British Airways Orders A318s for London City-NYC Route

[Matt Molnar]

AFP:

BA orders two Airbus 318s for London City-New York route

6 hours ago

PARIS (AFP) — British Airways has placed firm orders for two Airbus A318s to launch the London City airport to New York route, the aircraft maker said on Tuesday. [Full Article]

[JetBlueAirwaysFan]

Still wondering which NYC airport LCY will be connected to...EWR or JFK?

[Iberia A340-600]

Flights will be to JFK. The route will be LCY-SNN-JFK-LCY and apparently immigration will be done in SNN.

[JetBlueAirwaysFan]

Has that been confirmed by BA?

[Iberia A340-600]

Has that been confirmed by BA?

Well it certainly seems like it:

British Airways is to launch double daily business class-only flights from London City airport to New York next year.

The new flights will operate on Airbus A318 aircraft with 32 seats onboard.

Willie Walsh, British Airways' chief executive, said: "This niche service will fly passengers between the heart of the two largest financial centres in the world. London City airport is located minutes away from some of our key corporate customers and is in one of the fastest growing areas of the capital.

"We will offer a 15 minute check-in for customers in both London and New York. London City's size means that it is a quick and easy airport to use and, with a maximum of 32 passengers onboard, getting on and off the aircraft will be a smooth process. Once onboard, customers will experience all the benefits of our business class cabin including a fully flat bed.

"The London - New York route is a key market for us and these flights will be in addition to our current Heathrow schedule from where we fly eight times a day to JFK and three times a day to Newark. As well as the business market, we are confident that there will also be a demand from premium leisure customers for this service.

"The A318 is the perfect aircraft for these flights. It is capable of operating at London City and is large enough for us to provide the number of business class seats required to make this a viable operation."

The airline has ordered two A318 aircraft to operate these flights. They will be the first A318s in the British Airways fleet though the airline already operates 69 Airbus A320 family shorthaul aircraft.
ends
February 1, 2008 12/LG/08

NOTES TO EDITORS
British Airways' subsidiary airline BA CityFlyer operates flights from London City airport to domestic and European destinations. The New York flights will be operated by British Airways' mainline operation.

[SoPictureThis]

Really...Stopping in SNN. Hmm...methinks this service is on the direct path for UTTER FAILURE. The people taking these flights surely will not be pleased to learn that they will have to stop in Ireland, regardless of how long such a stop may be for. I feel it'd probably be easier to hop of one of the dozen daily flights to the NY area from LHR and experience the same quality of cabin service, as opposed to this stopover crap.

You just watch...

- jMay

[Iberia A340-600]

The stopover would include immigration so you would not have to go through it at JFK.

[Matt Molnar]

Yes, quite dumb, I think. Their target market is the finance folks near LCY and on Wall St...people who can afford to take a chopper or a limo to any of the airports offering direct flights. Worse, this isn't like OpenSkies where they're just reassigning existing planes...they're spending over $100 million on new metal to get this thing going. BA is still profitable, but between this and the similarly ridiculous OpenSkies concept, and the T5 debacle, I don't know how much longer they will be.