London Heathrow (LHR) airport is overrated

...if your journey starts or ends in Central London.

Sure, airlines have good reasons to want to fly into Heathrow, most certainly British Airways and the rest of Oneworld airlines, as it is an important hub for them (in 2007 47% of BA's traffic at London Heathrow was connecting).

Connecting traffic at Heathrow is also important for non-Oneworld airlines. CAA data for 2007 shows how of all airlines carrying over half a million passengers at Heathrow, connecting traffic was over 15% of their passage in all cases except in three (Swiss, Air France, and KLM, with Alitalia just above this mark). As expected, since they did not have a local partner, connecting traffic at Heathrow was relatively less important for Skyteam carriers).

I am not sure these numbers would still be valid for Star Alliance's carriers though, I guess that after BMI's demise and absorption by British Airways its share of connecting passengers will fall to Skyteam's levels.

Connecting traffic involving non-aligned carriers was 3.5M, however, 1.4M involved a Oneworld transfer, another million involved Star (most likely BMI, that is now gone) and transfer traffic between non-aligned carriers at LHR was less than one million passengers in total. These might still sound like big figures, but they are the aggregate of several tens of non-aligned airlines flying to LHR on that year and I suspect the Gulf carriers Emirates, Etihad, Gulf Air and Qatar Airways are responsible for a significant part of this traffic.

So, even if you are not in Oneworld, you can still benefit quite a lot from flying to an airport with lots of connections (I must say the connecting traffic figures for non-Oneworld carriers are higher than I was expecting...)

But is this extra traffic enough to justify the London Heathrow premium? I don't have enough information to be able to answer this question...but if you rely mainly in origin and destination traffic, and that means basically, people that start their journey in central London, I wonder why London Gatwick does not emerge as a more serious competitor to London Heathrow.

Will Gatwick airport finally get the credit its deserves?

I have been using London Gatwick a lot this year, traveling in and out of several locations in central London and I struggle to find the reasons why LHR would be a better option for a passenger that has London as the start or end point of his journey and that is not flying with a Oneworld carrier.

LGW might be slightly further away from London than LHR, but the difference is not huge (although maybe just far enough to discourage those that get to the airport by taxi?). LHR has the tube and the (in my opinion) overpriced Heathrow Express, but LGW has several fast mainline train options, with frequencies of no more than 15 minutes, that can take you to several points in central London (Victoria, Charing Cross, St.Pancras International, London Bridge) in about half an hour. It might be slightly more expensive than the tube and 10 minutes longer than the Heathrow Express but I think it beats both  hands down in terms of value.

My guess is that more and more people will warm up to the charms of Gatwick airport as pricing becomes more of a tool for rationing airport capacity in the South-East of England, at least until it solves its chronic shortage of airport capacity and a final decision is taken about the future of Heathrow (to check the different options, check this piece that was recently published on Flightglobal).

UPDATE on my Georgian air travel market post: British Airways sees the potential too

Updates on stories I have written recentlykeep coming today....!

On my post of 30th June, I noted I wrote how the Republic of Georgia is seeing a notable increase in tourist numbers and airlines are taking note.

British Airways somehow seem to agree with this positive outlook, since one of the decisions it has taken regarding BMIs old network has been to upgrade the London Heathrow-Tbilisi link to nonstop daily, operated by an A321.

Certainly good news for the Georgian tourism industry and those that fly this route regularly, not so good for Turkish Airlines: it's daily service via Istanbul was one of the most competitive offerings on this route, less so from the moment British Airways starts to fly direct.

First impressions about the Georgian airline industry

Where to start? The first impression upon landing in Tbilisi was really positive, Tbilisi airport is brand new. I liked it. It is spacious, yet,  it has about the right size for the traffic it handles (you won't get lost here!). There are also lots of natural light, all is very clean. Customs and immigration are swift and efficient.

It looks like Georgia has been making a big effort in marketing itself as a tourist-friendly country (for example no visas are required, most signs and indications are in English in addition to being in Georgian, there is free public wi-fi in the most central areas of the capital...) and the efforts are starting to pay-off. Foreign tourist arrivals are increasing in Georgia and so is the number of airlines that have started flying to the Caucasian country or are planning to do so, such as Aegean Airlines, Qatar Airways (via Baku), FlyDubai or Alitalia. In the meantime, Turkish Airlines seem to have the upper hand when it comes to connecting the country with the rest of the world (Tbilisi airport is also run by a Turkish company, TAV, that manages also Istanbul's impressive Ataturk airport).

One curious fact is that, contrarily to what happens at most European airports, it seems that most activity happens during the early hours of the morning, between midnight and 4am. This is the time when several scheduled flights arrive: Turkish Airlines from Istanbul, BMI (soon to be replaced by BA) from London (via Baku), Aerosvit from Kiev, Lufthansa, from Munich...

These schedules make sense when you take into account Tbilisi's geographical position, most of these airlines can extract an extra rotation from the aircraft by flying it to Tbilisi at night, gathering feeding passengers throughout the afternoon at their more westerly hubs and then feeding their westward-routes early in the morning with the return flight.

 One of Airzena's Boeing 737s

When it comes to local airlines, Airzena is Georgia's national airline and, although its network and schedules are currently somewhat limited, the flag carrier currently has several Boeing 737-NGs and 787s on order. It looks like Airzena is betting on the steady growth of the Georgian tourism industry, the Dreamliners order might be an indication that it is also looking to start flying long-haul (possibly to the US?)

Another Georgia-based airline is Sky Georgia, although currently focused on cargo only and with no scheduled passenger flights, according to Wikipedia, you can still this dilapidated DC-9 next to Tbilisi airport's runway...

Two new airlines are starting soon FlyGeorgia and Air Caucasus, and low cost airline Wizz Air is also starting flights to second-largest city Kutaisi. In short, a market that is really taking-off!

And, once you are in Georgia, if you wish to visit the country from a privileged angle and have some spare cash, you can buy this Mil Mi-8 VIP helicopter, apparently on sale on Alibaba.com!

Bye, bye BMI...

I have not flown BMI very often, but I must say every time I did, on its routes from LHR to Moscow and Norway, I had a really great on-board experience. I also liked the look of its aircraft, in their colourful liveries, and was nice to have one more alternative to fly from London...but, unfortunately, a good product is not always synonymous with profitability.

BMI and its employees, however, will avoid the fate of the likes of Spanair and Malev as the airline has been acquired by British Airways, not the worst possible outcome...in any case, it is time to say:

Bye, bye BMI, you will be missed!

What is going to happen to BMI Diamond Club miles after BA's acquisition?

As most of you might already be aware of, British airline BMI was sold by Lufthansa to its Oneworld competitor IAG (aka British Airways). Once the news was confirmed, one thought came to my mind: what happens with BMI's Diamond Club frequent flier miles?

As both airlines operated out of the UK, many frequent travelers were members of both British Airways' executive club and BMI's Diamond Club.

The truth is that BMI has moved fast to inform its Diamond Club members and in the last few days has sent a couple of messages providing updates...it looks like BMI Diamond Club cardholders are actually going to get a good deal and, whereas they will have only until the 31st of May to use their miles within  the Star Alliance group, the Diamond Club programme itself will continue to work as usual.

This is possibly the reason that BMI is still accepting applications for its Diamond Club programme while I am writing these lines:

I ignore if this "business as usual" will last for long, as Diamond Club members  are being invited to join British Airways' Executive Club programme. They will also be able to exchange miles into IAG's Avios at a rate of 1:1.

This is literally, an excerpt of BMI's Diamond Club notification email:

"As part of the transition of bmi into British Airways, from 1 May 2012 British Airways is inviting you, as a Diamond Club member, to also join the Executive Club at your equivalent tier status level. Diamond Club Gold customers will be invited to become Gold members of the Executive Club and Silver members to become Silver, which will be in addition to your Diamond Club membership. Further details will follow shortly."

Whereas it's not stated explicitly, I guess IAG's plan is to progressively transition all Diamond Club members to Executive Club. In any case, I think Diamond Club's members are getting quite a good deal and many of those that were on both programmes will be able to consolidate and advance their status within the programme really fast.

MEA: the resilient airline

A MEA A320 at Beirut airport

How resilient can an airline be in the face of adversity? Well, someone at Middle East Airlines (MEA), Lebanon's flag carrier, could possibly answer this question. The MEA of today is a modern airline serving a resurgent travel market (Beirut is one of the main tourist destinations in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean region) however during it's more than sixty years of existence MEA has had to fly through extreme turbulence...

The recent halt in traffic as a result of the volcanic ash cloud has put some European airlines in a difficult situation...but try keeping an airline operating with its main base intermitently closed for over 15 years! This is what happened during Lebanon's long civil war (1975-1990), when MEA survived by leasing aircraft and seconding staff to international companies. Once the war was over it quickly rebuilt itself, however the political situation has remained extremely unstable in that region and this has repeatedly affected its capacity to operate. As recently as 2006, war forced again MEA to move its operations abroad, this time to Damascus and Amman, until the situation was normalized.

Despite all these problems MEA has kept its expansions plans and building a young all-Airbus fleet: 4 Airbus A320, 6 Airbus A321 and 4 Airbus A330, serving destinations in Europe, the Middle East and West Africa, where there is an important Lebanese community.

One of the things that have caught my attention is that MEA operates its aircraft with a very low-density seating layout compared to European airlines and well below the capacity of these aircraft types. For example, its A320 has 24 seats in business class and 102 and only in economy, 126 in total (as a reference, BA's A320s have between 149 and 156 seats), the A321 features 31 business seats and 118 in economy, 149 in total! (to make the comparison, BMI, that competes with MEA on the London (LHR)-Beirut route has a 183-seat layout, 40 seats more than MEA) I have never flown MEA, but I guess that passengers enjoy quite a lot of space on-board!

A MEA A321 with the Lebanese mountains in the background