Return of London City?

[richardtaylor]

A BATTLE for Anglo-Scottish business air passengers is looming as CityJet prepares to announce new flights and consolidate operations in Edinburgh.


The Air France-KLM-owned airline is expected to unveil extra services between the Scottish capital and London City airport, which has become a favourite among business travellers.

A new route from Aberdeen to the Docklands airport is also in the offing, along with more flights from Dundee. Aberdeen was chosen because several oil firms have Docklands offices, and flights to Heathrow are expected to be reduced if BA takes over BMI.

(from Scotland On Sunday)

LCY was last served out of ABZ in 2001 with ScotAirways & D328s.

[richardtaylor]

Looks like there will be a new route from LCY - ABZ...but with BA Cityflyer & not Cityjet! Post in PPRUNE claims Cityflyer to launch flights from Sept.

[Humberside]

3xMon-Fri and 1xSun with an EMB-190 from 24th September
airlineroute.net/2012/04/25/ba-lcyabz-sep12/

[richardtaylor]

Interesting news about BA & LCY today, & also the theories behind it's launch.

It was a route many businesses had said they wanted with offices in Aberdeen & Canary Wharf, & it last flew in 2001/early 2002, so hopefully with traffic on the up it will be well used - the BA name will undoubtedly help.

I too think it is partly to offset the loss of the bmi LHR rotations which will undoubtedly happen at the end of the summer if not earlier. The spokesman did say it would complement the existing BA offering to LHR, so I doubt if any BA's own rotations will be sacrificed.

Whether it puts off anyone from starting a competing LHR route remains to be seen. Will be fascinating to see whether SRB will put his words into deeds & uses any slots to an ABZ route...should he successfully bid of course.

Cityjet had said they were evaluating their own LCY service to ABZ but whether they will continue with this now CFE have announced their own service, I have my doubts that there would be sufficient traffic for both. However, they may still look to W12/13, having apparently been delayed from starting this summer due to restructuring.

For me, the nice relatively new E170 & the BA name will probably win the day on LCY.