Austin is a tricky market with very little long haul flying. It’s been one of the fastest growing airports in the United States, year after year and for years. But air service has grown even faster than demand.
American Airlines expanded mightily during the pandemic, with regional jets to numerous cities that likely violated their pilot scope clause and that lost money. Though then-Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja described Austin as his “love language” most of that flying is gone (replaced, in part, by gate squatting flights from Delta that sort of work flying migrants out of border towns).
There are no flights from Austin to Asia. To Europe there’s London, Amsterdam (KLM) and Frankfurt (Lufthansa) – with the latter two less than daily.
London was first, described as the perfect example of a route made possible by the Boeing 787. It worked well enough that British Airways grew the route to a Boeing 777 and even to a 747 when they were responding to competition from Norwegian flying Austin to London Gatwick.
In recent years BA has flown an Airbus A350. (Norwegian, which stopped flying long haul early in the pandemic, had planned to introduce Austin – Paris as well.)
Now British Airways plans to introduce a second Austin flight six days a week, for a total of thirteen weekly flights as part of its joint venture with American Airlines.
Pretty cool to see Austin pick up a 2nd daily flight (except Sunday) after Virgin Atlantic left in January. Timings:
• BA187 Depart LHR 4:05 PM Arrive AUS 8:20 PM• BA186 Depart AUS 10:15 PM Arrive LHR 1:40 PM (next day)
— Ishrion Aviation (@IshrionA) September 12, 2024
British Airways currently runs an Airbus A350-1000 on the Austin – London route. With the introduction of a second flight this will change to a Boeing 777-200ER and a Boeing 787-10.
It appears, then, that Austin will see the return of British Airways first class. 787-10s have two rows of four first class seats, however while flight schedules are loaded it doesn’t appear that first class inventory has been loaded for these flights at this point.
But what’s a bit concerning is that while London Heathrow-based Boeing 777-200s all have their Club Suite business class product, they’ve been running three Gatwick-based 777-200s out of Heathrow without these seats. I believe the three aircraft are G-VIIV, G-VIIW, and G-VIIY and they’ve recently been to Washington Dulles, Chicago O’Hare, Boston and Atlanta. I don’t know BA’s plans for continuing to use these planes from Heathrow, and whether they’ll eventually see a retrofit if they do stay Heathrow-based.
I wouldn’t want to get a surprise booking that Austin – London flight, expecting a proper business class, and wind up with eight-abreast business class including those middle-of-middle cuddle seats.
Virgin Atlantic had been flying Austin – London, but really didn’t have much connectivity on either side of the Atlantic. At Heathrow their flights aren’t well-timed for connections given slot constraints, and most of their routes are transatlantic anyway. They could connect onto partners for someone looking to fly to places like Paris, of course. But the number of destinations was limited versus BA. With Virgin, whose load factors had been in the 30s and 40s, out of the picture on this route it makes sense for BA to pick up the demand during peak season (so starting at the end of March).
And it makes sense for it to be British Airways rather than joint venture partner American operating the route, even though they share the economics, because American bases plans at its own hubs. Transatlantic flights from secondary cities in the U.S. isn’t as efficient for them.
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