Anyone know what these “commercial reasons” might be?

That’s what airlines call it when they can’t sell enough seats for enough money.

1L.

BA’s booked load factor on the LGW DUB LGW route tomorrow (Thu) is 81.5%. Not bad really for a Thursday out of the main tourist season, although as I always say a full flight isn’t always a profitable flight.

As Shamrock says EI have tried the route before and it didn’t work but they must be confident to try it again.

I seem to recall that LON DUB is one of (if not the) biggest routes from the UK so hopefully the market at LGW is big enough for three airlines.

1L.

and you see that great big bird sat on the ramp, oozing homeliness in that great colour scheme.

I always remember some years ago chatting to one of our Moscow regulars who hates Russia but works out there 6 weeks at a time because the money is so good.

He told me he has a particular seat in the lounge where he always sits with his G&T, eagerly awaiting the sight of the inbound BA 767 coming round the end of the building. He described seeing it as a huge hand coming to pick him up and take him home.

Amazing how people often percieve aircraft. Just shows there is still some romance left in flying.

1L.

1L, perhaps if it’s the shape of a Concorde, it might well be Concorde?

Very witty David.

To the others, thank you, especially Ian for the photo.
Looks like a lot of work went into that, but I don’t think it’ll fly.

1L.

I hasten to start this reply by saying I don’t know for sure, but…

I was in the restaurant at the Compass Centre (LHR) the other day and two suits at my table were talking about when they started with the company as graduate trainees. Neither were older than about the 30 mark so can’t have started with the company that long ago. I guess dropping a line to BA may be worth a try.

Good luck.

1L.

I cannot see any valuable effect this would have for an airline

In a area of the market where the customer is often looking for fares in single digits this gives the opportunity to save even more money by limiting what you carry to very small amounts of handluggage. What that in turn does for the airline is save money on baggage handlers and fuel, which then gives them low enough costs to be able to offer said single digit fares. At some of the fares we are now seeing loco airlines can’t really afford to include anything in the price other than the seat.

The evidence from the loco’s who have introduced this already is that it does work.

Those of us who say we would rather pay as part of the fare and have a normal check-in baggage service presumably don’t fall into the ‘just want the cheapest ticket’ part of the market.

1L.