No More JFK-LCY

"SBA Thanks You For All The Fish" (santabarbarianlsx)
08/01/2020 at 18:58 • Filed to: None

BA finally pulls the plug on the Business Class oriented non-stop to London’s City Airport. I always wanted to do this for the novelty... and legroom.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

DISCUSSION (26)

ranwhenparked > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/01/2020 at 19:13

There were still planes flying between the US and UK? Or, is this just an announcement that the service won’t be restored, in the event that international travel is ever permitted again?

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ranwhenparked
08/01/2020 at 19:17

I believe “limited” flights had continued out of the necessity to get key personnel moved around. Even when Hawaii was in Full Lockdown there was one a day to HNL out of LAX and one out of SFO.

The majors “had been” slowing adding service back, as well.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ranwhenparked
08/01/2020 at 19:17

I believe “limited” flights had continued out of the necessity to get key personnel moved around. Even when Hawaii was in Full Lockdown there was one a day to HNL out of LAX and one out of SFO.

The majors “had been” slowing adding service back, as well.

facw > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/01/2020 at 19:28

I wouldn’t be shocked if it returns at some point once people are flying for business again. But I expect that to be a slow return, especially with the shitshow we’ve had in terms of dealing with covid.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ranwhenparked
08/01/2020 at 19:33

Hey, I’m going to revise my previous answer... It appears BA1&BA2 both stopped flying on March 20, so my link’s a little mis-leading. It sounds like BA doesn’t expect to resume it, choosing to retire the A318s instead. But the flight hasn’t been operated for 4 months.

OTOH, I was shocked to see how much aluminum is out over the North Atlantic as we speak. “Shut Down” is relative I guess... Look at this.

Kinja'd!!!

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > facw
08/01/2020 at 19:35

Sorry for the double post, but I was shocked to see how much metal is out over the Atlantic tonight. “shut down” might be over-stating it.

Lots of flights on the continent too.

Kinja'd!!!

ranwhenparked > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/01/2020 at 19:36

I guess it is possible to still go, as long as you take at least a month off work and spend 14 of them in quarantine, you can still have 24 hours to walk around London, before its time to fly back and quarantine at home for another 14 days.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ranwhenparked
08/01/2020 at 19:38

Yeah. I have a couple of those teed up... “I really need to go to maintenance over there...”. “Oh crap, if I have to quarantine for 14 days when I get there and 14 days when I get back? That would really suck. It costs me a month even if I get nothing done on the project. Shit ”

facw > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/01/2020 at 19:38

And yet that’s way down. Still more than you would expect given that it seems nuts to be letting us Americans (or people who have been hanging out with us) in at the moment.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > facw
08/01/2020 at 19:40

And, unless my geography is really failing me, those look like flights to and from Spain— which is currently blowing up.

My friends in London who were confirmed COVID in March? Still freaked out to have recent “negative” antibody tests-- having positive results were an enabler to go back to work. Nobody knows what’s going on.

facw > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/01/2020 at 19:43

A lot of them seem to be beyond Spain. Not sure where they’d be going then though? South America seems nearly as poor a choice as the US, and it feels like it would be a lot of traffic for the Canary Islands or other West African destinations.

ranwhenparked > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/01/2020 at 19:44

Right now, I can’t even go to the closest branch office of my credit union, because it s a few miles over the usually invisible border in a neighboring state. If I want to send a wire to pay for a car, instead of walking around with cash, I’d have to take 2 weeks off and quarantine in a hotel.

Of course, my state’s entire COVID problem right now is happening at the beaches and chicken processing plants , so the whole rest of the damn state can’t pop over the border for a simple errand because a bunch of lifeguards and undocumented meat plant workers l iving in close quarters tested positive.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ranwhenparked
08/01/2020 at 19:49

Yeah, I hear you. I’ve had one of those bank transactions I have to go into a branch for (mainly because Wells Fargo sucks) and good luck doing that without setting off trip wires. My DL is different from where I’m spending most of my time... which is two states away from where I have projects pending. According to the strictest interpretations? I can’t do diddly.

I’m worried I might get arrested just for going to the local grocery store. I’m trying to mainly stick to the truck stops for fuel and food-- and not go into towns if I can avoid it.

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/01/2020 at 20:02

Kinja'd!!!

Still nowhere near the record that was set two years ago. 19,000 planes in the air at the same time, 202,157 flights tracked in a single 24-hour period.

ranwhenparked > facw
08/01/2020 at 20:19

Unless the virus just sort of magically burns itself out on its own, we both know that’s never going to happen. COVID-19 is the new smallpox/yellow fever/polio/ tuberculosis /typhoid/Spanish flu all rolled into one, worse than all of them combined, and just as likely to vanish of its own accord without a universal vaccine. Except, its a coronavirus, so good luck with that vaccine.

facw > ranwhenparked
08/01/2020 at 20:52

It’s certainly not going to burn out on its own. Vaccines are looking promising right now. Obviously we can’t be sure there, lab and small trial results are good. It’s true we’ve never had a coronavirus vaccine, but there’s also never been the current level of effort to do so. If all those varied attempts fail, then we better hope for better treatment, but that is seeming harder right now.

ranwhenparked > facw
08/01/2020 at 20:55

I’m prepared for the possibility that its a new endemic dread disease, that will take mankind back to the way things were for thousands of years before most of them were banished in the past 50 years with modern vaccines, and for the possibility that any vaccine is only going to work on one or a couple strains, and will become less effective over time with further mutations.

facw > ranwhenparked
08/01/2020 at 21:00

Possible, but doesn’t seem likely at this point. Most signs point to slow mutation on this one. There’s concern that immunity will be short lived, but it sounds like it’s probably going to be good enough (even if it means we need annual boosters).

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/02/2020 at 00:50

when the Uk announced their 14 day isolation for returning tourists, there were 600k on holiday. The crazy bit is theyre saying you have to isolate after visiting spain, but still not shutting down parts fo the UK that have as high infection rates.

Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/02/2020 at 01:17

Okay, this is bizarre. Google sez the A318's range is 3,100nm but the distance from JFK to LCY is 3,017 n m. I figured that leg was a stretch for the 318, but a re they landing with fumes in the tanks or just hoping for a big push from easterly winds?

Chinny Raccoon > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
08/02/2020 at 01:23

Outbound it stopped at Shannon for fuel and pre clearance. I assume it would also divert to Shannon on the return if the wind conditions were less favourable, otherwise it was able to do that leg in one go.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
08/02/2020 at 08:48

I know there’s general consensus here in the US about how screwed up the response is... but... it’s really ironic that “the countries that did it right with lockdowns” are all spiking in Europe. They clearly have a lot of people moving around .

And, as Reuters reported the other day, Sweden (which really cocked it up, at least according to our news media) actually has lower death rates than many of “the best response countries in Europe”. And, as Swedish companies have reported earnings generally FAR above expectation... There’s some irony in all this.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/02/2020 at 09:20

Spain is still a @ 1/ 3 of california for new cases with a 20% larger populaton.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
08/02/2020 at 09:29

I dunno. They are a couple of weeks behind California on the bounce but they are at 20-30 X the number of cases they had in the lull. Here’s the expansion of Spain’s growth rate from June 1 to August 1. They are up from under 100 cases per day to well over 3000 a couple of days last week.

I don’t think anybody’s really got this one figured out.

Kinja'd!!!

Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom > Chinny Raccoon
08/02/2020 at 14:17

SNN to JFK is 2678 nm so stopping there for fuel makes sense going west . I wonder if the inbound leg stops at SNN too; that’s cutting it really close on fuel otherwise and the airlines have minimum fuel requirements to comply with.

Thomas Donohue > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
08/02/2020 at 14:19

So it stopped in Shannon on the way over, and was non-stop on the way back? Or did it depend on weather/wind?