October start date for BA’s London City – New York flights
28.05.09
British Airways has pushed back the launch its all business class London City - New York JFK service until October ,but expects to begin ticket sales for the new route by the end of next month, Flightglobal reports. The flights had been expected to take off in September, but BA's executive VP for the Americas, Simon Talling-Smith, told Flightglobal that BA is now aiming to launch the service in October and begin ticket sales by the end of June.
At an analyst and media lunch in New York Mr Talling-Smith said: ‘We have to confirm the aircraft delivery dates,’ adding that BA aims to ‘announce a launch date within a month and at the same time begin ticket sales. We have to be absolutely sure of the delivery date and absolutely sure we have all the operational things [in place prior to the launch]. We've never done Shannon pre-clearance. We've never flown a small Airbus across the atlantic. We've never landed at domestic arrivals at Kennedy.’
The new London City-JFK service is designed to give BA's premium passengers another option in addition to its Heathrow-JFK and Gatwick-JFK services. London City, which is located in east London near Canary Wharf, is much closer to the heart of London's financial district and easier to use than Heathrow. It is already the airport of choice for business passengers from the financial sector heading between London and financial centres on the European continent. BA currently caters to this market through its CityFlyer regional unit but the new JFK service will be operated by BA mainline.
BA chief executive Willie Walsh told analysts at the lunch that the new London City-JFK link would offer BA the opportunity to adjust some of its capacity between Heathrow and JFK. He said: ‘What we do have is an opportunity to replace some capacity out of Heathrow with London City capacity.'
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