Could COVID-19 be the final thing that makes British Airways walk away from its old Gatwick Hub?
A report on BBC News indicates that this could well be on the cards.
From the memo to Gatwick staff, the following is stated:
“As you know, we suspended our Gatwick flying schedule at the start of April and there is no certainty as to when or if these services can or will return.”
The hub has been suspended since the start of April as COVID-19 took hold, with the airport concentrating its operations around Heathrow Airport. Since then staff have been furloughed.
This memo comes after the airline was to make 12,000 of its staff redundant, with 4,300 of those being pilots.
Before the hub was suspended, the airport operated Airbus narrow-body aircraft and Boeing 777-200ER aircraft on long haul routes. Most of these routes were
Gatwick has been a part of British Airway history, with British European Airways flying there before they merged with BOAC to make what today is British Airways. The airline also subsumed the DanAir and British Caledonian from this airport too.
Opinion: Could it happen?
Gatwick had some uses – primarily attracting passengers from the South East of England (for those who don’t want to brave the M25). As such, a lot of its flows are leisure based (as shown by the route network
However, British Airways primary hub is quiet for now – with Heathrow having the capacity to spare. It’s also a sign that the airline does not expect leisure traffic to resume for some time (which matches what Gatwick Airport is saying).
COVID-19 is going to force all airlines to look at its network, its hubs and understand if having more than one base makes sense.
And it could well happen in the short term until demand increases.
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