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Eco fury at BA 'ghost flights' scandal

 
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karatecatman
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:20 pm    Post subject: Eco fury at BA 'ghost flights' scandal Reply with quote

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/12/nairlines12.xml
Eco fury at BA 'ghost flights' scandalBy Alex Berry
Last Updated: 2:19am GMT 12/03/2007

An airline has squandered £2 million flying empty passenger planes between Heathrow and Cardiff - to stop its landing slots falling into the hands of its rivals. Rolling Eyes

To keep landing slots airlines must use them regularly, or risk them being reallocated to other airlines. Competition for slots at Heathrow is so fierce that they have been known to change hands for £10 million.

But green campaigners have criticised the practice by British Mediterranean Airways (BMed) - which operates as a British Airways franchise, using its livery.

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BMed has been running the empty Airbus flights between Heathrow and Cardiff and back six times a week since last October.

No tickets are sold, all 124 seats are empty, and the flights do not appear on arrival or departure boards.

It is estimated that by the end of this month the flights will have cost the airline around £2 million, with a fuel bill of £2,500 per flight, and £300,000 per month for the lease, insurance, crew and maintenance charges.

Each 140-mile flight is believed to produce more than five tons of C02.

A Friends of the Earth spokeswoman said: "It's mad to have planes flying with no passengers. It's why we've been calling for is aviation tax linked to each flight, rather than to each passenger.

"This calls into question some of the green rhetoric coming from the airlines."

The airline came up with the plan after it was forced to scrap flights to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, following civil unrest there.

David Richardson, its chief executive, said: "The Uzbek market collapsed, but we knew we would want to use those timings again this summer. It wasn't ideal, but we wanted to keep hold of it."

A spokesman for the airline said yesterday that its actions reflected "the way the flight regulations are".

Industry sources said it was an extreme and rare example of efforts made by airliners to maintain slots at heavily congested airports such as Heathrow and Frankfurt.

Other airlines have been known to operate half-empty smaller aeroplanes with seats at reduced prices.




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Nimish
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Joined: 16 Dec 2006
Posts: 9757
Location: Bangalore, India

PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Me thinks BA is simply getting too big for it's boots. Its time for the UK to sign the EU-US open skies and take back a few of the slots with carriers like BA.
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