Two of Britain’s biggest airports recorded the highest passenger numbers ever in 2014, alongside many other UK airports who have recorded an increase in passengers since 2013.
The carrier currently operates two flights per week to the UK capital from Hanoi and two from Ho Chi Minh City. These will move across to Heathrow from March 30, 2015 and a third weekly rotation on the Hanoi route introduced from July 4, 2015. These will initially be flown by a Boeing 777-200ER but will be switched to Vietnam Airlines’ new Boeing 787 Dreamliner from July 1, 2015.
The news came after the low-cost carrier’s chief executive, Tony Fernandes, revealed the intent to resume the popular route via the social networking site, Twitter.
The new services to Heathrow Airport will bring the number of daily rotations on this route to up to five and will end the monopoly currently held by the oneworld alliance.
It is just over two years since the first 787 flights were launched to the UK capital and at periods this year more than 740 flights a month, around 24 departures a day have been recorded using the Dreamliner.
This will be the only link between London Heathrow and Krakow, which will be the host city of Routes Europe in 2016. Alongside the point-to-point demand it will also facilitate transfer traffic to and from the wider network of British Airways and its oneworld partners from and to the UK capital.
Every Friday Routesonline will have a look back at an alternative story of the past week. Humourous, interesting, enlightening or simply just a bit different, this addition to our coverage will enable us to feature more from the world of aviation and have a little bit of fun on a friday.
Here is the first of our regular series of industry trivia questions where we ask readers to vote on a particular subject during the month before revealing the actual results at the end of the month.
The introduction of the A380 on the London – Miami route, which is operated under the auspices of the carrier’s Atlantic Joint Business with American Airlines, US Airways, Iberia and Finnair, will see BA’s available capacity on the route rise by around 39.2 per cent.
Analysis of Heathrow’s winter schedule using data for the first week of February in 2014 and 2015 also found that of the four largest European countries by hub airport size (France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK), only Heathrow has been unable to increase the number of airlines operating from it this winter. By contrast, Paris has seen ten new airlines, Amsterdam seven, and Frankfurt five, with Paris now hosting over a hundred airlines compared to Heathrow’s 81.
At Routesonline we’ve decided to take a look back at a breaking article from the same time last year and revisit it 12 months later to see what’s happened since we released the news.
The two new seasonal flights between New York and Birmingham and Edinburgh will be launched from May 7, 2015 and will be operated using a 182-seat Boeing 757-200 configured with 22 Business Class and 160 Economy seats. Both flights will operate under a codeshare arrangement with British Airways through their joint transatlantic business.
First reported by our schedules blog, Airline Route, the initial plan for summer 2015 and winter 2015/2016 suggests BA switching the operational aircraft on three routes. Its daily London Heathrow – Seoul Incheon route and six times weekly London Heathrow – Montreal link will be switched from 777-200ERs to the 787-8, while the daily London Heathrow – Austin service will see a 787-8 replaced by a 777-200ER.
Virgin Atlantic will end the Little Red flights, operated on its behalf by Aer Lingus, during summer 2015. The London Heathrow – Manchester route will close at the end of March 2015 and the links from the UK capital to Aberdeen and Edinburgh at the end of September 2015.
Initially, British Airways will operate A380 service five times a week at Washington. The service will increase to daily by the end of October. It will supplement the daily 747 flights and the three weekly 777 flights out of the airport.
The first European operator of the new Boeing 787-9, Virgin Atlantic will deploy its aircraft on routes from London Heathrow to Boston from October 28, 2014; Washington from December 17, 2014, Newark from January 19, 2015 and New York from February 28, 2015.
BA will utilise a four-class Boeing 777-200ER on the route configured with 12 seats in First, 48 in Club World, 32 in World Traveller Plus and a further 127 in World Traveller. Its return to the city pair will boost capacity on the route by 22.2 per cent with weekly seats increasing to 8,449 in each direction.
After the announcement earlier this year, Qatar Airways have finally welcomed the first of its ten Airbus A380 Aircraft on order, at a ceremony in Hamburg earlier today.
The 469-seat A380 will substitute a smaller Boeing 747-400 on the five London – San Francisco services boosting weekly capacity by just under 20 per cent. All nine other weekly rotations will continue to be served using the smaller Jumbos which are configured in either 299- or 337-seat arrangements.
Air China will introduce a second daily rotation on its route between Beijing and London Heathrow from October 26, 2014, while China Eastern will boost its existing Shanghai route to the UK's largest international air gateway from October 29, 2014 with a sixth weekly flight.
