Route options – why does BA only fly from the UK?

[VinZ]

Hi all

Sorry not sure how to describe the subject of this email, but here’s the question – I’m quite curious about it.

How come that BA for example can only fly between the UK and other destinations whereas Ryanair flies not only to/from Ireland but also random routes? Are they based everywhere in Europe? I thought a carrier could only fly between their “home” and other destinations. That’s why you don’t have BA flights between Marrakech and Vilnius for example. Or Air France flights that don’t depart/arrive from/in France.

Thanks for your help in clarifying.

[gtellez]

Not 100% sure, but I think EU carriers are allowed to operate from any EU country. Ryanair is not the only one to fly routes from two different countries. E.g., Wizzair flies many routes not departing/arriving Hungary, Vueling has also some routes from the UK to other EU countries other than Spain, also Level (the other low cost part of IAG) flies from France to the Caribbean, probably few more examples.

[Rob]

BA only really does short haul to feed long haul.

Long haul tends to be driven by national treaties – it couldn’t fly from Paris to Tokyo even if it wanted to. There’s a lot of ‘we’ll give you 2 landing slots per day if you give us 2 landing slots per day’ sort of behaviour.

The key example of this is Emirates and its attempts to get open skies in Germany, where historically the Government has only let it fly from 3 German airports to Dubai for no logical reason other than protectionism, even though it actually stuffs German passengers.

[Matt]

Airlines have been (and often still are) seen as national institutions, sources of national pride etc. Many are government owned or supported. A lot of countries have rules only allowing that countries airlines to operate, even though as Rob says that imposes significant cost penalties on the countries population. The German government values Lufthansa over the German population for example.

There are “freedoms” enshrined in treaties allowing air travel between countries: https://www.icao.int/pages/freedomsair.aspx. BA uses that 5th freedom to run a few flights that don’t involve the UK – SIN-SYD, and a few in the Caribbean.

[dougzz99]

@Matt Perhaps German governments, and the German population value the people that work at LH and the jobs in and around that over further erosion of their own state by dubious foreign Kleptocracies.

[dougzz99]

Rob Burgess wrote:

The key example of this is Emirates and its attempts to get open skies in Germany, where historically the Government has only let it fly from 3 German airports to Dubai for no logical reason other than protectionism, even though it actually stuffs German passengers.

But does it ‘stuff’ German passengers? Because the flip-side is those people are also German taxpayers who benefit from that protectionism as you call it. Give me the German model over the ‘sell off the family silver’ short term mentality of British governments any day.

[NorthernLass]

@dougzz99, well the last Labour government literally sold the gold, lol.

EZ also fly between European cities, IIRC. And notably, Iberia run a lot of domestic routes as several readers who got 90k avios a few years back can testify!

[ExpatInBerlin]

I flew Geneva to Berlin with EZ in January for a fraction of the cost of the same route with Lufthansa! 206 CHF total for 2 x pax, 2 x 23kg hold bags and 1 x ski bag.

[JDB]

Having worked on many German privatisations, I think you will find that their government has also sold the family silver! Only difference is that the government ended up bailing out LH during covid for free, whereas UK government baulked at bailing out airlines or airports.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

NorthernLass wrote:

well the last Labour government literally sold the gold, lol.

Which other governments have done as well.

They sold some not all the gold holdings and bought euros and dollars to diversify the UKs currency holdings to reduce the reliance on gold and used some of the proceeds to pay down part of the national debt,

[SamG]

Air France did actually fly London to Los Angeles for a while, wasn’t successful even with the Delta code on it. + it adds complexity/cost as they didn’t have a base in London. Aer Lingus tried Gatwick short haul and couldn’t make it work (although Manchester long haul seems to be having more success). Lufthansa tried Italy and failed. Generally it seems difficult to get a brand from one European country to work in another one at a rate of return that makes it worthwhile.

Ryanair and Easyjet opens bases across Europe which keeps things more simple from a crewing point of view at least. Since Brexit it’s got more complicated for them and Easyjet as their ex-UK bases need to fly on G- reg aircraft which can’t operate on intra EU routes.

[Richie]

@SamG I think some of the AF planes may have continued from LAX to Tahiti.

[Matt]

dougzz99 wrote:

@Matt Perhaps German governments, and the German population value the people that work at LH and the jobs in and around that over further erosion of their own state by dubious foreign Kleptocracies.

The costs to the whole population of more expensive airfares, fewer routes/frequencies and worse service will be vastly greater than any benefit to the government/country/population from having an excessively profitable airline. But the owners of the airline can make a lot of noise and pay a lot of money, whereas no-one ever counts up the costs.

I’m not sure how having more choice of flight counts as an “erosion of the state”, but that’s why we’re all poorer than we need to be.

[VinZ]

Gosh I didn’t want to open a political can of worms – lol! Just wanted to understand a little more.

So bottom line is if a company such as Ryanair or EasyJet have bases across Europe they can fly routes that don’t involve Ireland or the UK? I see.

There may also be a perception of low cost airlines not seen as “national” carriers, that’s why (perhaps?) passengers are more inclined to use them for their national routes too? So for example, they’ll fly Naples to Palermo with EZ rather than using ITA – not even sure ITA does fly routes which are not Rome/Milan based anyway.

[dougzz99]

Matt wrote:

dougzz99 wrote:

@Matt Perhaps German governments, and the German population value the people that work at LH and the jobs in and around that over further erosion of their own state by dubious foreign Kleptocracies.

The costs to the whole population of more expensive airfares, fewer routes/frequencies and worse service will be vastly greater than any benefit to the government/country/population from having an excessively profitable airline. But the owners of the airline can make a lot of noise and pay a lot of money, whereas no-one ever counts up the costs.

I’m not sure how having more choice of flight counts as an “erosion of the state”, but that’s why we’re all poorer than we need to be.

Whole population, no, what you mean is some of those that fly. The most recent evidence I could find suggested that 65% of German’s don’t fly. Now of the remaining 35% how many would want to see Lufthansa seeking even more cash from the Government when ME2 and a bit attempt to subsidise them into submission. It’s not more choice, it’s more choice in the short term whilst deep pockets kill the opposition and create new monopolies.

It’s erosion of the state when public utilities and industries required to function as a modern economy are flogged off by any means to short term gain. As it happens I’m not convinced nationalised infrastructure works that well either, it can stifle investment, but what absolutely doesn’t work is selling this stuff off and then liberalising the markets such that you get ownership driven entirely by greed, leading to rubbish service and poor services to the public. Which of us is benefiting from the water companies continually dumping untreated sewage?

More choice now doesn’t equate to consumer benefit. How many poorly run get rich quick utilities have subsequently been bailed out by the rest of us. Yes everyone is happy when they don’t lose the huge credit balance they built using Amex, but then the rest of us come along and have to to repay that on their behalf. That’s erosion of the state as I see it.

[Lady London]

@Dougzz99 I’m sitting here cheering your comments on this thread.

Just as a business shouldn’t sell off, rent out or outsource anything that is their core competence/USP, so should governments not sell off things to third parties that the nation needs to live such as water, electricity, gas, core transport facilities. Nor, sadly, military or defence capability.

Yet businesses, eg by outsourcing to China things which gave access to core intellectual property that was then effectively stolen, and the UK government have been killing themselves this way, for the past 40 years or so.

And as you’ve pointed out @Dougzz99, the cherry on the cake was then allowing those core assets to fall into the hands of interest groups that are not aligned with the UK and not incentivised to deliver quality fairly. Many of these interest groups to whom these assets have now been transferred, but not all of them, are foreign based. So not only have businesses and the UK government lost those assets, they are being turned to extract ongoing massive rents from the productive economy (as differentiated from the finance industry), and the UK population.

Some will probably be along soon to excuse this by saying how grateful those who have decent pensions should be, to receive dividends from the new owners of these assets. But that’s not really the point, is it? If it’s a core competence for a business to earn or for a nation to feed itself, earn or defend itself, it should be kept out of others’ hands.

Airlines are defended by governments partly out of national pride (or despotic ego), but also because they rely on technologies and history closely associated with defence.

[Matt]

@Dougzz99 I’m not sure what you mean exactly by “Now of the remaining 35% how many would want to see Lufthansa seeking even more cash from the Government when ME2 and a bit attempt to subsidise them into submission”, but my point is that Lufthansa shouldn’t be given cash or monopolies by the government. If crazy foreign governments want to subsidise products and services for our population then the answer should be “yes please” – it’s foreign governments sending us money for free. The precaution to take is to keep the barriers to entry as low as possible, so that if someone tries to exploit a dominant position by raising prices they don’t last very long with a monopoly. In any case, it seems unlikely that Turkish, Qatar, Emirates, Etihad etc etc would manage to get to a position where they were not in competition, so the German government’s actions function purely to enrich Lufthansa at the expense of the German population.

Greed works very well as a motivation (in the absence of a monopoly), because you have to provide what people want at the price they want to pay it to make any money at all. Government doesn’t work as well, because the customer is not the driver of the service, politics is (or politicians).
Water companies may be dumping untreated sewage, but were they dumping less before privatisation? Are the Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish water boards dumping less under their different ownership structures? (I’m guessing no and no are the answers to those)

@Lady London Organisations are incentivised to deliver quality fairly by making them compete for customers to stay in existence. And businesses and the UK government haven’t lost the assets, they’ve sold them for the market rate. It makes no more sense to say they’re lost than to say the buyers have lost £billions when buying them.

Airlines are subsidised/nationalised/etc for national pride/ego reasons I agree, but I don’t think defence-adjacency is even used as a figleaf when bailing an airline out. That said, defence is one of the things governments should do and should have a monopoly on. I would still say that for equipment procurement it would be better to buy from allies than to insist on building it yourself at vastly inflated expense – we do not benefit from BAe having a near monopoly.