Route news: BA drops three European destinations, Turkish Airlines adds Stansted

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• Lumma says:

  2 Jul2 July 04:35

  Sabiha Gökçen isn’t the old Istanbul airport. It’s the second airport on the Asian side of the city

  • TimM says:

    2 Jul2 July 05:11

    Agreed. The old IST has for all intents and purposes now closed and the new IST airport, planned to be the largest in the World, has taken over its code. Sabiha Gokcen was always the ‘low cost’ airport on the ‘wrong side’ of the Bosphorus – both airports are now around an hour from central Istanbul. The old IST was just 20 minutes away.

  • TimM says:

    2 Jul2 July 05:20

    This runs in to the earlier ‘hub-spoke’ discussion. Why place a hub airport anywhere when its location is irrelevant?

    I would change at Istanbul for Antalya or Gazipasa. Having to change at London Heathrow and Istanbul for what is regarded as a short-haul destination, when it takes twice as long that to fly from Manchester to New York but in cramped conditions, is a call too far for the hub-spoke legacy operators.

    • Rhys says:

      2 Jul2 July 08:26

      …but there are plenty of hubs you WOULD fly through, when going from Manchester to New York. London, Paris, Amsterdam might be options, or even hubs at the other end say, DC or Boston etc. Thousands of people connect through hubs every day rather than fly direct because it’s cheaper.

  • chris w says:

    2 Jul2 July 08:06

    Ataturk is the old Istanbul airport not Sabiha Gökçen

• Phillip says:

  2 Jul2 July 05:45

  Anyone taking on TK’s own Millionnaire challenge?

  • Nico says:

    2 Jul2 July 05:52

    Thinking about it, you?

    • Phillip says:

      2 Jul2 July 08:45

      Definitely thinking about it but I have to admit, nowhere near as exciting as the SAS one, from the point of view of trying different products and different airlines.

      • Nico says:

        2 Jul2 July 09:45

        Lot of flying required with Australia and SA, but planing much easier

    • Phillip says:

      2 Jul2 July 10:06

      Definitely thinking about it but I have to admit, nowhere near as exciting as the SAS one, from the point of view of trying different products and different airlines. The expiry rules for the miles also leave me a little cold, and a slight distrust that TK could pull it ahead of the current deadline not helping either.

      • Nico says:

        2 Jul2 July 10:10

        Seems to be a lot of distrust on FT. Feels like miles can be converted to shopping vouchers worst case. guess it is one for late August/September given summer flight prices, so can monitor for a bit.

  • Throwawayname says:

    2 Jul2 July 11:19

    The beauty of the SAS challenge was twofold in trying multiple airlines and hubs as well as being able to optimise the flight plan in line with one’s priorities (e.g. I wanted to minimise time in long-haul Y and in the PRC, others have been able to build different itineraries based on their own preferences). Travelling for 19 hours or whatever in Y on the kangaroo route and then needing to find a way back to civili…I mean Europe, isn’t my idea of fun!

  • vosizneiz says:

    2 Jul2 July 12:44

    I wonder why Rob has decided not to cover it? (yet)

    • Rob says:

      2 Jul2 July 13:00

      Time. Rhys has been out in Copenhagen with SAS, I’ve been out in Amsterdam with Oman Air. We’ll get there!

      • vosizneiz says:

        2 Jul2 July 13:37

        👍

      • Nico says:

        2 Jul2 July 14:54

        Will get popular then!

  • Michael Jennings says:

    2 Jul2 July 13:46

    Has Barry been signed up?

    • Nico says:

      2 Jul2 July 14:54

      Looks like you dont even need to sign up

    • BSI1978 says:

      2 Jul2 July 16:21

      I hesitate to write for him, but I’d be staggered if he were to get sign off even if interested!

• TheFink says:

  2 Jul2 July 05:46

  I think you ought to quickly add Stansted to your list of 6 UK airports (only 5 in the list) before people assume you’re trying to say Dublin is part of the UK…

• Ivan says:

  2 Jul2 July 06:48

  Grenoble is still on sale from Gatwick.

• CamFlyer says:

  2 Jul2 July 07:06

  I will welcome TK mainline to IST from STN. I expect they have watched Emirates do very well eastbound from STN. The connections via IST opens up numerous optiona not served by AJet, particularly long haul; AJet tended to compete head to head with Pegasus.

• Matt says:

  2 Jul2 July 07:37

  On BA – Has anyone else noticed or had the experience that BA avios bookings have been broken for several days – you go through the process it even creates a flight number confirm number for you in your bookings, but you never get the email and the flight never exists

  • Rob says:

    2 Jul2 July 08:19

    BA is switching to an entirely new pricing system – the old ‘pricing based on which country’s ticketing system tickets you’ system is going. They tried to roll it out overnight last week and it failed. They are trying again today.

    This does mean, however, that – for example – the days of booking Club Europe flights via certain Australian OTAs for a fraction of the UK price should end (albeit these OTAs were in theory but not in practice banned from selling to non-Australian residents).

    • tony says:

      2 Jul2 July 10:09

      Ah is that how I would randomly see an OTA selling LCY-EDI for £100 vs BA at £150?

      Apply price match and job’s a good ‘un…. Oh well, was fun while it lasted.

    • KS says:

      2 Jul2 July 12:26

      If the new pricing system has impacted Avios bookings, do we expect it to have some longer term impact on redemption ‘pricing’?

      • John Gallagher says:

        2 Jul2 July 15:08

        It also looks like it has affected cash tickets for today and tomorrow. The lowest fare bucket(s) seem to have disappeared from domestic routes to London (not checked other routes)

    • Pat says:

      2 Jul2 July 17:19

      You can still ticket in the PCC you wish, but availability will match the POC.
      Therefore it’s no issue to ticket on the US market for a domestic trip, it just will have the same availability as the POC.
      The “trick” allowed you to use another PCC’s availability to obtain fares from a POC where they didn’t have availability in a particular RBD.
      Lufthansa changed this maybe a decade ago.

  • Rich says:

    2 Jul2 July 08:44

    There’s a reference to this at the top of the BA app.

• Mrs Trellis says:

  2 Jul2 July 07:50

  Turkish Airlines fly to the most countries in the world, but not the most cities.

  • Rob says:

    2 Jul2 July 08:20

    Noted!

• ClubSmed says:

  2 Jul2 July 08:37

  Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen isn’t in Europe, so technically not really a European destination, even if half the city it serves is in Europe

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