British Airways has suspended ticket sales for its seasonal summer flights between London Heathrow and Pristina and has made modifications to some of its operations in Croatia and Slovenia for the summer of 2023. Following two consecutive years of seasonal flights between Heathrow and Pristina, the airline has discontinued ticket sales on the route this week. It initially scheduled a two weekly rotation between the two cities prior to revising its summer network. The development comes after easyJet recently terminated its London Gatwick - Pristina service. It leaves Wizz Air as the sole operator between the United Kingdom and Pristina with its London Luton flights.
British Airways plans to commence its second daily service between Heathrow and Zagreb at the very start of the 2023 summer season on March 26. This year, its operations to the Croatian capital were severely impacted by staff shortages and a passenger cap at its main hub in London, forcing the carrier to cancel a significant number of its flights. Services were reduced to just four per week during the high season in July and to six weekly in August, failing to reach its planned double daily rotation the entire season. On the other hand, its summer flights to Pula will be maintained twice per week but are due to end on September 24, some ten days earlier than this year.
The UK’s national carrier will also maintain up to thirteen weekly flights to Dubrovnik, operated from Gatwick and Heathrow, as well as thirteen weekly rotations to Split from Heathrow and City airports. Operations to Ljubljana will run five times per week, with services resuming on May 23, but ending some ten days earlier, on September 24, compared to this year. British Airways hopes to avoid this summer's network-wide flight cancellations resulting from staff shortages by hiring more cabin crew employees on time. The carrier has also increased crew wages by 8%.
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It's surprising that both easyjet and BA have ended their PRN flights.
ReplyDeleteTheir costs are higher than Wizz and this is an extremely price sensitive market.
DeleteWorst of all, their costs are higher yet their service levels are equal to or worse than the LCCs.
DeleteNot a political comment, but maybe it's because of the increased Albanian asylum seekers in the UK
DeleteNothing to do with asylum. TIA will have 5 airlines from 4 London airports next summer
DeleteAlbania has so many flights because it is an affordable tourist destination, not because of ethnic deamand.
DeleteLOL Anonymous 11:05!
DeleteTIA is overwhelmingly used by Albanians.
The vast majority of the passengers are naturally Albanians but the airport is slowly becoming attractive to neighbouring countries as well. If up to recently many Albanians used Ohrid, Skopje and Podgorica airports, now you would frequently encounter Macedonian and Montenegrin citizens using the airport particularly during summer time because of its growing number of destinations.
Delete70-80% of passengers using those flights are Albanians. The diaspora in UK is huge and they travel a lot.
Delete@Anonymous13:07
DeleteDiaspora in the UK is small, and many who arrive to UK are not able to travel due to their legal status. Some 60 000 Albanians that entered the UK in 2022 so far, 90% are illegal entries, i/e undocumented migrants. So flights between london and pristina aren't in demand for obvious reasons. Albanian nationals, including nationals of Kosova aren't allowed to apply for asylum due to UK strict rules on asylum rules.
Bravo BA!
ReplyDeleteLike I wrote yesterday, summer 2023 won't be as strong as expected. Crisis is starting to impact many countries and the other day it was reported that UK experienced its biggest inflation in God knows how many decades. All this will reduce the amount of disposable income.
ReplyDeleteGasto routes will be first to be impacted since our expats are usually doing low paid jobs in the West. That is why Wizz triumphed on LON-PRN market. People are generally poor over there and Wizz's low tickets are good for them.
I completely agree. Croatia won't see nowhere near as many British tourists next year as 2022. The UK is in deep recession, Electric and gas bills are going to rise, council tax rising. No-one will be able to afford a vacation on 2023.
DeleteDon't be so ridiculous, holiday bookings have gone through the roof for next summer.
DeleteNo one is saying bookings are going to collapse just that people are not going to be able to pay the same amount as in the past. Aren't you following what's going on in the UK?
DeleteI live in the UK thanks, I know what people are doing, holiday bookings are booming, the only difference being people are looking for more value. Better value destinations like Greece and Turkey will benefit as tourism is geared up for a much longer season too.
DeleteLol. Unemployment was always low in UK. But the country is in general economic recession.
DeleteIndia is already taking over UK economy. Failure to form a proper government. London officially lost its status as the financial centre to Paris. Wages in UK ain't budging. Brexit consequences are just getting started.
Yes, UK is in recession, not first and not last time. A couple of years of fiscal discipline and they'll be back on track.
DeleteJust like every other country, but that does not negate the fact they will be traveling much less in the next 2-3 years.
DeleteFor those interested, there is a very very good, humourist, 2 minute clip explaining what is going on post Brexit Britain or what they won't often tell you. And the clip was made by Brits themselves!
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn7dAO4NVTQ&ab_channel=Larry%26Paul
I know it's difficult for some people in the Balkans to believe that sometimes British people struggle financially. They might be surprised to hear the UK has homeless living on the streets and people unable to afford basics such as food and heating. There are poor and there are wealthy people just like every country in the world.
Delete@anonymous!10:04 UK holidaymakers normally go to destinations that have abundance of cheap flights and cheap accommodation, Croatia offers all the prerequisites for most British travellers. Million Brits visited Croatia in 2019, I expect same figure in 2023, recession or no recession.
DeleteAvoid BA at all costs
ReplyDeleteWhy, I flew with them LHR-BSL with their A319, it has WIFI and USB ports, better than LX!
DeleteIf your flight is cancelled they try re book within their alliance. Wizz air? They’ll tell you to re book another one yourself at your own expense
DeleteNot true. I've been given an alternative flight.
DeleteYes, but if there is no alternative flight flown by W6 there isn't much they will do.
DeleteThey won't book you on any other flight operated by another company. That's the point. They will refund you the money you paid and it is your problem if you can't for that money buy any other ticket.
Croatia is really their only focus market in ex-Yu.
ReplyDeleteThere are two main reasons for that:
Delete1. in ZAG there is no strong local carrier so they handle a lot of transfers.
2. Croatia is popular among Croatian holidaymakers and since OU isn't interested in carrying them then it's up to the British carriers to do so. BA is merely exploiting this.
I'm guessing you mean British holidaymakers :D
Deleteahah yes, sorry
DeleteHalf of their passengers are transfers to and from North America
DeleteThey should really think about operating Heathrow-Ljubljana year round. It's usually fully booked.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteFirst they need to extend it for the whole of summer
DeleteCrazy the number of opportunities OU just simply ignores.
ReplyDeleteOU sold its slots at LHR. That tells you everything.
DeleteThey fly to MUC and FRA. What else could anyone wish for?
DeleteOU still have 4 weekly slots at Heathrow on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. But yes they were stupid to sell the other 5 weekly slots that they had
DeleteIf London was a golden goose OU could fly to Gatwick.
DeleteOU fly twice a week Gatwick to Split every Monday and Friday during the summer timetable.
DeleteBA's presence in ex-Yu is poor.
ReplyDeleteThey failed in TGD.
DeleteBA wanted to fly to Tivat instead of Podgorica. I remember they even publicly said in 2018 how they plan to fly to Tivat. But probably Airports of Montenegro which has some silly policy of forcing legacy airlines to use TGD instead of TIV directed them there. And of course no one from the UK wanted to go on holiday to Montenegro by arriving in Podgorica.
DeleteJAT killed then years ago in BEG.
DeleteW6 as well.
DeleteBA will fly to where the money is. LJU probably breaks even, but Croatia is the place to make money. If the likes of SJJ, SKP, BEG made money they would fly there.
DeleteEvery time I see LHR in the article I get goosebumps. People are experiencing horrifying things at LHR on a daily basis I must say. Their staff is so arrogant and rude, the security checks are taking way too long as if you're smuggling an atomic weapon with you, not to mention frequency caps and cancellations. We should talk more about that issues on the aviation portal.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if I also have to say something positive about BA. It's one of the rarest companies in which crew doesn't have a mandatory layover after the long-haul rotation, sometimes they just get couple of hours of sleep in the nearby airport hotel. That being said, their crew sometimes might also be rude. But it's not their fault, the working conditions are just delusional and exhausting. I will boycott them as long as they keep doing so...
I agree. They really went downhill, unfortunately. Old and exhausted planes. Nothing to compare with the old BA.
DeleteThe slots at LHR are so valuable and they have such a huge choice of potential destinations where they can use them that we should consider ourselves lucky for getting even these flights.
ReplyDeleteEveryone wants to visit beautiful Hrvatska!
ReplyDeleteLiterally not everyone!
DeleteAnonymous 11:51do, they just can't come all along at once.
DeleteYeah I'm sure, all 8 billion people.
DeleteI think ZAG needs flights to Gatwick and Luton as well. Heathrow is a very expensive airport. I guess the reason for the increase of their flights is the demand for North American transfers. Yes, there they have a very good coverage.
ReplyDeleteI remember the days where they would give you newspapers, free catering and a higher quality service. I don't like IAG and think they kinda damaged other airlines in it such as Iberia and Vueling.
IAG is partially part of Qatar Airways.
History showed us that whenever Arabs get involved in European aviation, bad things happen. Still, BA remains a good airline. Their merge with Iberia gave them an advantage but they need to also quickly upgrade their fleet.
The other problem they are facing is the ferocious competition with LCCs in London.
Even though it recently lost its status as the financial centre for obvious reasons and decisions in 2016, it still remains one of the world's most important destinations. 5 airports and a year-round demand.
Heathrow is the cheapest Airport in the UK for a passenger to use and fly from. Other UK Airports especially where low cost carriers fly from, you will find everything much more expensive in the Airport.
DeleteIf BA can up to 3 daily flights to SPU they could have 2 twice weekly flights to ZAD.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteThe chances are high EW will close its' PRN base as well next summer.
ReplyDeleteSources?
DeleteIn this case no public sources but there will be reimployments in the EWL fleet. All the destinations served by the base could be served from the german bases as well.
Delete*redeployments of course
DeleteDoes anyone know why BA dumped Belgrade more than 12 years ago?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.exyuaviation.com/2010/09/british-airways-dumps-belgrade.html
Because there was a global economic crisis and they discontinued many routes while having to compete against Jat and Wizz Air.
DeleteUK doing just fine after exiting Brussel oligarchy.
ReplyDelete