News: Virgin extends Tel Aviv closure, BA resumes Gatwick-Jersey, Heathrow Express sale

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• Kpworldtravels says:

  13 Feb13 February 05:49

  Till 14th Fen you mean, not March 😊

  • Kpworldtravels says:

    13 Feb13 February 05:49

    Feb*

• Eli gold says:

  13 Feb13 February 05:54

  I’m now waiting for their response whether they’ll jeapordise my approved status match request due to them cancelling

  • daveinitalia says:

    13 Feb13 February 07:55

    Assuming you need to be in Israel the only airline that’s worth considering at the moment is ElAl as they’ve been flying throughout the war. Although I wouldn’t fancy flying all the way to the Middle East on a BA A321neo (AZ’s A321neo would be a different story!) their plan would be more workable than Virgin’s as the stop in LCA let’s them avoid the need to station crew their overnight which means no crew stranded should the situation get worse over there.

    On a more positive note, I know a BA gold who was due to drop to silver and has had gold extended for another year. I’d always rate BA status higher than VS Status just because they have a route network such that they’re more likely to be going where you want them to be (although now most of the middle east is short haul I’d probably be looking for alternatives if my regular travel was to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, etc).

• Chris R says:

  13 Feb13 February 07:32

  Wish BA would hurry up increasing the frequency of LGW-GLA from just one daily and reintroducing EDI

  • daveinitalia says:

    13 Feb13 February 08:00

    LGW-GLA is the only shorthaul route BA fly from GLA (as in the only route BA mainline operate, rather than Euroflyer). The crew come from LHR and so the aircraft flies LHR-GLA-LGW-GLA-LHR.

    Apparently Euroflyer will look at doing domestics once their operation scales up.

  • Nick says:

    13 Feb13 February 08:43

    If you buy BAEF more aircraft, give them more slots, and do something to increase yields on domestics (or I guess stifle those on European routes instead), they’ll happily do it. Until then, there’s more money to be made in flying elsewhere. They’re a business, not a public service.

• daveinitalia says:

  13 Feb13 February 07:42

  Even with the discount I’d not pay extra for the hassle of the HEX (needing to change levels at Paddington, which removes any time saving) rather than the convenience of the Elizabeth line (takes me right into central London). Even coming from T5 where there’s fewer Elizabeth line trains I’d rather do the free same platform interchange with the Elizabeth line at T2/3 than take the HEX to Paddington.

  I say this as a GGL who gets free upgrades on the HEX, it’s even less appealing if you have to travel in standard with the new trains and their ironing board seats. Since scrapping the old trains it’s no longer a premium experience, you don’t feel like you’re getting anything extra for your rip off fare.

  • lumma says:

    13 Feb13 February 14:00

    I think a lot of it depends on where your final destination is and/or if you’re travelling with kids who’d get on for free. I live in Whitechapel, so Elizabeth line is a direct train, so I wouldn’t even though the Heathrow Express is only £6.25 for me, but if you have to change anyway, some of the central Elizabeth line stations have nasty interchanges too

• Matarredonda says:

  13 Feb13 February 07:48

  Where are all those who condemned BA and said now they would be flying VA?

  • daveinitalia says:

    13 Feb13 February 07:58

    A lot of people flounce off and say they’re flying VA when BA annoys them slightly, then they realise they’re not in Australia and so look to VS and then they realise VS doesn’t have much of a route network either 😁

  • Jonathan says:

    13 Feb13 February 08:00

    Probably been too busy to come on first thing in the morning !

  • Mikeact says:

    13 Feb13 February 08:34

    You may well ask…I had quite a list at one time.

  • vlcnc says:

    13 Feb13 February 11:07

    I honestly genuinely LOLed, when I saw this just now. Lmao. LMAO.

  • HampshireHog says:

    13 Feb13 February 12:07

    Kudos to BA for running a service to Tel Aviv to maintain connectivity across their network, I can’t imagine they’ll be busy flights without Tourism and VFR traffic

    • Londonsteve says:

      13 Feb13 February 16:02

      Just who is flying to and from TLV these days? Sure, Israeli citizens that need to access the outside world (some of them on one-way tickets?), essential business traffic, some journalists and aid workers. Anyone else? Zero tourists, I’d also imagine that VFR traffic is a fraction of what it used to be and those together probably made up the lion’s share of a destination not big in tourism, business or transfer traffic.

• daveinitalia says:

  13 Feb13 February 08:07

  At one time (it was scrapped when Boris Johnson was mayor) TfL used to arrange ticket acceptance with the Heathrow Express when the tube was off. These days it’s not really needed as the Elizabeth line is usually running if the HEX is as they use the same lines but for many years it was an expensive pain if the tube was off.

  Back when TfL had ticket acceptance with the HEX you could effectively travel for free if you used Oyster pay as you go because there were no barriers at HEX stations at the time and there was no way to tap in/out and the on board ticket inspectors had no way of checking an Oyster card back then as it was considered not worth giving them appropriate card readers just for the occasional time it was needed.

  • dougzz99 says:

    13 Feb13 February 09:13

    I was travelling back into London last year when the Elizabeth line had issues and they said anyone with a paper ticket could use HEX, anyone without a paper ticket had to tough it out with the wait. I guess that was their solution.

    • Londonsteve says:

      13 Feb13 February 16:05

      Paper ticket holders travelling from LHR must be no more than about 5% of passengers, if that? Had I heard that I’d immediately go and tap out and buy a paper ticket from a machine, these days it’s only a little more than the ‘always peak’ fare on the tube if you’re travelling to, or through zone 1.

• Tony says:

  13 Feb13 February 08:11

  4 times a week to JER from LGW is hardly restarting a route with any enthusiasm….EasyJet must quaking in their boots!

• Bernard says:

  13 Feb13 February 08:15

  So Hearhrow Express still proves itself expensive and uncompetitive even on a ‘discount’.
  It doesn’t go anywhere but Paddington, has far fewer connections into the rest of the tube and isn’t in the TFL daily travel cap, has a third less services and no longer offers the ‘real’ discounted tickets.
  So what’s the point?
  Their trains look very empty at Heathrow as everyone waits for the Elizabeth line on the same platform.

  • Londonsteve says:

    13 Feb13 February 16:14

    It would be for the best if the service ceased and those pathways could be handed over to TFL, or indeed for the benefit of other commuter services into and out of Paddington. HAL will be desperately trying to milk the last financial benefit from HEX but as and when it’s loss making, they’ll close it in the blink of an eye. Thing is, I’m not sure TFL has the rolling stock and available capacity in the central core to take over the HEX pathways. They could run TFL services to Paddington high level platforms but I can’t see much point in that as the intervening stations don’t need more stopper services and a non-stop service would be another little used service as the HEX already is, albeit a cheaper one. Thus, HEX users will end up on the existing already fairly crowded EL and tube services with no obvious way of thinning the crowds.

    To my mind it would be better if HEX never existed and now we’d have an EL that runs stopper trains to Reading via the GW main line as they currently do, as well as non-stop ‘fast’ trains to Heathrow that don’t stop after Paddington.

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