British Airways banking on City to Wall Street flight of fancy

Ready for launch: British Airways unveilled its new business-only flight from London City to New York
12 April 2012

British Airways today launched a new business-only flight from London City to New York as it tries to fight back from its worst ever financial crisis.

The airline, which announced record annual losses of £401 million last month, is to charge up to £5,000 return for a seat on the twice daily flights from London City Airport to JFK.

Billed as a "City-to-Wall Street" flight, the carrier is promising executives the most convenient connection between the two financial centres.

The cash-strapped airline has purchased two small A318 planes — that will carry just 32 high-paying passengers.

The moves comes as Virgin Atlantic celebrates the 25th anniversary of its first London-to-New York flight as a long-running bitter war of words between its president Sir Richard Branson and BA's chief executive Willie Walsh continued.

Sir Richard this weekend branded BA as practically worthless, amid reports that the Government could bail out the carrier. But today's announcement will be seen as an aggressive move by BA to win back first-class flyers.

London to New York has always been seen as the most lucrative business-class route in commercial aviation, but BA has lost ground to competitors including Virgin Atlantic and Delta.

Mr Walsh said today: "In the harshest trading environment airlines have experienced, we believe it is more important than ever to embrace the future and innovate. That is what this historic new route is all about. There is real enthusiasm from our customers for this project. This is BA at its best — stylish, British and ahead of the game.

"Every aspect of this service has been designed to maximise convenience for customers to fly between the world's two biggest business centres — Wall Street and London's extended financial district in the City and Docklands."

BA has axed more than 2,500 jobs since last summer, frozen pay and offered unpaid leave, to cut costs.

The service will begin in September — shortly before BA ends its Gatwick to New York service. The move will end 25 years of flights between Gatwick and New York.

Tickets for the new twice-daily flights go on sale tomorrow — starting at about £2,000 for a non-refundable, non-transferable return flight on a Friday and going up to £4,900 for a more flexible, weekday return. But after suffering a major slump in passengers as firms slashed their travel budgets, BA has been reduced to offering two tickets for the price of one to passengers flying out of Terminal 5.

High-paying premium flyers have declined sharply across the industry.

But BA hopes that the convenience of getting to City Airport in Docklands will lure wealthy customers from Canary Wharf and the Square Mile.

The east London airport also openly touts itself as a "stress-free" alternative to Heathrow, where flyers regularly complain of long queues and lost baggage. Should the service be a success it will be viewed as a much-needed "green shoot" for the industry.

The small Airbus A318s are the largest aircraft that can be flown from City. All 32 seats on the plane convert to fully flat beds. Passengers will also be able to log on to a full internet service.

As the planes are so small, there will be a refuelling stop at Shannon in Ireland — where passengers will be able to clear US immigration.

BA bosses hope that a 15-minute check-in at City Airport and not having to queue for immigration at New York's JFK will cancel out the 45-minute refuelling stop, making it as quick as other transatlantic flights.

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