British Airways drops four short-haul routes – and Glasgow to Gatwick closing?

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• chris1922 says:

  24 Dec24 December 09:13

  GLA resident here. Pre-covid, I used GLA – LGW fairly regularly, both for business and an annual trip to Florida. Cheaper than LHR, times suited my needs better, and more often than not a £59 offer to upgrade to CE with a great lounge at either end to use. Of course like many I work from home now and have meeting via teams, but still had my annual trip to MCO or TPA. I’ll be gutted if this gets pulled. I seem to recall the aircraft underwent maintenance whilst night stopped at GLA, and they are/were LHR based frames in any case, this is mainly BA, not euroflyer, correct ?

• Alan says:

  24 Dec24 December 09:20

  So frustrating that they keep moving flights to Gatwick whilst killing off all domestic connectivity – basically making some routes just for those in the SE.

• Steve R says:

  24 Dec24 December 09:24

  That’s why they are called London Airways

  • Jonny Price says:

    24 Dec24 December 09:43

    And presumably you call Air France Paris Airways, KLM Amsterdam Airways, Emirates Dubai Airways etc etc? For all full service hub and spoke airlines, their priority is their hub (in BA’s case Heathrow) and connecting people to it. Gatwick is overspill, with the Glasgow to Gatwick single daily flight sitting on a peak arrival slot that could be used for longhaul in future.

    • MPC says:

      24 Dec24 December 09:57

      In their defence a number of holiday routes only operate out of Gatwick now so by not having a convenient BA method of transfer between the 2 airports the hub and spoke model is really breaking down.

      But yes it is amusing to see people complaining about the lack of direct/non-stop flights from the regionals to far flung countries when pretty much every single other airline is doing exactly the same thing.

      Bring back the helicopterI say!

    • TimM says:

      24 Dec24 December 11:38

      Hub and spoke is fine. Two partial hubs with even more partial spokes is not, it is a design error.

    • NicktheGreek says:

      24 Dec24 December 12:06

      By my count, none of the UKs top 10 cities in terms of population have a BA flight to Gatwick. When you consider those cities include Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow and that there’s no other to access the BA network of LGW only holiday destinations, the London Airways description does seem quite apt.

    • CJD says:

      24 Dec24 December 12:16

      Which is fine except Gatwick is increasingly the base for leisure traffic, which has fuck all connectivity within the UK save one morning flight from Glasgow.

      • Novice says:

        24 Dec24 December 13:55

        So true.

    • John says:

      25 Dec25 December 03:53

      Well domestic flights don’t make sense for the Netherlands or the UAE

• A350 says:

  24 Dec24 December 09:40

  LGW-GLA-LGW is operated by Heathrow Cabin Crew not by BA EuroFlyer – ie. the plane would typically fly LHR-GLA-LGW-GLA-LHR with LHR based Cabin Crew often being put up in a hotel at LGW. I suspect the economics just didn’t work out. Having said that, it’s surprising that EDI and GLA aren’t sustainable to operate by EuroFlyer themselves? Then again, BA is just London Airways after all with 0 interest in the rest of the UK – massive missed opportunity in my opinion but there we go, nothing will change anyway – customers will moan yet still fly and chase Gold status and BA/IAG will keep raking in the millions/billions lol!

  • Catalan says:

    24 Dec24 December 10:13

    In all honesty the northern cities called the shots here. Years ago BA set up BA Connect to do exactly what people in the regions were asking for, regional connectivity. Did it return a profit? No it didn’t. No northern power house, so no profitable route network.
    People in the regions are very price conscious preferring to fly the likes of easyJet and Ryanair for their connectivity. You’ve voted with your feet (and pockets). Stop complaining!

    • Gary says:

      24 Dec24 December 11:47

      Yet KLM and to a lesser extent Lufthansa provide better connectivity to those north of Watford!!

      • Catalan says:

        24 Dec24 December 13:30

        Because they operate a hub and spoke operation to and from AMS/FRA just like BA does from LHR.

        • Novice says:

          24 Dec24 December 14:06

          But they don’t though, do they? You can hardly get any flights to LHR from the north at a decent frequency and time. That’s why us northerns mostly use AF/klm/me3/finnair going east and iberia going south/central America… ba just has the monopoly on N America but even then you can find other airlines from the north.

          I may hate MAN but I sure as hell am not going to drive nearly 5 hours to London every time I decide I need to do some travelling.

          There should be better connections. The connections don’t need to be flights. There should be train systems like japan or something.

        • CJD says:

          24 Dec24 December 21:14

          KLM’s regional coverage in the UK puts BA to shame.

• Rob B says:

  24 Dec24 December 10:19

  BA sees EDI as a biz class cash cow – LHR-EDI is/was? one of BA’s highest earning short haul routes and is still a valuable connector to the worldwide business network, so not likely to change in the near future (although never say never…). But by pulling LGW-EDI, BA simply gave in to the numerous long haul airlines direct into EDI, and gave up the Scots short haul holiday trade which used to use LGW to the lo-cos direct from EDI. Cutting LGW-GLA is much worse, since Glasgow has lost much of its long haul direct traffic to Edinburgh. London Airways indeed…

• ThomasB says:

  24 Dec24 December 11:11

  I’m gutted. I had four economy seats booked with Avios on the Pula flight for May half-term. BA haven’t sent me a cancellation/rebooking email yet but two seven hour layovers with a three and a five year old and effectively taking almost two full days out of a week long family holiday doesn’t sound like a goer!

  • ThomasB says:

    24 Dec24 December 12:34

    Does anyone know what options BA are likely to offer me? Would they consider a reroute to nearby Ljubljana on BA metal or would my only options be a convoluted Pula routing via Zagreb with Croatian or a refund?

    • Nick says:

      24 Dec24 December 16:56

      You can have a reroute within 300 miles under standard conditions of carriage, so don’t need anything particular to be in place to get that. Onward travel would be at your expense though. If you want the same destination you’ll have to wait for specific guidelines to be put in place.

      • Lady London says:

        24 Dec24 December 19:23

        Under 261 legislation I’d expect and ensure upfront that any ground expenses or other expenses for transport to the originally booked destination should be clsimable from BA.

        So if rerouting via Ljubkana, say, was acceptable to me, I’d be very clear to BA thst I’m prepared to consider this as part ofvthe full reroute to Pula that I am owed and that additionsl costs to and from my originally booked destination will be claimed from BA.

        If my journey to and/or from is significantly longer crossing mealtime(s) unaboidably then I’d expect extra food costs that wouldn’t have incurred 9n the originally booked routing to Pula to be claimed from BA too.

        Remember BA has made a commercial decision to cancel the flight on which you hsd a ticket. And your rights to the above stem from 261 legislation that overridea BA’s own preferred policies.

        • Nick says:

          24 Dec24 December 23:09

          There is no right to onward train travel. EU261 is for ‘comparable’ travel conditions… which means a flight. Hence if you want to fly to Pula they will find a way to get you there. But if you ask for (note, not ‘are offered’, but ‘ask for’) then they can and will decline to pay for onward travel.

    • Mutley says:

      24 Dec24 December 17:19

      There is a train from Ljubljana to Pula, its about 4 hours from memory if that helps. try interrailing sites or man in seat 61 for proper advice!

      • ThomasB says:

        24 Dec24 December 17:43

        Thank you both for the helpful information.

      • Throwawayname says:

        26 Dec26 December 20:06

        If 261 doesn’t cover something, there’s always s.49 of the consumer rights act. If I suffer a loss due to a supplier failing to deliver a service with reasonable care and skill (such as by ensuring that their flight schedules aren’t pie-in-the-sky), I expect to be reimbursed for it.

• VinZ says:

  24 Dec24 December 12:11

  Am I affected if I haven’t got an email yet? I have a LGW-JMK for this summer but nothing yet…?

  • Richie says:

    24 Dec24 December 13:00

    Have a look at your booking in Manage My Booking MMB through ba.com and see if the re-routing proposal is there already.

• Terry says:

  24 Dec24 December 12:35

  I know Amsterdam has been cut, which was always a popular route from Gatwick, whereas the Jersey planes were often lightly loaded. That being the case, it’s surprising to see on some days in the summer two flights within two hours from Gatwick to the channel island🙉

  • Peter K says:

    24 Dec24 December 13:23

    It’s not about how many people are on the plane, it’s about how much money BA makes from it.
    Airport costs, staff time taken up, ticket prices etc all add into that formula, not just how many passengers.

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