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CONFIRMED: British Airways closes Gatwick short-haul, all flights removed from sale

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Five days after we exclusively broke the story that BA pilot union BALPA had refused to support the new low cost model proposed for Gatwick Airport, British Airways has officially pulled the plug.

All Gatwick short-haul flying is now suspended. Flights have been removed from sale.

The only exception will be a handful of domestic services to connect to the banks of long-haul Caribbean departures.

British Airways closes Gatwick short-haul, all flights removed from sale

In a statement to Sky News, BA said:

“After many years of losing money on European flights from the airport, we were clear that coming out of the pandemic, we needed a plan to make Gatwick profitable and competitive.

“With regret, we will now suspend our short-haul operations at Gatwick, with the exception of a small number of domestic services connecting to our long-haul operation, and will pursue alternative uses for the London Gatwick short-haul slots.”

In a staff email circulated today, quoted by Sky News, BA states that the terms offered to BALPA were:

“the best that could be achieved in order to create a viable and sustainable operation at London Gatwick”.

BALPA’s acting general secretary, Martin Chalk, said:

“We are disappointed that we couldn’t come to arrangements that were acceptable to our members. We stand ready to work with BA to find such arrangements that could be acceptable.”

Why did BALPA refuse to support the new short haul operation?

As we covered here, the cost of pilots for the new Gatwick operation represented one of the few areas where British Airways felt it could reduce costs.

BALPA would never have allowed the airline to hire new pilots on lower pay. The two sides had been working on a deal which would allow Heathrow Airbus pilots – some currently flying, some in the ‘holding pool’ – to be seconded to the new Gatwick airline. Whilst pay would have been reduced, in line with Gatwick’s more seasonal schedule, pilots would have retained their place on the seniority list and would have a guaranteed path to return to Heathrow in the future.

According to a letter circulated by BALPA last week, which we have seen:

“….. we have been trying to insert a clause in the contract of employment which would have protected the contractual rights of LGW-based pilots by placing an obligation on BA to ensure that Newco complies with any collective agreements or procedures agreed between BALPA and BA.”

In plain English, BALPA wanted Gatwick pilots to automatically receive any pay increase or other benefits negotiated by Heathrow crew.

British Airways closes Gatwick short-haul, all flights removed from sale

BALPA claimed that British Airways had agreed to such an obligation but, when it came to making it legally binding, refused.

BALPA continued:

“we have received an email from BA making it clear that the company is not prepared to include the protection clause we require.”

and concluded:

“we can no longer recommend the proposed LGW shorthaul agreement. As such we have terminated the consultative ballot with immediate effect.”

However …..

It seems that, earlier this week, British Airways came back to the table with a new proposal which addressed these issues. The union has refused to support it, however, because there is no longer any willingness from the pilot body to go along with this plan in any form. A revised proposal put together by the union, with improved pay and scheduling, was apparently rejected by the airline.

It is worth noting that there are no dedicated British Airways short haul pilots at Gatwick, all having taken redundancy, transferred to Heathrow or joined the ‘holding pool’, so the closure will not directly lead to any redundancies. It will impact the remaining furloughed Gatwick short haul cabin crew.

What happens next?

British Airways has a few options up its sleeve.

It could try to revive a BA operation at Gatwick with a new non-unionised pilot fleet, but this would break a legal agreement with BALPA over representation. It would almost certainly lead to a strike that would ground the airline.

The slots could be passed to other IAG carriers such as Aer Lingus, Vueling or LEVEL. With minimal UK brand recognition, however, it is hard to see them succeeding where BA could not.

The final option is a sale of the short haul slots. Wizz Air would pay a handsome price for them, and easyJet would also do whatever was necessary to find the money. It would be a once in a generation opportunity to get a dominant position at London Gatwick.

Oddly, according to Cirum data, BA’s withdrawal won’t have much impact on the reach of Gatwick Airport. There are only four BA routes from Gatwick which are not served by any other Gatwick airline – Algiers, Cologne/Bonn, Genoa and Manchester – and Manchester is likely to remain as a feeder.

The BA call centre is going to be busy though. Cirum notes that, purely for July 2022, British Airways has 1,881 short-haul flights scheduled from Gatwick, with 331,000 seats available. If you were planning to call BA about anything, I’d do it now before the cancellation emails start going out ….

You can read more on Sky News here. British Airways has yet to make a statement.

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Comments (242)

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

  • Jonny Price says:
    23 Sep23 September 14:13

    I wouldn’t suggest anyone calls the BA call centres for the next few weeks – I hear they are inundated following the recent travel announcements!

  • planeconcorde says:
    23 Sep23 September 14:14

    The previously on sale flight from JERsey to LGW after end of March 2022 have been withdrawn from sale. A search on BA.COM for JER to LON returns “We’re sorry but we can’t find any flights matching your search”.
    After the initial pandemic shutdown, BA flights to Jersey have been operating out of Heathrow instead of Gatwick. Heathrow to Jersey was set to continue up to the end of March 2022 and then switch back to Gatwick. Now BA.COM is showing no Jersey to Heathrow or Gatwick flights after 9th March 2022. So that’s a further cut.
    It will be interesting to see if they retain operating to Jersey from Heathrow after 9th March.

    • Dave says:
      23 Sep23 September 15:48

      I wouldn’t worry too much – they will have pulled the LGW inventory quickly, whereas moving services to LHR will take them a little bit longer.

      • planeconcorde says:
        23 Sep23 September 16:59

        Yeah, I get that. I am just curious as to why the after 9th to end of March LHR to JER flights have also been withdrawn from sale, when the LGW short haul restart wasn’t due to take place until the end of March. Previously the flights were on sale right up to the switch over date from LHR to LGW.

  • Mr(s) Entitled says:
    23 Sep23 September 14:19

    BA got rid of the MAN-LGW years ago. It makes it odd that they would reinstate it now as a ‘feeder’ when there are less destinations to feed. Are you sure such a flight exists?

    • planeconcorde says:
      23 Sep23 September 14:26

      Search ba.com finds one flight at day MAN to LGW and LGW to MAN for some random April and May 2002 dates when the summer timetable is applicable.

    • Sean says:
      23 Sep23 September 14:26

      It was announced recently to feed the Islamabad flight which will start.

      • Mr(s) Entitled says:
        23 Sep23 September 14:55

        Interesting. With MAN as my local airport I have always discounted LGW due to the inability to connect. Hopefully the flight times work to a degree that long haul from LGW becomes attractive.

        • Anna says:
          23 Sep23 September 16:03

          It was brought back but almost immediately fell victim to the pandemic, IIRC. As a family we used to use it to visit relatives in Bermuda (and vice versa), so it was quite a blow when it was withdrawn about 10 years ago. I’m also hoping they will keep it in the long term – I think it’s one service per day leaving MAN at 0700.

          • Mikeact says:
            23 Sep23 September 16:14

            But you won’t be paying to use it I guess, unless you’re using up your Avios.

          • Anna says:
            23 Sep23 September 16:29

            LGW certainly features in my plans for this, if the flight continues. I have 750k avios and 4 x 241s to extract maximum value from! Should see us through the next few years of long haul until we travelling as a couple again and can justify moving to QR and VS.

  • Richie says:
    23 Sep23 September 14:42

    Perhaps change the photos of A380 and B747 aircraft for this story.

  • ScottA says:
    23 Sep23 September 14:47

    Sad to hear about this, but excellent reporting by HFP. Was able to lock in my summer 2022 travel for peanuts to Gatwick and will move the dates to Heathrow now

  • TimM says:
    23 Sep23 September 15:07

    So, ‘London Airways’ is contracting again. It is time to let other operators have a bid to use ‘British Airways’ as their name. IAG have long abused it.

    • Jonny Price says:
      23 Sep23 September 15:30

      I think you need to point the finger of blame at the outdated union agreements and the over-inflated salaries for it being “London Airways”.

      Why can’t BA operate profitably against easyJet and the like in the UK regions? Why is the new IAG long haul outfit in Manchester operated by Aer Lingus UK and not operated by BA? Because of the unions.

      If it wasn’t for union intransigence, BA could pay their pilots the same as other UK airlines and would have a low enough cost base to grow. A sizeable presence at Gatwick and in the UK regions would mean BA would be a bigger and more successful airline, providing increased consumer choice and more jobs.

      • TimM says:
        23 Sep23 September 16:08

        BA should be training their future pilots at their own expense and on a long term contract to avoid BALPA issues. They don’t. They want pre-qualified pilots who have paid for their own training and who then expect ‘pay-back’ through pay & conditions. What happened to the BA training college at Hamble? Closed because of short-term profit interests. BA reap what they sow.

      • ChrisC says:
        23 Sep23 September 16:25

        You keep saying this but that does not make it true.

        It’s not the unions that have stopped BA serving the regions it’s BA management.

        EI started MAN-USA because they saw a business opportunity. BA have shown little interest in that sort of route. That’s the management not the unions deciding that.

        • Steve Zodiac says:
          23 Sep23 September 17:05

          The business opportunity was there for EI to start MAN-USA because they have a lower cost base than BA currently do.

          “If BA had been really interested in the route, they would have developed a business model which worked” I hear you say? Maybe they have one in their back pocket, but either way today’s debacle shows exactly why no real interest has been shown in pursuing it – BALPA clearly have the power to stop such things and are clearly not afraid of doing so.

      • Tim says:
        23 Sep23 September 16:58

        I love this. This is brill. Absolute nonsense from start to finish.

        Can you detail specifically how pilot salaries are different at BA to its competitors please? For example, what is a cadet salary at BA compared with LC competition? Are captains paid differently, and do all crew operate greater or fewer duties than their competition?

        If you can’t answer those with specifics (spoiler alert, I already know the answers to these questions and they don’t favour your view point) you don’t really have a clue whether there are over-inflated salaries or union intransigence.

        When you talk about competing with easyJet and others, are you forgetting BA was more profitable pre-pandemic than most other airlines?

        • Ken says:
          23 Sep23 September 17:15

          Yeah , but the unions though. All commies aren’t they. Trying to bring down the government & hold the country to ransom.
          If I’m not happy with my pay I work somewhere else.
          BA should sack them all and remploy.
          Or get the Poles in to fly. They were great in WW2

          See how Balpa like that !

          • Steve Zodiac says:
            23 Sep23 September 17:27

            Given that some of the contenders for the slots have Polish bases, we may well have an opportunity now to see how BALPA like it when the Poles get to fly. Or the Spanish. Or the Hungarians.

            I’m all for diversity, personally, and if the slots get used then I guess that it doesn’t have much impact on pilot jobs globally. However, I struggle to reconcile this with the fact that the ‘B’ in BALPA stands for British and their actions today have seemingly given away a guaranteed opportunity for British-based jobs.

        • Steve Zodiac says:
          23 Sep23 September 17:19

          Tim, I don’t have airline salary information to hand (though if it is in the public domain and you are able to publish it here, I would advise that you do so – you may as well attempt to give yourself some credibility). However, if – as you seem to imply – BA currently pay their pilots the same as any other UK airline it begs a few questions as to what has just happened re: Gatwick.

          When you compare the pre-pandemic profitability of BA compared with easyJet, are you forgetting that easyJet does not operate long haul flights and does not operate flights with premium cabins? The issue at stake is not the profitability of BA as a whole – it’s about whether or not the short-haul operation at Gatwick is viable. BA is not a charity and is under no obligation to subsidise unviable operations at Gatwick from profits made elsewhere on the network. It would have been great for consumers if Gatwick could have been made to work (more choice, more opportunities to travel in a premium cabin) and it would have been great for those pilots hoping for a career with BA. The fact that the slots at Gatwick do not come with a stipulation that they must be operated by UK-based crew means that even if they do get taken on by another airline BALPA have succeeded in giving away an opportunity to guarantee UK-based jobs.

          • The Penguin says:
            23 Sep23 September 20:01

            They pay them less in most cases. This is well known!

          • Tim says:
            23 Sep23 September 21:41

            @Steve

            First, it’s your job to back up your original claims with evidence and being as you admitted you don’t have any data at all, you should probably start asking more questions and making less statements. Helps avoid confirmation bias.

            Second, if you think a whole operation rests on a few million quid a year deduction from pilot salaries alone (they were literally offering no other cost cutting anywhere) then you’re probably missing a bigger picture.

            Third, the history of BA LGW is that they don’t like it and that it’s not profitable for BA’s model. If that’s not a good enough reason to pull out, what is? And yet they didn’t. Begs the question whether fire and re-hire was the plan, or whether it was a deliberate attempt at negating pilot terms forever.

            Finally, there is no guarantee a pilot job ever goes to a UK pilot but using our brains we can work out than a pilot job at any cost isn’t helpful. We want to see, as a profession and industry (and hopefully as humans with brains), less terms like Ryanair’s. If you’re blissfully unaware, they offer cadets zero hour contracts at a base of RYR’s choosing, via a third party contractor, on the condition they pay the airline £35k to join. Training (up to 50 sectors) is unpaid. They literally pay Ryanair to come to work. In what other profession is this accepted? Where do you think these slippery slopes started? Is this actually totally fine in your view as long as it’s being offered to a UK pilot?

            I personally, as a pilot and a passenger, would like to know my captain and first officer are not worried about paying their bills, or not seeing their family for another week, whilst flying me back at 3 in the morning from a Greek island. And simply this is why BA pilots (not BACC on their own) likely voted this down.

          • Steve Zodiac says:
            24 Sep24 September 08:56

            Actually, Tim, it’s the job of those on here who have made detailed claims about salary to back them up if it’s important to their narrative.

            It’s seemingly quite difficult to get to the heart of the issue – this related article (https://www.headforpoints.com/2021/08/29/balpa-british-airways-low-cost-gatwick-carrier/) suggests that the main problem is that BA may eventually find an excuse to reduce ts and cs at Heathrow. Some of the arguments here (your last comment included) seem to suggest that it’s more about the initial pay offer. If you are willing and able to clarify what the main issue really is that would be helpful.

            I am not a fan of the Ryanair model you describe, but if BA now sell or lease the slots it is not unreasonable to think that they may end up being operated by an airline with those operating practices – and that, ultimately, at the moment is why I am left wondering what BALPA have actually achieved.

          • James D says:
            24 Sep24 September 10:39

            Steve, please stop quoting articles to back up your argument, Tim is absolutely right in everything he has said, like Tim I also know and have access to the answers, you are clearly speculating, and speculating wrong.

          • Lady London says:
            24 Sep24 September 11:04

            I’m afraid you’re seeing things a bit too simplistically Steve Zodiac. Plus you’ve not mentioned the huge profit BA has made compared to other airlines in the world previously and will again. There’s much, much more BA wanted to achieve with this Gatwick model and only starting with deteriorating packages for all its pilots through the back door.

            I think it would be best for the market for IAG to be broken up and bits sold off now. Sadly no one’s big enough to buy them right now. But there are so many inefficiencies across their businesses they could sort out to be more profitable and incidentally, provide a better service such as clean seats, coherent and consistent call centre handling, etc.

            Instead they’re starting to try to make their next protective step, hanging in at Gatwick, paid off the back of the pilots forever. Luckily the pilots haven’t fallen for it. They’ve called BA on their bull$hit.

          • Steve Zodiac says:
            24 Sep24 September 14:53

            James, I am quoting articles because in discussions like this it is important to understand where someone is coming from, and I am trying to illustrate where I have got some of my information from. If that information is incorrect, it would be much more helpful if you could engage constructively and point me towards other sources which might give an alternative viewpoint.

            I recognise that some information is not in the public domain but there are better ways forward than simply to inflate one’s own self-importance with claims of “I know better than you!” Unless such claims can be substantiated or form part of a wider effort to engage constructively, they belong firmly in the school playground.

    • James Harper says:
      23 Sep23 September 16:50

      The new name is Heathrow Airways!

  • chris1922 says:
    23 Sep23 September 15:10

    Hope the GLA – LGW connection remains, I was a regular user of LGW both for London business travel, and for feeder to Florida holidays. And the LGW lounge is awesome !

  • Cats are best says:
    23 Sep23 September 15:23

    Really sad news for all the other staff affected at LGW.

    I liked BA’s set-up at LGW. The lounge was cosier and I never had to wait for the showers.

    From where I am in central London the journey to LGW/LHR is about the same, but with usually much quicker progress through LGW it is faster overall.

    LGW CE availability was often far better for quick TP runs, I recall booking bargains in the evening, doing B2B flights in the morning and getting back home for lunchtime – though after the lounge breakfast, two onboard meals and many bubblies I was never that hungry for lunch.

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