LOTS of British Airways First Class Avios seats to Cincinnati available – often five per flight

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• Brendan says:

  7 Dec7 December 20:12

  They switch to the 787-8 with the old Club World seats during peak season 🙁

• PH says:

  7 Dec7 December 22:44

  Rob – what makes you think it won’t be an unrefurbished 777 with 14 old F and old CW? (Meaning F is more of a step up).

  In any case, surprised they are operating F and not just holding the cabin back for J overspill

  • Rob says:

    7 Dec7 December 22:49

    I did a couple of dummy bookings and it came up with 8-seat F aircraft. That’s not to say that every flight will be like that. In theory the 777 refurb programme is done any day now anyway.

    • Mark says:

      8 Dec8 December 05:02

      Except who knows what is happening with the three 777-200ERs that were refurbed with a 14F cabin for Gatwick services before BA abandoned F from Gatwick and switch them to Heathrow services, still with the old CW.

• Alex W says:

  8 Dec8 December 04:16

  Any frequent flyers going to Cincinnati MUST take the 75 minute drive to the National Museum of the USAF near Dayton. Far and away the best aircraft museum in the world.

  • Mikeact says:

    8 Dec8 December 08:23

    +1

• Stuart says:

  8 Dec8 December 05:14

  At the rate BA is focusing on USA destinations we’ll be getting direct Heathrow to Brockway, Ogdenville and North Haverbrook (and HfP will have articles about F/J seats/F&B, lounges etc.) before directs to the metropoleis of Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Seoul, Osaka etc. (all of which other European legacies fly to from their hubs). Has it been officially announced yet that Qatar Airways is also British Eastbound Airways? Come on Rob/Rhys please more articles about the UK’s true national airline: AFKL (and their partners).

  • JDB says:

    8 Dec8 December 06:56

    Why wouldn’t BA focus on what it deems the most commercial routes? It’s in the interest of passengers for BA to make as much money as possible that can be reinvested into new aircraft, Club Suite, service, lounge refurbishment etc. so while they are short of aircraft they are going to focus on the most profitable routes. The Asian routes you mention are significantly less profitable, tying up aircraft for twice the time vs many US routes, fares are less good and on some routes cargo opportunities are less.

    The UK has very close business, cultural, language and family/friends ties to the US which creates big premium demand vs Asia. The fact that other European legacy carriers fly there (some as part of deals following privatisation) shouldn’t be relevant to BA’s route planning and have you seen some of those carriers margins vs IAG?

    • Joe says:

      8 Dec8 December 09:06

      I think the point is that BA as a business flies to many US cities that most points collectors just don’t want to visit. There is a disconnect isn’t there. Industry/commercial/oil/finance centres don’t generally make attractive points redemptions. If BA only flies routes that are guaranteed profit makers (business routes) at the expense of marginal profit routes (leisure) then what choice will people have to spend their Avios? It makes Avios much less appealing when the only destinations with regular premium availability are second tier US cities.

      • PH says:

        8 Dec8 December 21:03

        There is an advantage to starting a trip in Pittsburgh, namely you can be through US immigration in 30 seconds with the right CW seat. Even if you were last off the plane, the wait would be fine as BA is the only long haul international route and there aren’t any other international arrivals at the same time. Officers also much more pleasant than EWR/JFK and some other larger cities. Unfortunately BA arrives a bit late for same day domestic connections

        • Londonsteve says:

          9 Dec9 December 12:00

          With such a paucity of international flights, I’m surprised some of these airports in the US maintain an immigration service. Someone, somewhere is paying the price to keep adequate staffing of their immigration and customs capabilities in order to process a handful of flights. I guess that for some of these secondary cities having a direct flight to London (with its plentiful onward flights to the continent) is important for reasons of prestige or hoped-for future economic development and therefore some subisidies are involved which might extend to paying the wage bill for US immigration staff that wouldn’t be justified by the number of flights alone. Must be a pretty cushy job for those employees.

  • Bernard says:

    8 Dec8 December 07:03

    BA is a business. It uses its assets where returns are best. Why would it fly low yield, long expensive route ( both in fuel and aircraft utilisation)?
    Contrary to belief in places like Flyertalk, airlines don’t plan based on planting flags on maps.
    Seoul already has two airlines running direct, KL is a bit of backwater nowadays, and Bangkok also has both Thai and (the superb) EVA Air on it. Plus there’s so many connections over the Middle East why would BA want to commit aircraft to probably profit marginal routes like these (at best)?
    Frankly it’s more surprising they still bother with Sydney. Though I wonder how that will last when Qantas go non-stop

    • Matt says:

      8 Dec8 December 07:38

      The Simpsons reference made me smile.

      • Stuart says:

        8 Dec8 December 08:07

        That was the aim 🙂
        As the BA to US only rather than to mega-cities eastbound had been done to death – but some still jump in with the “BA only flies profitable routes/aircraft usage” but fail to notice the other big Euro carriers can manage it.

        • JDB says:

          8 Dec8 December 08:21

          @Stuart – I don’t think anyone has failed to notice that some other European carriers fly to more Asian cities but maybe you haven’t noticed just how poor their profitability is. Some of those routes are also only flown to comply with obligations imposed when state carriers were taken over by foreigners.

          I’m sure you have noticed that Virgin operates a similar route policy to BA. The UK government offered no support to airlines beyond that available to all during Covid, unlike continental European airlines. This makes it all the more necessary for VS and BA to focus on profitability and cash generation rather than any vanity routes.

      • Lev441 says:

        8 Dec8 December 15:21

        Monorail… monorail.. monorail..

  • Paul says:

    8 Dec8 December 07:58

    As someone said, it’s but a few hours from Cincinnati to Knoxville and the Sun Sphere – which is still there, but empty of wigs, at least when we went.

  • lumma says:

    8 Dec8 December 10:06

    I’d be more worried about direct flights to Tahiti having brief layovers in North Haverbrook

• cin4 says:

  8 Dec8 December 11:01

  Absolutely not worth it with the absurd surcharges.

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