Mmm wouldnt saying this wasnt legal or whatever be a bit of a stab at Boeing saying there planes arnt as safe as well as damaging BA a bit?

Surly this would create a more pro Airbus climate airlines might fall into if the FAA indicate that the 747 in question might not have been “air worthy”?

No, they’re looking at multi-engined aircraft, not Boeing 747’s inparticular. it is the operating procedure of BA in this case which is under scrutiny, as the FAA say that US airlines would not be permitted to carry out such a flight, they coulod be permitted to operate to the best airport for an engine change, but not continue for what was essentially the full long haul flight.

This could easily have happened to an Airbus A340. If Virgin took a similar decisino with an A340 then they too would face the wrath of the FAA. I cannot determine from what I have read how much power the FAA actually have over the incident, and I think that is why they ahve got the CAA involved.

Perhaps it would be an Icelandair B757?

BMI are indeed talking to Icelandair about using one of their aircraft. Due to BMI’s membership of Star they are restricted to ‘Star-Approved’ sources for leased aircraft, and it appears Icelandair are one of these. If, as expected the aircraft replaces an A330 then there will be a 23% reduction in seating capacity.

Further Development:

The FAA are investigating the original incident and have enlisted the CAA to help them. They could take action against BA if they find that they operated irresponsibly and dangerously.

I’m not sure if the above comments were aimed at me, but I clearly stated that BA is a different animal to EI, and that I don’t believe we will see the same changes as at EI.

[QUOTE=MANAIRPORTMAD!!]

We had recent discussions over why there is no major BA long haul presence in a recent thread…did you miss it completely?????
QUOTE]

I obviously did… :rolleyes:

Refer to the thread titled “GLASGOW Airport won a massive expansion of services to the Middle East and beyond” about half way down the page EK made a comment and then I made a more detailed comment regarding the lack of BA servcies from regional UK airports. 🙂

Didnt Willie annouce him leaving EIN a while back? Seems to have been planned…

No, I don’t think that was the case. He left Aer Lingus (from my understanding) because his next steps would take the airline even more away from the traditional model and basically turn it into another Ryanair. The government weren’t happy with this, so Willie decided to leave…

I wonder if he will bring some more Long haul routes to MAN like they used to 🙂

We had recent discussions over why there is no major BA long haul presence in a recent thread…did you miss it completely?????

Anyway, could be interesting. BA is different beast to Aer Lingus, it operates from one of the worlds most important business centres (unlike Aer lingus, sorry folks of Dublin, but its true), it has a major hub which relies more heavily on feeder traffic, and it makes most of its money from premium traffic (and is therefore heavily business orientated, with respect to frequency etc).

Should be fun to see what he does, I don’t think the typical BA customer would be happy to have their economy food taken away from them etc though, BUT I’m not going to say it won’t happen!!!! He seems to be an intelligent man, and his appointment will have been subject to understanding how he is likely to take the firm forward, and therefore I think the board must be happy that he will please the shareholders (again many of whom are likely to be unhappy with the removal of frills).