All is not good in Russia it seems as British Airways ramps up its planned Russia Expansion.
As it’s been reported, British Airways will be ramping up it’s flights to Moscow with a Boeing 747-400 from the WorldWide Fleet, upgrading it from a 767-300/A320 Operation.
An Application which British Airways has sent seems to have been lost to run the service. Oops. Others say foul play is at work with BAA refusing TransAero to run a 747 to London.
The uprated service is due to operate from the 25th March.
An agreement exists with Rosaviatsia, due to governance issues with the London<>Moscow/Russia routes, are based on parity: designated carriers on both sides (British Airways and bmi – from Britain, Aeroflot and Transaero – from Russia) should conduct an equal number of flights with an equal volume of traffic.
However its important to note that, British Airways and Aeroflot are entitled to 21 flights each per week on the Moscow-London route and can “use any type of aircraft, including wide-body, such as the Boeing 747,” according to British Airways.
You’ll notice that Transaero is missing from the volume note.
British Airways insists:
“British Airways is in the process of applying for changes to flights between London and Moscow, as announced in September 2011, during the visit of a British trade delegation to Russia,”
“At the end of last year we applied for permission to switch to the new summer schedule in 2012, allowing daily flights using the Boeing 747 and two daily flights on the Boeing-767, more than 45 days prior to the start of summer schedule,” airline officials said. “It follows all the set time-frames.”
However it seems Rosaviatsia say they did not receive it, with then stating that British Airways “did not send any applications.” and “If the request arrives, we will consider it.”
Transaero, however, has already applied for a similar increase (using Boeing-777 and Boeing-747) with the British authorities and Heathrow airport, but did not receive approval.
And Transero are.. annoyed.
“In the light of this, we consider the decision by Russian aviation authorities not to grant a similar permission to British Airways right,” a Transaero representative said.
Expect this to run….