Thread by @hatlad43

Last week I wrote this and I've decided to make a topic out of this, explaining why exactly they do this. Or at least that's the goal.

https://twitter.com/hatlad43/status/1188747839196680192

Why Does British Airways Flies A318 Across The Atlantic?

There are two main reasons. One that it's technically possible and two, it makes an economic sense.

There'll be two parts of this thread, tonight we'll be discussing about the economics. For technical reasons, we'll talk about that someday in the future. It won't be as long as this one. Maybe.

Right, before I go any further, I'd like to say that most of this part is inspired by this video. I urge you to watch it.

If you have ever flew abroad, the chances are you'd likely found two classes in the aircraft. Economy and Business.

In reality, there are four classes offered by some of the largest traditional airlines such as Qantas, British Airways, and Lufthansa. But not always.

The classes are, Economy, Premium Economy, Business, and First Class.

Yes there are many variations of ticket fare codes for each types, but for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to use Y,W,J, and A respectively as necessary as substitutes.

These are the classes offered by traditional airlines. Budget airlines or low-cost carriers such as Lion Air and Air Asia (in this case Air Asia X), at most would only offer Economy and Business.

In case of our national flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia, currently only offer Economy and Business, despite still having First Class seats still installed in the aircraft. I'd make a guess it's for our President and his fellas when traveling far abroad.

If you don't know how the classes look like, don't worry, I've prepped up some images. Download. Whatever.

This is what the 4 classes on Qantas aircraft look like. They're largely the same in other airlines.

Economy is you've probably know already, cramped spaces, high dense configuration and all that

wait I actually forgot is this Qantas or Virgin Atlantic

Premium Economy has wider seats (34" vs 31"), roomier legroom, and a bit nicer foods

📷: One Mile at a Time

Business class is... This. A small pod containing large reclining seat that folds flat, larger TV screen, small storage bins, and much better foods.

📷: Travellers Contact Point

Lastly, First Class. Slightly larger pod than Business with larger seat, larger TV, more storage area, slightly better food, and wall all around, sometimes even with a sliding door.

📷: Flight Hacks

So, what all of these have to do with British Airways A318 transatlantic flight? Well I need to tell a bit of a history.

This A318 LCY-JFK via Shannon has a flight number BA1. BA1 in the past was Concorde's flight number for LHR-JFK. It was meant to be the last word on luxury flight between the two busiest cities.

Then the Concorde fails, it's no longer flown so the most luxurious flight is no more. At least, until the A318 came along.

The BA1 with A318 is actually equipped with all business class seats. 32 of them in 8 rows. Compare that to all-economy 6-abreast 132 seats.

📷: Simple Flying

So why business? As it turns out, it's extremely profitable for airlines. Yep not just British Airways, any airlines operate premium cabin, particularly Business class, makes more money than only serve up Economy. Let me explain.

For this part, I did want to take Garuda Indonesia as an example, mostly for nationalism reasons. But as I said they only offer two classes and it's not.. fun? I guess.

So let's take a look on British Airways' Boeing 777-200ER. A flight between New York JFK to London Heathrow in 24 of November 2019 has ticket prices, as the time of writing, as follows

122Y @ $1.670 making $204.740
40W @ $3.198 making $127.920
48J @ $6.603 making $316.944 and
14A @ $7.303 making $102.242

It's clear to see that all of Business class seats, despite only about 1/3 of that on Economy, makes 50% more money than Economy class.

In fact, all premium cabin passengers of just 45% of all passengers on board, making 77% revenue for the carrier. The majority of the revenue comes from the minority of the passengers.

that's capitalism for you.

It has to be said that the aircraft has been configured heavily for premium travels, because British Airways focuses a lot on it. But on average, 2/3 of airlines' revenue comes from the premium cabin.

If an airline wanted to configure their fleet with all business seats, they would. But the premium demands aren't that many across the globe that it'd be seemed as a stupid idea with stupid results.

Oh I haven't mentioned that despite being a Business class, the physical looks and amenities doesn't actually match that in the large, widebody airliner.

Yes it has large pod and stuff, great foods, but it's not as wide, and I don't know if you can tell from the photo, it doesn't actually have a TV screen/IFE. You'd get an iPad though.

📷: Sam Chui

I said that an all business class airliner would be a stupid idea. But not in this case. Why? Because the route BA serves is between two of the busiest cities by.. business stuff(?) in the world with the busiest air route,

so the demands on that route and from the business travellers are constantly, relatively, high. Also business travellers normally don't care with the ticket they purchase as it'd be paid by their employers.

You may be wondering, why not First Class or Premium Economy? Well

the difference between Premium Economy and Business is huge, it's a cramped seat vs bed. Not to mention the amenities. Of course there's a price to pay but it's worth it.

While the difference between Business and First, from passengers' perspective, isn't that much. Only like Economy to Premium Economy, larger seating area and slightly better food.

But the price difference between the two is quite high that most potential passengers that can afford First Class, aren't willingly to pay for it. It's just not that worth it.

From the airline's perspective, it doesn't actually makes that much more money compared to the area each class uses. Let me explain

So the floor area required for making a First Class room is rather large almost as much as 3 m², Business class about 0,9 m², and Economy 0,34 m².

If we take the price we've discussed above and calculate the ticket class price per area, it's shocking.

The economy class comes at $5.010/m², business class at $7.336/m², and first class comes limbo-ing at $2.434/m². That's part of the reason not many airlines operate first class.

The operational cost for A is significantly higher than J, but they can't charge more since for the passengers, the experience is largely similar.

In summary, Business class on an airliner makes the most money for the operator, by configuring a small plane that has low maintenance cost, with all business class seats and putting it on a high premium demand route would be incredibly profitable for the airline.

Yeah I haven't mentioned the smaller the plane, the cheaper it is to run. Since A318 is small, the smallest medium size airliner in fact, of course it's cheaper to run than the Boeing 777 that flown on the same route.

Yep that's it for tonight, apologize for littering your timeline, and thank you for reading.

Part Reasons: Technical II

Let's get to it

So the BA1 flight (and BA2 as the return journey) starts (and end) at London City Airport (LCY) rather than London Heathrow (LHR), or any other 4 international airports surrounding London. That's simply because it's the closest airport to the city centre.

That makes a bit of a problem for British Airways because LCY has some restrictions on what kind of airplane that can take off and land there.

Since LCY is placed in a large city with lots of residents, there's a noise limit a plane can fly about near the airport. As I've said, living near an active air force base with lots of fighter jets flying about at low altitude is.. fun, but annoying.

Airbus solves this by fitting the A318 with a new engine type that has larger bypass ratio that has not only more powerful and efficient, but also a bit quieter.

Still on the location issue, since the airport is near the city centre with many tall buildings, the aircraft have to be able to do a steep 5.5° approach. Which is steeper than the normal 3° glideslope at nearly all airports in the world.

There aren't many airliners that capable to do it, Airbus accepted the challenge by installing a new control software that does the job, by automatically deploy the spoilers as necessary. That's also much helped by the aircraft size which is pretty tiny.

That tiny and lighty also helps a lot for it to be able to take off and land on a short runway. In fact, the runway at LCY is only half as long as it is in Halim Perdanakusuma airport.

That lightness comes from.. well it's small so there aren't many materials to make up the aircraft, configuring the aircraft for all business class seats (small number of heavy seat units<high dense economy class seats), and that it only carries so much fuel to reach Ireland

That's why on BA1, the airplane stops at Shannon airport to top up the fuel tank. While waiting, the passengers are cleared for US immigration and customs so when they reached New York JFK they can immediately leave the airport.

For BA2 though (JFK-LCY) since the aircraft has used nearly all of its fuel from a 5700 kms non-stop flight from New York, it doesn't need a stop in Shannon.

There's another good reason British Airways stops BA1 at Shannon airport, it's located on the straight path between London and New York.

I want to add another fact related to the thread but couldn't be bothered to think where I should put this but here. A318 operated by BA is actually the largest aircraft allowed to be operated at London City Airport.

So in summary the A318 is allowed to be operated regularly at the restriction heavy LCY because it's small and light enough, but capable of doing a long-haul transatlantic flight as standard.

I guess that's it. At the time of writing the last paragraph I was actually off my face, thinking I might've forgotten something, so pardon if I might continue the thead to complete it after I close this thing. And as always, thanks for reading.

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