British Airways returns to Montego Bay

[evanovitch]

British Airways will operate a new twice-weekly service <span style="font-weight: bold">from London Gatwick to Sangster International, Montego Bay, beginning October 25, 2009</span>. <span style="font-style: italic">These flights will operate non-stop on Thursdays and Saturdays.</span>

This brings British Airways to five weekly flights to Jamaica. <span style="font-weight: bold">Currently, the airline flies Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to Kingston.</span> British Airways Commercial Manager, Caribbean Diane Corrie said: <span style="font-weight: bold">&quot;We are also pleased to announce a special launch fare of US$399 plus taxes and surcharges from Montego Bay to London Gatwick return</span>. This fare will go on sale on May 22, 2009 and we hope our customers in Jamaica will visit ba.com or call their travel agents to take advantage of this very attractive price.&quot;

The Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, has expressed great satisfaction at the decision of British Airways to resume service to Montego Bay in October of this year. The service was suspended in 2002.

&quot;The return of British Airways to Montego Bay significantly improves our seat capacity out of the UK and Continental Europe,&quot; Bartlett said. &quot;The service will ensure a wider range of demographic arrivals out of Europe and the UK, and will bring to five the number of British Airways flights to Jamaica per week.&quot;

&quot;This is an important development in our continued airlift security strategy, as Jamaica pursues the objective of being the most connected destination in the region,&quot; the Minister added.

Chairman of Sandals Resorts International, the Caribbean's leading luxury included resort, Gordon 'Butch' Stewart welcomed the return of BA, noting: &quot;It is great news to hear that British Airways is returning to Montego Bay. I am confident that the airline will do exceptionally well with this service, and that this expansion will be very beneficial to Jamaica, as
a whole.&quot;

Head of the Super Clubs Group, John Issa welcomed this latest news and said: &quot;I am extremely pleased to welcome BA to the Montego Bay gateway. It further cements a long relationship between Jamaica, its tourism, and British Airways. I see it as further endorsement of the quality and desirability of Jamaica as a destination.&quot;

Josef Forstmayer of Round Hill, one of Jamaica's elegant destinations, noted that he was &quot;absolutely delighted&quot; to welcome British Airways back to Montego Bay&quot;.

&quot;We know that it will make a big difference to our tourism offerings. London is an important connecting path into Continental Europe. Added to that, BA has very strong alliances in Europe, with very good feed into Gatwick. I shared the news with my fellow hoteliers, and they are all very excited. As a result of BA's return to Montego Bay, one of our top wholesalers in the UK wants to do some special programmes. With Virgin Atlantic already serving Montego Bay, we now will have two very strong brands in one great destination.&quot;

[Marielle]

Re: British Airways returns to Montego Bay

strange...... when they've just announced record losses....

14:51 GMT, Friday, 22 May 2009 15:51 UK

<span style="font-weight: bold">High costs fuel record loss at BA </span>

British Airways has announced the biggest loss since the company was privatised in 1987.

BA reported a loss before tax of £401m for the year to 31 March, after seeing its results hit by a weak pound and higher fuel costs.

The airline made a revised profit of £922m in the previous year.

BA also offered staff the option of taking unpaid leave or working part-time. Chief executive Willie Walsh said he would work for no pay in July.

Mr Walsh said: &quot;I certainly want to make a contribution in recognition of the extremely challenging position we face. This is no stunt. I do not easily give up anything I have earned.&quot;

Mr Walsh earns £735,000 a year.

Finance director Keith Williams, who is paid £440,000, will also forgo his pay for the month of July.

Fuel pressures

Although revenues increased to almost £9bn, BA faced a near-£3bn fuel bill.

Mr Walsh said he saw &quot;no signs of recovery anywhere&quot;.

<span style="font-style: italic">It's difficult to avoid the impression that at least part of BA's agony, its descent in just 12 months from record profits to record losses, was of its own making

Robert Peston, BBC business editor</span>


Fuel costs rose 44.5% after the price of oil soared last year. The weaker pound also contributed to rising costs as fuel is bought in US dollars.

But the airline said it expected lower fuel prices to reduce its fuel costs by about £400m in the year ahead.

The results also included redundancy-related costs of £78m.

BA said it had cut more than 2,500 jobs since last summer and added that it was in talks with unions about &quot;pay and productivity changes&quot;.

'Self-inflicted wounds'

Despite BA's claims that it has been a victim of a downturn in global conditions, analysts say the airline is not entirely blameless for its poor results.

One of BA's biggest problems is the drop in numbers by 13% of the airline's real earners - the business passengers.


The airline is doing all it can to keep them flying, including in recent months a Buy One Get One Free offer.


It is much harder for BA to take on the likes of easyJet and Ryanair when it comes to offering cheap economy seats. And easyJet in particular is deliberately punting for business passengers forced to travel on a budget.


The other big problem is an old one. BA's fuel bills have soared by 44.5% in the last year.


The real problem is that the world's airlines buy their fuel in dollars, and the exchange rate against the pound is not good for BA.

&quot;The first half of the year really was [a period of] self-inflicted wounds from the Terminal 5 opening problems,&quot; said airline consultant John Strickland.

Travel writer Simon Calder added that BA had been particularly hit by a fall in premium traffic - business class and first class passengers - which was down 13%.

&quot;The premium traffic which accounts for half their income has simply dried up,&quot; he said.

&quot;They base their business on the fact that there will be plenty of businesses wanting to fly and businesses are simply cutting back.

&quot;British Airways has been losing £7 every second for the past year, which is pretty grim.&quot;

The BBC's business editor Robert Peston said that BA's loss was a result of &quot;a lamentable rise in costs&quot;, including engineering and aircraft costs, landing fees and staff costs.

Fewer passengers

Shares in the airline were down 4.5% to 155 pence in afternoon trading, having lost as much as 7% earlier in the day.

However, BA said that it had seen a &quot;significantly better&quot; operational performance, and that it had received record customer satisfaction ratings.

The total number of passengers carried fell 4.3% to 33.1m.

The results also included the impact of the airline's first full year of operations at Heathrow Terminal 5, and BA said more than 24 million passengers had flown through Terminal 5.

BA added that it had had to take &quot;significant pricing actions&quot; to stimulate non-premium sales, which were broadly unchanged on the previous year.

&quot;Fares have been going down and will continue to be very competitive,&quot; Mr Walsh told the BBC. &quot;I don't expect to see any increase in fares in the coming year.&quot;


Tough year ahead

BA said the outlook for the airline industry was tough and it would not be paying a dividend this year.

It plans to reduce capacity by 4% over the winter by not flying up to 16 aircraft.

BA is not the only airline suffering in the global recession, as higher fuel prices and a drop in demand for air travel have affected the whole industry.

Also on Friday, the Emirates group reported a 72% fall in profits.

On Wednesday Air France-KLM revealed a net loss of 505m euros ($705m; £444m) in the three months to 31 March, compared with a 534m euro loss in the same period a year earlier.

[Marielle]

Re: British Airways returns to Montego Bay

and the good news is....

07:07 GMT, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 08:07 UK

<span style="font-weight: bold">Profits jump at Virgin Atlantic </span>

Virgin Atlantic has reported a sharp rise in profits in the year to the end of February, bucking the trend seen by other airlines.

Annual pre-tax profits reached £68.4m ($109m), nearly double the £34.8m seen in the year earlier.

It said the results had been helped by a rise in premium fare passengers.

The results are in contrast to other airlines, including British Airways which reported an annual loss before tax of £401m last week.

BA said the level of premium fare travellers had fallen by 13% in the second half of its financial year and it had seen a rise in fuel costs.

'Tough'

Virgin Atlantic chief executive Steve Ridgway said: &quot;We are winning market share from our competitors during the toughest trading environment ever.&quot;

Talking to the BBC, Mr Ridgeway added that successful hedging of fuel had helped the firm, by buying in advance before fuel prices surged.

During the year, the price of oil veered from as much as $147 a barrel to as little as $38.

But he warned: &quot;This year is going to be tough,&quot; adding that the airline would &quot;cut costs as aggressively as possible&quot;.

Sir Richard Branson, the president and founder of Virgin Atlantic, said: &quot;The last financial year has proven to be the most volatile yet in our 25-year history.&quot;

&quot;To increase profits against a backdrop of such a severe recession is an excellent achievement by all of our staff at Virgin Atlantic.&quot;

Group sales, which include sales from tour operator Virgin Holidays, increased by 8.4% to £2.579bn from £2.38bn in the year before.

Virgin Atlantic is challenging a possible tie-up between BA and American Airlines, citing competition concerns.

[uswe]

Re: British Airways returns to Montego Bay

Virgin's flying to Jamaica hurt BA big time, They're slightly cheaper and fly into NMIA about 3 hour earlier, making it more convenient for travellers.
Their downside is because they use bigger planes than BA, they take longer to check in passengers, resulting in them often departing late.

Good business for Sir Richard, he bought Air Jamaica's landing and take of slots at Heathrow for (rice and peas) £5million.
Then replaced the slots with flights to Barbados with flights to Jamaica now routed through Gatwick, 70-80 miles out of London.

Virgin are eating some good food from the Jamaican routes, no wonder their profits are up.