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British Airways takes over Flybe’s 12 daily Heathrow take-off slots

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British Airways is the big winner from the collapse of Flybe as it has been given the 12 daily Summer slot pairs at Heathrow used by the airline.

Given that Air New Zealand received £20m for its badly-timed pair of all-year slots a few weeks ago and that the third runway now appears to be a distant memory, this is a very handy boost for the balance sheet.

No wonder that IAG’s CEO Willie Walsh was so angry when it looked like the Government might help bail out the airline.

The history behind this move goes back to the acquisition of bmi British Midland by British Airways.  The European Commission insisted that British Airways release a number of Heathrow slot pairs to any competitor which wished to begin to services on selected routes where bmi competed with British Airways.

These routes were from Heathrow to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Nice, Cairo, Riyadh and Moscow.

Little Red, Virgin Atlantic’s short haul airline, was the first airline to ask for – and receive – slots.   It used them to fly to Aberdeen and Edinburgh.   Little Red also flew to Manchester but this used spare Virgin Atlantic slots.

When Little Red folded, the slots returned to British Airways.

The slots were then requested by Flybe, again for use on Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

There were two carrots in the rules for whichever airline came in:

after one full year of operation, the airline could ask for additional slots from British Airways which could be used on ANY European short haul route as long as not all of the 12 daily slot pairs to be divested had been allocated (this is how Flybe got slots for some of its other Heathrow services)

after three full years of operation, the airline could stop serving cities on the prescribed list (ie Edinburgh and Aberdeen, in Flybe’s case) and start serving other European destinations instead (Flybe never reached the three year point)

It is not fully clear what happens now.

The agreement between IAG and the European Commission is here.  I cannot see any obvious reference to it ‘timing out’, but it would be a little odd if – eight years after it was originally signed – other airlines were still able to make British Airways give up slots.  The lawyers amongst our readers may be able to spot something I missed.

Here is the Airport Coordination form which transfers the slot rights back to British Airways.

The transfer is effective from 11th May.  This gives British Airways some breathing space as we wait to see the small print of the European Commission’s planned slot waiver directive.  The last thing BA wants to do at the moment is to run an additional 12 daily flights with very few passengers under the ‘use it or lose it’ slot rules.

One option is for British Airways to apply for the Government grant which is available to run flights between London and Newquay.  Whilst British Airways was trialling a handful of flights from Heathrow to Newquay this Summer, the grant is to underwrite services year-round.

There are, of course, other small operators who could take up this grant but only British Airways could offer flights to Heathrow.

Another interesting point is whether there is capacity in Terminal 5 for another 12 daily flights.  Little Red and Flybe both used Terminal 2, although as Flybe was using turboprops the aircraft did not physically use a gate (here is my review of a Flybe flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh).

It is also worth noting that Terminal 3, which is also used by British Airways, cannot handle domestic passengers.  Any additional domestic flights launched by BA would need to use Terminal 5 with some European flights potentially shunted over to Terminal 3.

Whatever happens, it’s unlikely we will get a clear picture until coronavirus has passed.

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Comments (107)

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

  • JRC says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:18

    Only one new article today?! Are you all sick with Coronavirus?

    • Rob says:
      11 Mar11 March 08:25

      We put up two early yesterday.

    • Nick says:
      11 Mar11 March 08:31

      2 extra during the day yesterday + 1 this morning = the usual daily three. Fairly common when ‘big’ things are happening.

      • Qrfan says:
        11 Mar11 March 09:24

        This is not really how the rest of the internet works though? “3 a day” means filler articles on quiet days and then days like this. I’d be keen to understand why hfp operates like a daily newsletter rather than a regular website?

        • Rob says:
          11 Mar11 March 10:21

          6 reasons:

          1. It is physically impossible to post throughout the day. You would not believe the number of meetings, conferences, press events etc we attend. We often go 3-4 days without seeing the office. We’re not good mates with most of the industry by some sort of mysterious osmosis – it’s because we are out there talking to people. If you’re going to publish during the day you need people sat behind a desk all day, and we can’t do that for at least 50% of the week.

          2. You get better quality content if we have all day to work up an offer and consider all of the potential issues, rather than banging something out in 10 minutes. You also get better quality ‘everything else’ because we are not constantly breaking off from what we are doing to quickly write an article.

          3. It really doesn’t matter, for the 90% of our content which is not time-sensitive

          4. We don’t do ‘filler’ – when there is a lack of news it gives us time to explore some of the general features of various programmes, which is actually more useful to most readers than news coverage. You may see it as filler if you are au fait with all the intricacies of all the schemes but 90% of readers are not in that position. Oddly, the more ‘beginner’ the article the higher the page views.

          5. You are not a typical reader. The bulk of our readers treat HFP as one of 4-5 websites they check on the train to work or first thing in the morning behind their desk. They don’t have the time or inclination to check in during the day. You should be grateful that you only need to check HFP once per day to keep up to date!

          6. The ‘3 articles per day’ thing helps to keep the content lean and relevant

          There are some issues, eg Bits articles rank badly on Google because it can’t decide what they are about, but you can’t have it all. I’m also not saying we will always do it this way, but we’d need at least one more full-time staff member to change – and if that was the person who was tasked with quickly knocking up ‘breaking’ stories you can be certain that the quality would be lower than if I’d written it (or at least had time to edit it) and published it the next morning.

          • Secret Squirrel says:
            11 Mar11 March 10:36

            Rob & the team: you do an incredible job getting the articles out everyday.
            Some other blogs in the UK are always a day behind you guys so like reading yesterday’s news.
            Keep up the good work! 😍

      • JRC says:
        11 Mar11 March 10:45

        I count 4 articles dated 10 March of which one includes the Pinned Coronavirus update thread. So it’s still only 1 today…
        Don’t mind but it’s def not 3 per day unless some articles have been taken down.

        • Rob says:
          11 Mar11 March 12:09

          4 yesterday, 4 the day before, 1 today. Average of 3.

          If you read HFP by email you would see it differently because 3 emails would arrive each day like clockwork. Had we run other stuff today, we couldn’t have emailed the two coronavirus BA pieces added yesterday – and they are more relevant than whatever would have filled the gap.

    • Darren says:
      11 Mar11 March 09:29

      I’m certainly sick OF Coronavirus but it’s not going away anytime soon, buckle up it’s gonna be bumpy.

  • Alex Sm says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:23

    Bring back bmi! This was the best airline ever! How could they let it go?

    • Nick says:
      11 Mar11 March 08:32

      Because ‘best airline ever’ usually means ‘too focused on pleasing people and not enough focused on actually making enough money to survive’.

      • Nick says:
        11 Mar11 March 08:34

        I agree by the way, I loved bmi too. But also understand the various circumstances that led to its disappearance.

    • mark2 says:
      11 Mar11 March 08:44

      especially their credit card!

    • Andrew says:
      11 Mar11 March 08:53

      Fixed price tickets for HBOS & RBS Staff!

      £80 quid for a domestic return as long as there was a seat on the plane. I think I’ve still got a copy of the Circular Memorandum somewhere from a previous life.

      If we can’t have BMI, what’s Sir Cameron Bridie up to these days?

      #Air Scotia, Air Scotia, it’s the Airline that’s for me.

    • JJ says:
      11 Mar11 March 19:47

      Thank you Alex and Others.
      As a 20 year veteran of bmi who was lucky enough enough to sit at the very front of the aircraft it is nice to know that our efforts were appreciated and are still missed.
      From day one the ethos was to “keep the show on the road” and we always tried to do that, in sometimes difficult circumstances. We knew we didn’t always get it right but it shouldn’t have ended the way it did. There is still a huge amount of camaraderie amongst the former staff, even though they are now dispersed all over the world.

      • Polly says:
        12 Mar12 March 07:31

        Nice to hear from old BMI staff. Used BMI like a bus to and from Dublin. Far preferred it to EI. My OH was once put in the jump seat, bk to LHR, whilst l was in an EI jump seat a few mins behind them. Pilots thought it was a hoot so we started a conversation between the 2 planes whilst in the air. Those were the days. Friendly days. I ran the med unit with good old Dan Air, At LGW, so had priority over EI and BMI staff, on a BH Monday evening on stand by.
        BMI were fab, at moving you on to earlier flights if there was space. Not so nice now at check in desks, so money grabbing, even if a flight is nearly empty.
        Plus we could buy those annual travel passes if you were frequently flying the same route.

  • Secret Squirrel says:
    11 Mar11 March 08:47

    One for Shoestring / Rob,
    Tesco 300 clubcard points on Now TV stick, £25 each using Code – GR4HML.

    • Shoestring says:
      11 Mar11 March 08:56

      1 month Entertainment Pass, a 1 month Sky Cinema Pass and a 1 day Sky Sports Pass

      300 Clubcard points makes it (£25-£7.20) = £17.80

      All right if you are just getting started on NowTV, I guess – the stick can be sold on CEX for about £6 as well, so if you bought a couple, you could get rid of one

      Too pricey for me as I still have plenty of Cinema/ Ents passes from previous promos & I just got 9 months of Sky Sports for not a lot 🙂

      But the NowTV stick is pretty good technology so if people wanted to give it a try & didn’t have Sky TV, not a bad way to trial it – one way to watch the latest Steve Coogan/ Rob Brydon Trip to Greece

      • Nick_C says:
        11 Mar11 March 09:22

        I’m currently paying £1.60 a month for NowTV – promo rate when cancelling a pass. Wouldn’t pay more than £5 a month, I generally prefer Netflix.

        Sky Cinema passes currently £15 for 2 months in Morrisons. Personally, I don’t think they are worth it.

      • Secret Squirrel says:
        11 Mar11 March 10:17

        I Sold all my previous passes, that was one of the best deals IMO.

        • Shoestring says:
          11 Mar11 March 10:33

          getting sent a mistake item was pretty good – I ordered 3x the 3 month Sky Sports sticks @£49 but got sent 2 plus by mistake a great set of earbuds that I sold for £120

          then bought a couple of 1 month Sky Sports passes for not too much either

          I’m only interested in football and F1 so 9 months covers most of the year if you factor in lean/ out of season periods

          • Maz says:
            11 Mar11 March 18:19

            Who do you support? (football)

          • Shoestring says:
            11 Mar11 March 18:26

            I support Man Utd, Spurs, Arsenal, Man City, Chelsea & Liverpool – plus in a good year I have been known to support Leicester though this year it’s Wolves.

            Who do you follow?

    • Rob says:
      11 Mar11 March 09:01

      Saw this but decided it was a bad deal.

      • Secret Squirrel says:
        11 Mar11 March 09:33

        Get 50 Nectar points for taking part in the Great British Spring Clean.

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  • rob says:
    11 Mar11 March 10:36

    OT

    Just booked Avis car hire through a well known cash back site. This gives me 10% back on the purchase. I just wondered if you can also double dip as it asked for my BA membership number too, which I inputted.

    Many thanks

    • marcw says:
      11 Mar11 March 10:42

      Normally you get a direct (higher) discount when booking directly on avis ba…

      • Charlieface says:
        11 Mar11 March 14:30

        Don’t think that’s true per se, I think it depends on the AWD code used, so long as you use the BA code you get any available promotion

        • rob says:
          11 Mar11 March 15:01

          Actually I didn’t got through the BA site, I was just asked at checkout if I had a preferred loyalty scheme and I chose BA

    • Ali says:
      11 Mar11 March 21:08

      I don’t think I’ve ever had an avis cash back purchase approved.

    • Lady London says:
      12 Mar12 March 04:27

      Yes.

  • Timothy says:
    11 Mar11 March 10:52

    OT: I just had a email from monese compliance team about paypoint/ post office credit card top ups, should I respond or just let the account close?

    • AJ says:
      11 Mar11 March 11:08

      out of interest, how many top ups did you do (and with what frequency)? Need to get on this but only worth it if I can put through a few k at least before getting ‘complianced’!.

    • Andrew says:
      11 Mar11 March 11:15

      It’s not a compliance issue if you are simply working the terms of the account to maximise benefits.

      Never go silent, you’ll end up being referred outside the organisation.

      • rams1981 says:
        11 Mar11 March 11:38

        may be more of a KYC issue so you need to explain why you have so much “cash” to top up in the quantities you do.

    • the_real_a says:
      11 Mar11 March 13:40

      You just need to prove the source of funds. So show them your card statements for 12 months. Deal done as long as you haven’t just transferred out the moment you topped up. Ignoring them and you risk a CIFAS marker for fraud/money laundering. That’s something you REALLY dont want.

    • Secret Squirrel says:
      11 Mar11 March 14:30

      Respond but don’t expect it dealt with quickly. Mine took 4x weeks to get funds back & account closed even though I supplied statements of source of funds.
      I also only topped up £500 a week, a number of small transactions out.

  • Nick_C says:
    11 Mar11 March 12:31

    OT. The Lounge Club pass that comes free with the Amex PRGC. I didn’t keep the letter and brochure that came with the card. Do I only need to show the card (and boarding pass) to get access? No need to register the card or get an app?

    Also, what’s the best lounge at LHR T3 that’s accessible with this card? Should I book in advance, and if so does this come with fast track? Thanks in advance.

  • GRIMZ says:
    11 Mar11 March 13:33

    OT, My gold card is showing progress for the renewal bonus to spend the 15K for 10k points but I am due the 12k bonus as I have passed the 2years without having an Amex card. Should I be concerned that it is not showing the tracker for the 12k bonus welcome bonus?

    • Secret Squirrel says:
      11 Mar11 March 14:33

      If everything is fine with your account then you will probably just receive the 12k bonus once you’ve spend the requirement.
      Amex Trackers are notoriously unreliable, one day they show, the next they are gone.

  • Jack says:
    11 Mar11 March 13:36

    OT

    I have an Amex Gold and just been sent the offer of upgrading to Platinum, 20k MR points if I spend £4k in first 3 months. Luckily I can pay my rent with Amex so I am guaranteed to hit that £4k pretty much immediately – if I upgrade, can I then downgrade again to Gold or do I have to cancel and reapply for Gold? I just paid my Gold annual fee a few months back – is the credit from that charged against the Platinum fee if I upgrade/refunded pro rata? Thanks

    • Secret Squirrel says:
      11 Mar11 March 14:31

      All these offer upgrade emails flying around, we never receive these?

      • Jack says:
        11 Mar11 March 14:34

        Maybe it’s targeted. I called up Amex last week about a (non-coronavirus) travel issue and they offered it to me on the phone then. Add to that the 2-3 emails a week I’m getting about it and the constant notifications at the top of my Amex account online and it’s getting very tempting!

    • Doug M says:
      11 Mar11 March 14:39

      Wish I was lucky enough to pay £4K rent 🙂

      • Jack says:
        11 Mar11 March 14:44

        I have to pay 3 months at a time + I pay my girlfriend’s for the MR points. Add in the odd supermarket shop and it reaches £4k very quickly!

        • Jim says:
          11 Mar11 March 18:16

          Why do you ‘have to’ pay 3 months at a time? That sounds like unfair terms.

          • Jack says:
            11 Mar11 March 18:39

            It’s student rent – my uni runs its own letting agency renting out flats/houses not only on campus but also in the local areas (hence why luckily I can pay using my Amex since it runs through their online fees system). I think they do it as it’s meant to help students manage their finances better, since as soon as their student loan comes in at the start of each term, it goes back out on rent. May work for some but for others, including myself, it’s annoying as we’d rather have the cash that could be earning interest etc instead of tying it up in 3 months rent up front every term!

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