BA news: two City Airport routes dropped, flights to Newcastle trimmed

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• LittleNick says:

  21 Dec21 December 07:47

  When can we get another stuffed series article? Rather enjoy reading all the tricks BA are up to to ‘enhance’ the scheme. Is their one left on the GUF vouchers?

  • Rob says:

    21 Dec21 December 08:16

    Yes

• Stuart says:

  21 Dec21 December 08:04

  I’m impacted by the Newcastle changes, fortunately it worked out for the better for me as I could switch my avios flight to Portugal for a much better timed one. When I booked it I always thought they would cancel some flights as there was a few within an hour of each other

  • Harry T says:

    21 Dec21 December 08:41

    Are they doing the direct flights to Faro again?

    • Stuart says:

      21 Dec21 December 11:12

      Wish they were, I’m stuck with a connection in LHR and going to LIS for a city break then get myself to the Algarve somehow for a week

      • Harry T says:

        21 Dec21 December 13:27

        Best of luck, I hope you enjoy your holiday. We are not well served with flights from NCL these days. Shame some of the direct flights from the pandemic didn’t survive.

        • Save East Coast Rewards says:

          21 Dec21 December 15:10

          I don’t think the NCL-FAO flights lasted long at all, they were introduced when Portugal was one of the few countries classified green and then the government reclassified them soon afterwards. I was in Newcastle a few weeks after the Portugal flights stopped and Newcastle Airport were still advertising on Metro Radio about all the different flights to Portugal, they must have booked a massive block of advertising and didn’t cancel it when circumstances changed.

• Harry T says:

  21 Dec21 December 08:27

  I think I’ll give up on booking connecting European itineraries via LHR with BA. They’ve slashed the flights next summer and now I can’t get to Berlin from Newcastle without getting a 6am flight and having a longer connection time. BA cut the mid morning flight entirely. I’m BA gold but I think KLM will be getting my money.

  As an aside, someone needs to tell Virgin Atlantic that BER exists, as I can’t find any other airport than TXL in their redemption search engine.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    21 Dec21 December 10:02

    You need to select Germany from the list of countries and then Berlin from the airports list and not via entering the code.

    • Harry T says:

      21 Dec21 December 13:28

      Thanks. It wasn’t doing this in the app, so I will try desktop.

• AlanC says:

  21 Dec21 December 08:59

  Better news. Got an email from EDI this morning that Qatar are increasing to 10 a week from Feb.

• Robert says:

  21 Dec21 December 09:24

  OT can anyone confirm if the recent changes in Avios redemptions apply to F or just CW and WT+ cabins? I’m seeing the 160k + £700 (using an old 2-4-1) just like the example in the article, but when I look at F it’s coming up as the old pricing.
  Also, every flight to JFK around Easter is a 777 – is there a way to check which ones have the new club suite?

  • Rob says:

    21 Dec21 December 10:01

    F retains the old pricing.

    • Robert says:

      21 Dec21 December 18:33

      Thanks Rob, I’ve just read through your article on how First is better value than mixing F & CW, very interesting and helped explain it more. Decided to pay the extra and go for F to maximise the value of the 2-4-1 voucher. In and out of EWR so the new Chelsea Lounge and visit to the TWA hotel will have to wait.

• Mike Hunt says:

  21 Dec21 December 09:32

  As part of the levelling up programme BA should be operating regular Heathrow/ Gatwick feeder flights from Leeds Bradford, Manchester and Newcastle.

  • Rob says:

    21 Dec21 December 10:00

    The plan – which Avanti is also part of – is to stop talented people being able to escape the north.

    I’m not entirely sure what your issue is though. If we look at the ‘most expensive UK streets’ list https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/21/easy-street-these-are-the-most-expensive-streets-in-the-uk today, you could buy a house on the most expensive road in the entire North East of England for less than a two-bed flat on my road. Seems clear who has the best deal there.

    • Doc says:

      21 Dec21 December 10:50

      “Escape the North….”- proud Geordie here living in Westminster- I know where my preference is and it’s very far North of the Watford Gap.

    • Red Flyer says:

      21 Dec21 December 11:18

      What has the cost of housing got to do with simply asking British Airways to treat British customers equally, in terms of access to a decent product, regardless of their location?

      • Save East Coast Rewards says:

        21 Dec21 December 15:39

        Because BA is not a charity, I would like to see them bring back LBA and keep 6 a day at NCL but they obviously believe their resources are deployed better elsewhere. Although it doesn’t help as a BAEC member the north of England is fairly well served by KLM.

        It would be bad for BA if they goverment followed France and banned domestic flights if they are a route with a reasonable train service (which I imagine would include NCL, EDI as well as MAN if Avanti actually operate trains anymore) as that would pretty much give KLM and Emirates all the connecting traffic.

        • Stuart says:

          21 Dec21 December 17:39

          It is bad that NCL is better served by KLM / AF than BA, plus with the Emirates service most of the world is now just one stop in Dubai away. Saw some rumours on twitter about Turkish airlines too

        • Lady London says:

          21 Dec21 December 17:50

          ….a route with reasonable train service…I’m just focusing on that concept for a moment. Nope, doesn’t look like domestic flights are in any danger…well, not from UK train performances anyway

      • David says:

        25 Dec25 December 09:58

        I think many may call it ‘Willy Waving’

  • Catalan says:

    21 Dec21 December 10:01

    Whose ‘levelling up programme’ would that be?

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    21 Dec21 December 10:03

    I didn’t know that BA was once again an arm of the government required to do it’s bidding.

    • Mikeact says:

      21 Dec21 December 15:05

      Seems so…according to some on here. This also popped up last week, same person if I remember correctly.

• Save East Coast Rewards says:

  21 Dec21 December 10:45

  For me a mix of good and bad. The cuts to NCL are always a bad thing, but the flights that suit me still seem to be running unless they’re still trimming the timetable.

  When I checked last week Bologna was showing as T3 next summer but now is showing T5 which is ideal for connecting on my usual route of NCL-LHR-BLQ.

  Also finally after months of being very close to the TP needed for GGL I finally reached it. So it was nice yesterday to sit in the CCR while waiting for my connecting flight to NCL. I would prefer better connections though.

  • Harry T says:

    21 Dec21 December 13:30

    Congrats on attaining top tier status – not easy when based in NCL. Do you primarily fly for leisure or business?

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:

      21 Dec21 December 15:31

      It’s a mix. I’m from the North East and return regularly, so when I used to work in London it was the trains that seen most of my business but I got gold on BA mostly through leisure travel as BA was so handy having LCY on my doorstep, LGW was easy on Thameslink from my office and LHR also relatively convenient. Then I dropped to silver when I was working in Bournemouth.
      I’m currently based in Bologna and I reached GGL because of the following:
      – The reduced threshold for initial qualification 3750 TP rather than 5000 TP
      – Flights between where I live now (BLQ) and the place I always think of as home (NCL), all via LHR as no direct options
      – A couple of first class bookings (JFK and MIA) that had been booked during the pandemic when prices were cheap and kept getting moved due to cancellations
      – Some travel round the US when I was over there, including a trip to Mexico
      – Business trips to London
      – BA Holidays double tier points (have to start in the UK for this though)
      – When I realised I was very close I did a tier point run to Sofia

      Normal GGL qualification is 5000 TP and then 3000 TP to renew. So next year I need to get 3000 TP, I don’t know if I’ll manage it.

      So I’d class my BLQ-LHR-NCL as leisure (or VFR as some call it now) but sometimes I combine it with a business trip to London.

      The trips in F to the US were definitely leisure too.

  • Lady London says:

    21 Dec21 December 17:52

    Congratulations @SECR.
    Now at least you might be able to renew from the lower requirement when you come to renew also?

• Joe says:

  21 Dec21 December 10:54

  Is there any indication of what routes/airports the LCY based aircraft will be assigned to? If there are reductions at Southampton and LCY, where will these planes be flying to instead? Surely they won’t be sitting there going nowhere? There must be a winner somewhere in this?

  • Richie says:

    21 Dec21 December 13:41

    BACF is reducing the size of their fleet anyway as leases are ending, so routes have to be cut. If their isn’t enough CE demand from SOU for flights to Alicante and Limoges, there is no point flying off peak. BACF is hoping that Saturday opening of LCY can be extended from 13:00 to 18:30 to allow for more flights, that’d be a winner.

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