BMI to 'suspend' Glasgow to Heathrow flights

I think that the fast railway link from Glasgow to Euston has had an effect here. Good!

Regards

BAA says “Don’t blame us…”

Rather unsurprisingly, BAA have come back fighting against the claims made by bmi after their announcement that they are going to stop flying between London Heathrow and Glasgow.

BAA claim that the decision by bmi to drop the Glasgow route has been on the cards for quite some time now, and that the reason is “purely a commercial one”…and that it is wrong for bmi to blame them.

Whilst load factor/yield may well have influenced the decision, surely it is the increase in the charges at Heathrow that has been the final nail in the coffin, which has led to bmi making this “commerical” decision, so they [BAA] do need to shoulder some responsibility for the loss of the route?

I understand that currently the GLA-LHR service is 1x daily.

Looking at the flights for Tuesday, there are seven bmi/bmi Regional flights from Glasgow to Heathrow.

would a less than 1 daily (say 4x weekly) service be viable or would that be a little silly for domestic?

I would imagine that a large number of those currently using bmi for the Glasgow to London route would be business travellers, some of which might be looking for day return trips. Without at least a morning and an evening flight, Monday to Friday, the flight is likely to sell far fewer tickets than it does at the moment.

I understand that currently the GLA-LHR service is 1x daily. Even if it made economic sense, would a less than 1 daily (say 4x weekly) service be viable or would that be a little silly for domestic?

BMI said forthcoming rises in domestic passenger charges at Heathrow had made the loss-making route “unsustainable”.

Also, I believe that BMI have reduced the number of flights to MAN from LHR from six to four, and these are now operated using one of their regional ERJ’s instead of an Airbus A319/320.

This story was the front page article on the local Skyport newspaper here at LHR last week, stating that BAA were trying their level best to kill off UK domestic air travel.