British Airways makes short haul schedule changes for Winter 2023

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• Blair Waldorf Salad says:

  24 Jul24 July 05:27

  There is a Centurion lounge coming to EWR. It may get overrun as a result of no PP lounges in EWR plus no PP reataurants. Unless flying home on United I’d try to avoid EWR. There’s a grimness about the place and it’s a building site at present bar United’s territory.

  • ianM says:

    24 Jul24 July 07:42

    However it is much easier to get to than JFK which massively outweighs getting into a lounge.

    • dougzz99 says:

      24 Jul24 July 11:01

      That very much depends on where you’re starting.

  • Malcolm says:

    24 Jul24 July 08:24

    Yes agree about grimness – last time we flew from Newark it was total chaos and the pricing at the restaurants / cafes was off the scale. It is easy to get to though!

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    24 Jul24 July 20:21

    JFK is pretty building site-y at the moment too, mind you

    • Richie says:

      24 Jul24 July 22:17

      The new JFK T1 being built looks like it’ll be good.

• Jill Kinkell says:

  24 Jul24 July 07:50

  Already had notice of several trips affected by the dropping of the evening Inverness flight. Down to one flair of flights a day…..at a not very user friendly time. . Means we have no hope of getting home on same day if our LH/SH international flight arrives into LHR after 0830. Only flight to INV us at 0950. No going to London on the 0700 and coming back at 19.15. That won’t go down well with business and others and me!
  So much for being a ‘valued’ customer when BA cut flights to INV and ABZ but not touching the central belt in Scotland, Proof BA just aren’t interested in servicing the regions

  • JDB says:

    24 Jul24 July 08:15

    Isn’t it simply that some of these regional routes just aren’t commercial for BA rather than them not being interested in servicing the regions as a principle?

    • Malcolm says:

      24 Jul24 July 08:25

      This is of course correct and there is no chance of the Scot Govt providing subsidies to help these flights operate!

      • Jill Kinkell says:

        24 Jul24 July 08:42

        The current Scottish Government couldn’t give a toss about anything north of the central belt. Just look at the scandal over dualling the A9..
        in my thoroughly ignorant and aviation mind, surely it’s cheaper to park a plane overnight in Inverness than other places and at least give us a couple of evening flights during the week

        • Jill Kinkell says:

          24 Jul24 July 08:52

          …and just how much is it costing BA to fork out either a refund or reroute …which will now cost them duty of care and overnight for all those who now can’t get home until next day.. Yes, BA! I will be expecting you to pay my bills which will be over £600.
          OK…rant over

        • Rob says:

          24 Jul24 July 09:53

          BA is following the low cost carriers and trying not to overnight anywhere, due to the cost of paying for a few hotel rooms and airport parking fees.

          The snag here is that the first BA flight back to London will always be fairly late in the morning, since a plane has to come out from London first. This puts BA at a competitive disadvantage for picking up passengers who are starting outside the UK and travelling to London for 1-2 days.

        • Mikeact says:

          24 Jul24 July 10:02

          I doubt they’ll be many trying to claim £600+ …for what, a decent hotel etc ?

        • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

          24 Jul24 July 12:07

          It it’s not just about airport parking fees for the plane.

          It’s the cost of hotel rooms for the flight and cabin crew to over night which soon mount up plus their “away from home” allowances.

      • memesweeper says:

        24 Jul24 July 09:06

        I’ve no idea if Scot or UK gov fund this but the lack of APD from INV is a pretty chunky subsidy.

        • Richie says:

          24 Jul24 July 10:11

          A SH plane has to park somewhere unless it is doing an overnighter in the air.

        • Numpty says:

          24 Jul24 July 10:25

          @Richie, good point, I’d imagine the parking fee at INV is a lot cheaper than it is at LHR that it could offset INV hotel costs.

        • Londonsteve says:

          24 Jul24 July 11:45

          I thought part of the reason for overnighting aircraft at outstations was because there simply aren’t enough stands at Heathrow if all BA short haul metal returned home at the end of the day?

    • Londonsteve says:

      24 Jul24 July 11:43

      I doubt the routes to Gibraltar are commercial either without the intervention of the Gibraltar government guaranteeing seats for students, government employees and Gibraltarians receiving NHS treatment in the UK, not to mention the indirect subsidy provided by Gibraltar in operating the civilian airport for a handful of flights a day. I’ve often wondered what all these ground handling staff do in between flights and there’s no shortage of them either. However, for Gibraltar connectivity to London is critical and it should be for somewhere like Inverness too to allow the local economy to flourish.

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

        24 Jul24 July 12:16

        It’s not like INV is being cut off from London.

        Just checking todays INV departures and EasyJet has 3 flights to LGW and 2 to LTN.

        • Jill Kinkell says:

          24 Jul24 July 19:49

          I never suggested being cut off from London. My rant is that the once a day flight now being offered into / out of Heathrow restricts flying on one ticket and being able to fly to one’s destination without having to have overnight either before or after.
          I have 3 trips mucked up with the change in schedule which will cost BA in duty of care,

      • David says:

        24 Jul24 July 22:12

        @londonsteve – what a bizarre way of looking at things.

        There are countless places around the world that operate their airport (itself) at a loss for essential connectivity reasons. Do you really view that as an indirect subsidy? (Nb you can easily make up the revenue in other ways, just not directly at the terminal).

        The Gibraltar government does not guarantee seats for students (at all!).
        Gibraltar students who study away from the Gibraltar receive a travel allowance from the Government, this amount is equal to the cost of one return trip per YEAR of study. There is no restriction on how you spend this, hence some people might go up the road to Malaga to fly to a UK airport closer to their university. Giving students a travel allowance is also quite normal in places that are very remote from where people need to study.

        It is true that the Gibraltar government pays to keep a very small number of seats available to them until the last minute. This again is not unusual in places with limited connectivity, some businesses occasionally do the same. This is so they can move anyone last minute needed for essential reasons. I don’t think 3 seats on a flight is that matieral!

        Oh and regarding sponsored patients, these government seats are almost never used for that, they book commercial seats as required – at the time.
        The ONLY time the govt allocation is used is for last minute urgent transfers is the flight has sold out.

        If the route was not commercially viable there would be one flight a day for essential connectivity. This probably the most skewed and ill-informed way of looking at it I’ve ever read.

  • Jock MacSporran says:

    24 Jul24 July 09:11

    It is a very disappointing move by BA. I’ve already asked our local MP to wade into this. We’ll wait see what happens.

• Sarah says:

  24 Jul24 July 09:10

  Annoying about the reduction in flights to Pisa, as the LCY ones to Florence are three times the price

  • Richie says:

    24 Jul24 July 09:18

    Trains from Bologna and Verona are good.

  • Thegasman says:

    24 Jul24 July 13:17

    Are they stopping the LHR-FLR over the winter? (I’m secretly hoping they flop as worried it will kill off the Perugia flights which are much better for me!)

• KP says:

  24 Jul24 July 09:18

  Why would anyone in their right minds want to fly BA to Amman ?

  • Richie says:

    24 Jul24 July 09:19

    Cheaper than RJ, need the BA eligible flights for status?

  • Rob says:

    24 Jul24 July 09:51

    Apparently some people do, despite the flat bed / long haul option of Royal Jordanian which still earns Avios and BA tier points!

  • KP says:

    24 Jul24 July 10:50

    Its probably the same people who are OK to fly Wizz Air to the middle east…!

  • aseftel says:

    24 Jul24 July 12:24

    It looks like BA CE is about £900 Vs £1,800 on RJ so that’s priced in somewhat. The real question for me would be why you’d spend £900 on BA CE vs £500 in RJ economy, especially if you’re OWS or above so the ground experience is the same.

    • Richie says:

      24 Jul24 July 12:59

      You may be on a BAH double TPs offer to Amman and Petra.

    • The Savage Squirrel says:

      24 Jul24 July 13:49

      Never forget that much of the population is vastly different in interest-in-aviation, knowledge and confidence compared to the small bubble of aviation-savvy HfP commenters. They have possibly never heard of RJ; have no idea what type of seat is on what airline, won’t even consider tier points or know that you earn them on any flight other than BA ones, and are often nervous about flying any non-UK or household name airline.

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    24 Jul24 July 20:23

    Could say same about IST – yet J was full on BA every time since been

    • Londonsteve says:

      24 Jul24 July 21:58

      It’s half the price of Turkish in business. I guess you get what you pay for.

• LittleNick says:

  24 Jul24 July 09:35

  Interestingly saw on mainlymiles that SQ are now using the BA lounge at Newark as a result of the Virgin one closing! Wonder how SQ customers feel about that?

• PL says:

  24 Jul24 July 09:54

  Any changes to the long haul schedule? There is perhaps a very, very slim chance that BKK will be reinstated for the winter like they did a couple of years ago at about this time of year

  • Rhys says:

    24 Jul24 July 10:19

    A couple of years ago was mid-covid and BA were on the lookout for places to fly. Now BA have plenty of places to fly but not enough planes or staff.

  • Rob says:

    24 Jul24 July 15:31

    San Jose (California) has gone. I think that’s it apart from some airport / terminal switches.

• C says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:09

  That was explain why SQ switched over to the BA lounge since the virgin lounge is closed. One of those rare cases where a star alliance member uses one world lounges.

  Is the ba lounge at EWR suitable for the worlds longest flight? 😛

  • Chris W says:

    24 Jul24 July 12:36

    Surely if you are taking the worlds longest flight you would want to spend as little time at the airport as possible.

  • David says:

    24 Jul24 July 21:45

    The SQ plane is always parked right outside the BA lounge

• Mark says:

  24 Jul24 July 10:28

  Any idea when the long haul winter schedule will be confirmed? Got a couple of LAS flights scheduled for T3 but BA seem keen to keep the LAS flight leaving from T5.

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