A peek behind the curtain question

[klfrodo]

The example I'm looking at is long haul and in particular BA288 and BA193. (Yes, I could probably figure this out if I wanted to pay to upgrade my FlightAware)

 

Anyway, this route is LHR to PHX and PHX back to LHR. Is this just 1 single plane (A350) that flies this same route day after day after day except for required maintenance? Or is this separate aircraft that rotates through?

[CruiserBruce]

The plane from LHR to PHX will turn around, and leave for LHR in 2 or 3 hours. At LHR, different planes will usually be rotated, depending on the available planes, and the required maintenance.

[em-sk]

12 hours ago, klfrodo said:

The example I'm looking at is long haul and in particular BA288 and BA193. (Yes, I could probably figure this out if I wanted to pay to upgrade my FlightAware)

 

Anyway, this route is LHR to PHX and PHX back to LHR. Is this just 1 single plane (A350) that flies this same route day after day after day except for required maintenance? Or is this separate aircraft that rotates through?

 

For BA London is their hub and they only have one hub.  (Ignoring Gatwick for a moment). 

 

London-Phoenix-London is going to be a difficult turn for them to do in 24 hours and keep on schedule day after day using the same aircraft.  It would be even worse for flights to California.  

 

They are likely to alternative the aircraft on that route with a shorter one.  Perhaps something like London to New York, Chicago, Miami, Toronto or Montreal. 

 

They will make those decisions on a daily basis to try to minimise delays across the network.

        

If you use a website like flightaware, you can search for that flight and click on a link to see what flight the aircraft did previousely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2023 by em-sk

[fbgd]

It's very rare for a specific aircraft to constantly ply the same route/flight numbers. For aircraft type yes but aircraft registration, no.  The schedule and flight lengths need to align exactly.

 

Just look at Flightradar24 and you'll be able to see a specific aircraft's recent flights.

[Zach1213]

I think the others have answered well, but just as a snapshot, today's LHR-PHX (BA 289) aircraft has done the following in the last week: LHR-AUS-LHR, LHR-GRU-EZE-GRU-LHR, LHR-BOM-LHR, LHR-LAS-LHR, LHR-PHX-LHR, LHR-AUS-LHR. So it does to go Phoenix occasionally, but not all of the time. BA's list of A350 destinations still isn't huge, so any one aircraft is going to visit any given destination on a somewhat regular basis. 

 

9 hours ago, em-sk said:

(Ignoring Gatwick for a moment). 

 

 

As we all should 🙂

[Island2Dweller]

BA have 13 A350-1000 in service, more to come.  They are allocated to a specific set of destinations, but they are a pool across those destinations - they don't allocate any individual aircraft to just one route. 

The only exception was their A318 models (they only had two) which operated exclusively between LondonCity (LCY) and NewYor (JFK).  But these have been withdrawn.

[Zach1213]

On 1/23/2023 at 3:46 PM, Island2Dweller said:

The only exception was their A318 models (they only had two) which operated exclusively between LondonCity (LCY) and NewYor (JFK).  But these have been withdrawn.

 

RIP to those A318s. I think both of them (G-EUNA and G-EUNB) were scrapped a little over a year ago. I believe only Air France and TAROM still have active A318s, and both have plans to retire them sooner than later. What an odd little aircraft. 

[fbgd]

58 minutes ago, Zach1213 said:

 

RIP to those A318s. I think both of them (G-EUNA and G-EUNB) were scrapped a little over a year ago. I believe only Air France and TAROM still have active A318s, and both have plans to retire them sooner than later. What an odd little aircraft. 

 

A great story I heard from someone I know about the BA A318 service...

 

It was a JFK-LCY flight and an American passenger flying AA was rebooked onto one of these flights. They disembarked by stairs at LCY and freaked out having crossed the Atlantic on this tiny plane because they assumed they had been boarded directly into the upper deck of a 747 😁

[Zach1213]

16 minutes ago, fbgd said:

 

A great story I heard from someone I know about the BA A318 service...

 

It was a JFK-LCY flight and an American passenger flying AA was rebooked onto one of these flights. They disembarked by stairs at LCY and freaked out having crossed the Atlantic on this tiny plane because they assumed they had been boarded directly into the upper deck of a 747 😁

 

Oh jeez. That's a special kind of someone if true. 

 

I ended up on the LCY-JFK flight once (with the stop in Shannon). It was definitely a different experience! The convenience of LCY is just so darn great.