Glasgow International to London City

This was one of the first group of routes introduced by BACX when they started operating to/from LCY a few years ago. It lasted one summer season.

1L.

This has been in the pipeline for some time, and raises some interesting points now that the details of what bmi intend to offer are starting to emerge.

Having a single aircraft (if that is the plan) in a unique config for one route is always going to raise problems. What to do with it when not operating that route, what to do when it goes tech, etc…

bmi are adding yet another level of service to an already confused set of products. Regional, business class european, low cost mainline, business class longhaul, economy longhaul, low cost baby, and now mediumhaul business. What next?

Do bmi really want to work with UN or is this just a means to an end?

An extra 2 daily flights does not double the frequency on the route, as BA offer 2 or 3 flights depending on the day, and SU offer 2 flights per day.

It will be interesting to see how (if at all) BA respond. DME is easily BA’s most profitable shorthaul route. It has beeen crying out for some time for a longhaul product, as customers don’t like the shorthaul seating for such a long flight. However this means more or less fixing the number of Club seats available, which isn’t sensible on a route that sees the Club load vary from 15 to 140. So who will win? The Product and Brands people or the Commercial people?

Personally I’d like to see DME (and for that matter IST, ATH & LCA) operated by longhaul configured 767s, with frequency increased to keep capacity up and prices increased to reflect the improved service.

1L.

WH is back flying so if not at MAN must be at LHR.

I think I heard at work that there wasn’t going to be a specific MAN based 767 but that they would rotate through MAN instead. I have done a couple of MAN flights on longhaul 767s with an aircraft change up there so that would seem to be the case.

1L.

Those diagrams are only representative of configs as they vary. Give me your flight numbers and dates (PM if you prefer) and I’ll see what I can find out.

1L.

Steve, I don’t often agree with your choice of “Shot o’ the day” (as you may have noticed) but that is a great one.

1L.

Not really Commercial Aviation

In a round about way it is. I put up with this kind of stupidity on every flight I operate!

1L.

if the likes of Dan Air were still around I wonder if we would see them operating these birds.

No, we’d still have been figuring out how to keep the 1-11’s flying a bit longer instead.

1L.