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British Airways launches flights from Stansted – and it gets even more bizarre

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When I was sent a link to itv.com by a reader yesterday morning, I was more than a little surprised by what I read.

British Airways had announced that it was launching flights from Stansted.

This made no sense at all – until I saw the details.

British Airways is launching flights to Faro, Malaga, Ibiza and Palma

There is a grand total of one flight per week, per route

All of these flights will take place on a Saturday or Sunday

All of these flights will use tiny Embraer 190 aircraft

British Airways Embraer 190 London City

Alert readers will have worked out what is going on now.  London City Airport is closed between lunchtime on Saturday and lunchtime on Sunday.  This means that British Airways has a few planes hanging around with not much to do.

Until now.

Just look at these flight times:

Ibiza – departs 06.45 (lands 10.15), returns at 11.00 (lands 12.30), Saturday only

Malaga – departs 13.15 (lands 17.15), returns at 18.00 (lands 19.50), Saturday only

Palma – departs 20.45 (lands 00.15), returns at 01.00 (lands 02.30!), Saturday (back Sunday) only

Faro – departs 05.40 (lands 08.30), returns at 09.05 (lands 10.00), Sunday only

Basically, the same plane will be flying all of these services.

The good news is that there is a new ‘Escape’ lounge at Stansted – although whether it is open for a 5.40am departure is another matter.

Flights are now available for booking, for cash or Avios, at ba.com.

The services run from 28th May to 30th October.

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British Airways and Avios

Comments (61)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Chaz says:
    10 Feb10 February 08:12

    Sounds like BA are using aircraft from the regular weekend part shutdown of LCY….

  • Tim @ Points to be Made says:
    10 Feb10 February 08:14

    I just saw this on BBC Breakfast news and thought it was a joke too! I would hate to think of the possibility of knock-on effects especially if the scheduled landing is 02:30!

  • Mr Bridge says:
    10 Feb10 February 08:43

    Japan airlines today scraps fuel surcharges, come on BA!

    • Rob says:
      10 Feb10 February 09:35

      Interesting. BA and JAL have a price-fixing (sorry, joint venture) agreement on Tokyo. This presumably means that taxes on JAL redemptions will NOT come down because BA will simply add its own fuel surcharge.

      This is what BA already does on AA redemptions to North America.

    • John says:
      10 Feb10 February 12:07

      Hong Kong government ended fuel surcharges on 1st Feb

  • AmandaB says:
    10 Feb10 February 08:44

    Saw this yesterday as just a headline. Now I see the detail not so interested. Living near Cambridge I was hoping for cheeky weekend away as mileage run. And what happens if the place goes technical? That will really mess things up..

    • Callum says:
      10 Feb10 February 13:21

      BA seem to have 6 of these planes – surely more than 1 is currently idle at the weekend? I’d imagine they’re only operating it with one plane to see if it works, but if there’s a technical problem they can just use another.

      • IslandDweller says:
        14 Feb14 February 12:04

        The BA fleet serving LCY is bigger than 6. BA Cityflyer have 6 E170 plus 12 E190. Additionally a couple of prop planes on lease from Eastern.
        Many of these are busy at weekends doing charter work from Scottish airports.

  • Mark says:
    10 Feb10 February 08:45

    Presumably there is a return from LCY to STN available over the weekend………

    • Rob says:
      10 Feb10 February 09:34

      CoJetage has the occasional flight from City to Blackbushe or Luton to Northolt for €600 or so – in a private jet.

  • chris1922 says:
    10 Feb10 February 08:46

    This isn’t really new, Barrhead Travel have been running these charters from Glasgow for several years now.

  • Dave says:
    10 Feb10 February 09:10

    There was an announcement last year about weekend flights from bournemouth this summer, they havent surfaced so I am assuming this fell through and this is the alternative deal

  • Will says:
    10 Feb10 February 09:48

    Why is this bizzare?

    BA Cityflyer will have two extra E190s this year- in fact one arrived last week. That is two extra planes that will need to be sat somewhere over the weekend given the reduction in LCY operations at weekends. They cannot sit at LCY due to the limited ramp space.

    Airplanes only make money when they are in the air. Given this BA have decided, no doubt after looking at much greater level of stats than any of us reading this blog will ever have access to, that there is demand ex STN. BA don’t just go and open up four new routes for the heck of it- come on its a commercial operation with shareholders to report to.

    This really is no different to the ex Scotland BA Cityflyer weekend flights. It just happens be from Stansted.

    • A after B and onto C for the mileage says:
      10 Feb10 February 11:45

      As a shareholder I would ask why it’s taken so long to do this…

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