
NCL, ABZ, INV, NQY, MAD, BCN, GIB, CDG, TLS, FRA, MUC & TXL as well as increased capacity or flights to the current JER, MAN, EDI and GLA

obviously this is all just my opinion, no doubt im wrong and i fully understand that BA arent going to order up a brand new fleet of 30 B738's or A320's however how much of this could be acheived my playing around with whatever agreement it is that prevents BA Cityflyer from operating into Gatwick ?

could CJ not with a little tweek operate nice new E190/170's EDI-LGW-MAN-LGW-JER etc etc etc ?

anyway, no doubt im totally wrong, and ill be put down on the forum for liking LGW !

just seems to me that having all your eggs in one basket is a little stupid when it comes to irregular operations, or negotiations with the airport operators etc ! same principle as why motorway service stations get away with charging you double what everyone else charges throughout the country for a cuppa, captive market !

hey ho !
cs

Yes, why doesn't Cityflyer operate from LGW? Routes that wouldn't support a 737/32x may work nicely with an Embraer. I wonder if there was a clause in the sale of BA Connect to Flybe that prevents it?

Even so, wouldn't it be possible to add Embraers to the LGW fleet itself? If the 737s are completely replaced with 32x types, and some Embraers were added, there'd still only be three LGW aircraft types, so the single fleet LGW cabin crew wouldn't exceed the number of types they can be certified for, no?

Feeding traffic could equally come from sticking the BA code on BE domestic flights, and AB European flights, giving sub-standard Y only feeders onto long-haul. MA already feeds with a BA code. Maybe S7 will start flights to DME, also with BA code.

I doubt you will see dual LHR/LGW services again to CDG/NCL/MAD/FRA/MOW etc etc.

Given how much money GAL are spending on airport improvements with a lot more to come, i find it highly unlikely they would have done this if one of the airports major airlines was likely to leave, many improvements have already taken place to the North terminal, more are happening now, including behind the scenes and as SRG points out more are planned, including to the BA check ins.

I would love to see more services from Gatwick, i will go out of my way to fly from there even if the fares are more, just to avoid having to get to LHR.

well you didnt totally disagree with me !!
cs