British Airways cancels the planned 100th anniversary Boeing 747 domestic flights

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Last week we reported that British Airways was sending its three ‘retro’ repainted Boeing 747s in BOAC, Landor and Negus heritage livery to Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow on 25th August.

These flights are now cancelled.

Once these planes had been spotted in the timetable, people piled in to book. Tickets were soon selling for many times the amount you would usually pay for a flight from London – in some cases as much as £400 for an Economy return which is, frankly, absurd for a thirty minute flight.

The general assumption was that, since the August bank holiday marks British Airway’s ‘official’ 100th birthday, these flights would be involved in some sort of celebration event.

British Airways put out a statement yesterday saying there would be no ‘celebrations’ on these flights, and that passengers could have refunds if they wanted. The flights were then switched back to the usual short haul aircraft to ram home the point.

In its statement, BA said that it is “still considering our options for that weekend and will release details in due course”. This suggests that something will happen over the late August Bank Holiday weekend, but these Boeing 747 flights will no longer be part of it.

The actual position here is clouded by the fact that BA’s travel trade announcement blames:

“Some aviation websites [which] made a guess at what we were planning, but we were very clear that this was speculation.”

However, a Flyertalk moderator and uber-heavy BA flyer claims that advance notice of the flights was given to some top customers – including himself – so that they could book straight away if they wished ……

HfP was not promising anyone a great spectacle. Rob wrote:

“I am confused by the enthusiasm. These are all very old Boeing 747 aircraft which are, literally, on the way to the scrapheap. They look good in the new liveries but inside there is nothing special about them. I doubt British Airways can do anything creative on-board in such a short flying time – I doubt there is time to serve anything at all.

If you are SO keen to fly a British Airways long-haul plane on a short-haul route, remember that you can fly a Boeing 777 to Madrid every day of the week. During August, although it is not yet in the timetable, you will be able to fly to Madrid on the brand new A350 with Club Suite in Business Class. Now that is worth doing ….”

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Category

British Airways and Avios

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Hugh says:

8 Jun8 June 05:50

Well seat availability has improved dramatically on BA1487 – it’s gone from being unbookable in Club on a 747, to full 10 rows of CE on a A319, when the email was sent out about cancelling and now there’s 15 seats available
John says:

8 Jun8 June 05:52

Well I’m glad I cashed out my M&M earned from Hilton for gift cards. Basically got £60 extra free for Hilton stays that I would have made anyway, who cares about the nominal valuation
- BJ says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 06:31
  
  Thai Smiles joining *A in 2020 so at least another option to use lower amounts of LH miles on poor redemptions. I might now just cash out on gift cards myself unless they have been scrapped too?
  - Jamie says:
    
    8 Jun8 June 07:37
    
    Thai Smile is not joining StarAlliance – it will be becoming a Connecting Partner.
    You will get StarAlliance benefits, but you there is no guarantee that you be able to redeem Lufthansa Miles&More/(Less) miles on them.
    - BJ says:
      
      8 Jun8 June 07:48
      
      Thanks, that seems a bit pointless 🙂 The one route I might use Thai domestic has become Thai Smiles putting a spanner in the works of !A for me.
Bagoly says:

8 Jun8 June 06:14

Will Heathrow Rewards to M&M be next to be shut off?
I have just transferred all mine across.
Unfortunately that removes the flexibility that in some low probability scenario I might have preferred them as KrisFlyer/Cathay points.
- Bagoly says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 06:20
  
  Transferring from Heathrow Rewards to M&M using Firefox, I was somewhat surprised to see a message at bottom left: “Sending request o http://www.facebook.com“.
  It happened each time, and I managed to get one screenshot showing it.
  I rarely use facebook, and I have checked that no user was logged in to it on that browser.
  They really are harvesting everything!
- meta says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 06:27
  
  Think this will be ok. You can’t buy directly Heathrow Rewards points.
Concerto says:

8 Jun8 June 06:33

I think Miles & More is as good as dead. It has become so unbelievably insultingly crap in the last couple of years, coincidentally since the bankruptcy of Air Berlin, that it is not worth bothering with. Not sure which Star FFP is best to join, maybe Aegean, maybe just leave Star alone altogether. I have always said that allowing this vile monopoly (LH) to control all the airlines (yes, all) was a big mistake. In addition to the FFP is the dreadful service on LH Group airlines, especially SWISS (this one has gone so far downhill that I simply don’t book them any more, despite living in Switzerland).
- Concerto says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 06:34
  
  I meant to say “control all the airlines of central Europe”.
  - Concerto says:
    
    8 Jun8 June 06:39
    
    In addition, if they stop transfers from Payback in Germany then a lot of us are really stuffed because there’s absolutely nothing I would use my Payback points for (except cashing out). Payback and COOP supermarket in Switzerland were the only remaining ways to earn Miles & More miles here in central Europe (I don’t include the newspaper subs because they now have such a bad ratio). Forget flying for earning miles.
BJ says:

8 Jun8 June 06:35

What am I missing here, why isn’t every other frequent flyer scheme having the same legal problem as M&M?
- Marcw says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 07:26
  
  It will depend on the outcome. Very interesting times ahead.
  - BJ says:
    
    8 Jun8 June 07:59
    
    Just seems odd that there isn’t a feeding frenzy in the states already.
- Peter K says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 08:37
  
  OMAAT says it’s a German law causing the problem (though their coverage of the topic is generally less in depth than here).
- Michael says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 15:11
  
  Etihad do their cash out miles scheme remember.
Sam G says:

8 Jun8 June 06:37

PSA: the early May holiday has moved to the 8th May! So if you locked in Avios tickets for a long weekend then you’ve got the wrong one and if didn’t then get in quick now!
- Neil Donoghue says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 11:10
  
  You life saver!! Thankfully got the last 2 tickets for the following weekend! Phew
Hedgecock says:

8 Jun8 June 06:49

Of course it’s environmentally unfriendly. What kind of fanboy bollard would try to argue that an old, full 747 with 4 engines creates less CO2 than a modern A320 with 2?
- Andrew says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 07:26
  
  We wouldn’t argue that, we just don’t care.
- Rob says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 08:48
  
  But on a ‘per passenger’ basis ….
  - Callum says:
    
    8 Jun8 June 09:31
    
    Every comparison I’ve seen before has put the smaller A320s as MUCH more efficient on a per passenger basis than the 747.
    
    Not that anyone should be flying from London to Manchester full stop if they cared about the environment!
    - Darren says:
      
      8 Jun8 June 09:41
      
      Train or car?
      - Callum says:
        
        8 Jun8 June 10:29
        
        If you’re doing it for environmental reasons then coach. I’d imagine one person in a car isn’t much better (if at all) than a full 747.
  - Fc99 says:
    
    9 Jun9 June 21:30
    
    Is per passenger relevant though as the emissions are the same whether there’s 5 people on the plane versus 500 (unless having more people on a plane reduces emissions due to reasons I don’t understand)
- Tariq says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 09:45
  
  Interesting argument (and I don’t know the answer) – what creates more CO2 – a fully loaded 744 or two fully loaded 320s?
  - Rob says:
    
    8 Jun8 June 09:48
    
    You have 2 x take-offs to consider as well though …
Alan W says:

8 Jun8 June 06:59

Rob

Last weekend I used some MM miles to purchase some Gap and Amazon vouchers. I got an instant email confirmation and it stated I would get a separate email with the vouchers attached.

I got nothing after a few days and noticed my miles hadn’t been deducted from my MM account. I chased it up yesterday with Cadooz (company that deals with the vouchers) and they said Lufthansa had cancelled the transaction. I assume this is to do with the suspensions you mention in your article?
- BJ says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 07:24
  
  Thanks for this, thought as much. Plan B must now be hotel redemptions unless they have scrapped them too.
- Rob says:
  
  8 Jun8 June 08:47
  
  Guess so – after all, it is putting a cash value on the miles.
  - BJ says:
    
    8 Jun8 June 10:31
    
    Latest email a few minutes ago is still advertising both gift cards and hotel redemptions so they are not doing a very effective job of covering all angles.