British Airways - Inaugural Flight - LHR to STL (787-9)
Posted by KingC59@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 84 comments
First flight to St. Louis, Missouri, USA! Great crowd out to watch this evening. Here are a few of my best pictures. Hope you enjoy!
Micro_KORGI@reddit
Dammit, I completely forgot. I was hoping to be out there to get some pictures of what I would imagine is the first 787 into STL
BrilliantMinimum942@reddit
I saw it fly over east saint louis as it was coming in for a landing.
LDRispurehell@reddit
Iirc at least some years back I remember Lufthansa flying their 330s there. Don’t know if they still do? It’s a bizarre route… im sorry but it’s such a boring place.
AlexOnTheBus@reddit
Booo. If you were bored in STL then you're the problem.
Excellent-Gur-8547@reddit
Or you just have the benchmark of anywhere else to compare it to.
AlexOnTheBus@reddit
Well traveled thank you :)
Excellent-Gur-8547@reddit
Then liking St. Louis is sad and shows a desire for a place where nothing of interest ever happens.
AlexOnTheBus@reddit
How sad that you wasted any amount of your life writing that.
Excellent-Gur-8547@reddit
What's inside me is anything remotely interesting.
St. Louis could be cool if not for people like you who want to pretend it's okay as it is. It's a cultureless fucking shithole and the worst part is, that's what the people living there want it to be.
If I never set foot in it again, I will be happy. Sorry I couldn't help save your town. God knows I tried before the will to care about it was beaten out of me. But j can comfortably say I've done more to try to make St. Louis cool than yiu clearly ever have.
Difficult_Bedroom@reddit
Lufthansa runs \~89-90% 5x a week in addition to this so there must be something to it
BandicootNecessary26@reddit
Why the hell would any British want to go to STL?
Viking_Musicologist@reddit
I always thought it had something to do with it them really squeezing all the versatility of their 787s versus their 777s and A350s.
I think it is exciting they are flying to St. Louis.
BandicootNecessary26@reddit
Of course, and much of the pax will be connecting..
Viking_Musicologist@reddit
Yeah. If they have a connecting flight with WN.
It has been nearly 25+ years since TWA was killed all for the sake of money and taking over some aircraft that wasn't AA's to begin with.
Excellent-Gur-8547@reddit
He means in LHR lmao
Viking_Musicologist@reddit
Oh, that Makes sense.
It almost made it seem like the pax would be connecting in Lambert rather than Heathrow.
Excellent-Gur-8547@reddit
Yeah, I think BA is betting on the majority of sales on this route being on the US side of things.
AlexOnTheBus@reddit
Because St. Louis is fucking awesome.
ScarHand69@reddit
I was gonna say…imagine taking off in London and landing on St. Louis. Big oof
AlexOnTheBus@reddit
Low class take.
Viking_Musicologist@reddit
You do realize that TWA did that back in the day.
BandicootNecessary26@reddit
Before St Louis was the diamond it is today?
Viking_Musicologist@reddit
Lambert was actually a boom town back in the '80s and '90s that all changed when the suits in Dallas decided to kill TWA.
I still get slightly emotional when I see like 40-60% of the Concourses at Lambert completely devoid of aircraft.
Dull_War8714@reddit
Why the hell would any STL want to go to Britain?
SoothedSnakePlant@reddit
lmao what.
It's at worst the second most economically powerful city in the world, and it's a huge culture, education, and connecting hub. St. Louis is (and I say this as some who's from there) an irrelevant backwater.
But frankly, I think a lot of people in St. Louis would share your opinion. Which, not coincidentally, is part of why STL is not going to emerge from the irrelevant backwaters anytime soon and why it has such trouble holding onto any of its children who get a meaningful education.
Dull_War8714@reddit
Sorry. Personal preference. I just have very little interest in visiting London.
informallyundecided@reddit
Did St. Louis bang your girl or something
SoothedSnakePlant@reddit
This is definitely a US point-of-sale market. And really it's a subsidy grab.
MC_ScattCatt@reddit
East St. Louis tourism obviously
eatmynasty@reddit
Visting Nellyville.
boilermakerteacher@reddit
That’s an interesting route. Wonder what drove the expansion.
Sir_MS@reddit
3 million people in the STL metro area, 7 F500 HQs, and \~44k O&D on the route. A 4x weekly 787 should do decent.
Bugeaters@reddit
I don't think business clientele was a huge driver here. It's a seasonal service and BA is using their 787-8's on the route--These planes are have the lowest percentage of premium seats on all of BA's widebodies outside of the Gatwick 777's that serve leisure destinations.
Excellent-Gur-8547@reddit
Those 777s are the ones based out of Gatwick for things like the Bangkok flights, right?
Bugeaters@reddit
Not sure about Bangkok specifically since it’s a pretty important city, economically, and it’s a common stopover point for UK to Australia flights. But the high density 777s go to places like Antigua and Orlando
Excellent-Gur-8547@reddit
You say that, but BA didn't serve Bangkok at all for a few years and only brought back seasonal weekend flights last year for the first time in like 7-8 years I think. Super weird gap in their network, but they have a few of those in east Asia. No Seoul service or Beijing service is another odd one.
SoothedSnakePlant@reddit
I'd be surprised if this was self-sufficient without subsidies. There is definitely a wealthy side of St. Louis, but it's small, and much more connected to Chicago, New York and Frankfurt than London. This was a prestige thing paid for by the airport, and there's a reason they haven't had a non-subsidized transatlantic route in 25 years.
Call_Mee_Santa@reddit
Negative, British Airways approached the city first. The city was not incentivized to get a transatlantic flight.
Bugeaters@reddit
The St. Louis County Port Authority is again incentivizing the new flight route, offering up to $4.5 million to British Airways over the next two and a half years if the airline hits specific flight performance criteria, O’Malley said. He didn’t disclose the metrics.
Call_Mee_Santa@reddit
Yes, this was brought up after BA approached the city with a proposal of a flight. The city did not reach out to BA saying "hey come to STL we'll pay you this incentive". BA was going to do the flight regardless but the incentive is a nice bonus for them because STL wants to retain them.
Viking_Musicologist@reddit
Agreed. This could possibly work.
grain_farmer@reddit
IIRC The airspace closures over Russia have hurt BA’s competitiveness in Asia and they have slowly been leaning more and more towards the US.
They have a very decent short haul coverage for Europe, so I’m guessing they are going for airports not served by Lufthansa / KLM / Air France
I may be mistaken but I think their strategy is for BA to focus on US/CA and Iberia to focus on Latin America, and eventually when Aerlingus get all their A321XLRs those will be on lower demand US routes (Aer lingus has poor short haul connections).
k_dubious@reddit
BA is serving quite a few midsize American airports these days. BWI, PDX, BNA, etc.
Specific-Storage5332@reddit
And CVG! It's been popular enough that they increased the weekly frequency and upsized their plane (787-8 to 777-200ER)
RipCurl69Reddit@reddit
We did LHR to CVG last year! Both times on a 787-8 and it was quite frankly amazing for our first ever non-European flight. Even got it printed on a shirt xD
Ficsit-Incorporated@reddit
I’m still surprised that BA has regular flights to both IAD and BWI. They’re barely 30 miles apart and neither is especially slot constrained as far as I know.
UniqueThanks@reddit
I’ve taken the BWI route twice. It was a 777 both times and J was full
itsme92@reddit
They’re 58 miles apart by road, easily 2-3 hours during rush hour
Ficsit-Incorporated@reddit
To me, air distance is the more reasonable measure if you’re BA. Also, as a DC resident, I can tell you from experience that drive can be made in 90 minutes or less even during rush hour.
maverick4002@reddit
Why would air distance be more reasonable when, if the comment is correct, the actuality is that its close to a 3 hour drive between the airports? That makes the catchment area significantly different and further apart.
Also, BA serves JFK and EWR which are closer
Ficsit-Incorporated@reddit
I’m not an airline dispatcher or route planner so maybe I have inaccurate perceptions, but road journey times seem unlikely to factor into how an airline lays out its route network. I’m sure BA has good reasons to serve two DC airports, I’m just saying I’m curious to know what they are because the answer isn’t obvious to me.
You make a fair point about JFK and EWR, but those are much more slot-constrained airports than IAD or BWI. I also live in DC as I said and have flown in and out of all three area airports multiple times. Traffic would have to be beyond apocalyptic for a road trip from BWI to IAD or vice versa to take three hours. At rush hour, 90 to 105 minutes is a much more reasonable estimate. Early in the morning or late at night, you could do it in barely an hour.
itsme92@reddit
If you live in DC I wonder if you’re underestimating suburban traffic patterns? I used to work in Tysons and I had coworkers who lived in Bethesda and it took them 60-90 minutes to get home via the American legion bridge
Speedbird223@reddit
BWI is heavily subsidised by local government.
Ficsit-Incorporated@reddit
So are DCA and IAD, though. So there has to be more to it than that.
Speedbird223@reddit
I’ve clarified my post, the Maryland government provide subsidies to British Airways to operate the BWI route, about $5m/yr.
Ficsit-Incorporated@reddit
That’s a fair distinction, thank you. The state government subsidizing the route directly can definitely factor into BA’s planning.
Front-Newspaper-1847@reddit
40 miles and at many times of day a 3 hour drive.
Turbulent_Crow7164@reddit
The DMV is big, and BWI serves a region that extends pretty far north and east of it (opposite direction from IAD). Not too many people from Baltimore and suburbs are gonna want to fly out of IAD, 1.5-2 hrs away with traffic. I suppose if there’s enough of a market from Baltimore alone it could drive the BWI flight
lightningzap66@reddit
but not MSP...
SoothedSnakePlant@reddit
SkyTeam is basically holding the whole airport hostage, so that's not surprising.
lightningzap66@reddit
the airport has actually been trying to get BA to start a route for 20 years but they wont do it
viccityguy2k@reddit
Delta/KLM stealing all euro connections via AMS
lightningzap66@reddit
and charging 1.5x that price from any other city :/
Planeandaquariumgeek@reddit
Don’t forget SAN
kyach25@reddit
And Pittsburgh as well.
DeltaTule@reddit
Probably a lot of British people who want to come to America to get teeth like ours
bigbadbob85@reddit
No, we come for your extremely high quality food and low gun crime rates.
DeltaTule@reddit
Bruh your guys’ food is known to be straight trash! Like the worst in Europe, if I’m not mistaken? Don’t you guys only eat fish and chips? Then like beans and something else random for breakfast? Our food in California is world class. We have the most Michelin restaurants of anywhere in the world
And go shoot some sub machine guns in Nevada/Arizona/Texas and tell me you didn’t have a good time.
bigbadbob85@reddit
Woah - calm down big man. British food is excellent, certainly much better than a lot of other European countries.
DeltaTule@reddit
And the BBQ in St. Louis is known to be some of the best in the world. There or Kansas City right next door I can’t remember
N104UA@reddit
I believe lots of incentives from the City of St Louis
Greenmantle22@reddit
The Port Authority gave them $4.5 million in direct subsidies to keep the flight going for 2.5 years, rain or shine.
KingC59@reddit (OP)
BA has been been expanding their UK to US market recently (I think this is the 26th US destination for them). Lufthansa launched a STL to Frankfurt route a few years ago, so I would guess a little competition also for the Europe market.
Viking_Musicologist@reddit
Awesome. I love how British Airways is taking advantage of the Versatility of the Boeing 787.
I hope they sometime in the not too distant future consider flying to Cleveland, Raleigh-Durham or even Kansas City.
carrickshairline@reddit
Raleigh is served by AA on the LHR route, so I doubt BA would want to step on the toes of one of their friends.
Both Cleveland and Kansas City don’t seem to have any flights to/from Europe, so I doubt the demand is there for BA to consider it. Shifting passengers onto AA flights to these cities makes more sense.
Viking_Musicologist@reddit
Cleveland does have flights into and out of Europe with Aer Lingus flying non-stop between Cleveland Hopkins and Dublin.
It was pretty big news when they decided to welcome Aer Lingus to the table.
carrickshairline@reddit
Aer Lingus is part of the same group as BA in IAG, so BA probably sees it more convenient to have customers fly to Dublin and then onto Cleveland.
DullMind2023@reddit
I’m always happy that BA serves both Tampa and Orlando. While they are only 75 miles apart, it can take 3 hours to drive.
EmeraldIsler@reddit
I actually saw this flying over Ireland as I was out golfing yesterday! Spotted another aircraft hot on its heels so was curious where they were nothing going.
Ginger_Exhibitionist@reddit
I wondered why this was the most watched flight today on FlightRadar24! That's cool. Excellent photos.
IceBoxPete@reddit
Stl admirals club is the worse
lampypete@reddit
Expanding IAG routes into medium cities. Nashville moved up to A350 freeing up 787 for this route
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