British Airways: Strategic Airline Expansion through Route Development

This report examines British Airways' strategy for airline expansion through new route development, particularly focusing on short-haul flights from Gatwick Airport to Edinburgh. The analysis considers the impact of the pandemic on airline operations and explores how British Airways aims to generate profits by selecting optimal routes and aircraft configurations. The report highlights the potential of the Gatwick to Edinburgh route, emphasizing its appeal to tourists and students, and discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with this expansion. Furthermore, it addresses operational considerations such as flight frequency, passenger benefits, and the management of in-flight services, taking into account the ongoing restrictions and uncertainties caused by the pandemic. The study also touches upon the broader political and environmental factors affecting the aviation industry, including Brexit and environmental concerns.

AIRLINE EXPANSION AND
NEW ROUTE
DEVELOPMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Pandemic has resulted in many impositions which have lead to restrict the airlines
operation to the ground or operate in very few regions. This loss had airlines come up with some
changes in the business operations and exploring different ideas for expansion in order to cope
up with all the lose (Colmenares-Quintero, Góez-Sánchez and Colmenares-Quintero, 2018).
There are many ways which can help the company to generate profits by selecting the different
routes along with different configuration of the aircraft keeping in mind the current situation.
British Airways is the airline which is the flag carrier of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered
in London., UK and has a good fleet size in operation.
MAIN BODY
British airways has a track record of offering new services with a coordination with the
airports. During the time of pandemic it is important to have an effective development of routes
as a strategy for the company to attain a long term growth. pandemic has decreased the airline
traffic around all the different routes and has hit majorly to the connecting passengers. This crisis
has lead to some structural change happening within industry. British airways has reviewed the
potential destinations based on their demand, demographics and other important things such as
how much will the passenger be ready to spend. The company has grown the fleet and has stay
committed to bring in new destinations for its target audience. British airways has a common
fleet of single class having the configuration of the Airbus models. Company has started with the
short haul expansion strategy which is related to directly fly out of London Gatwick airport. This
will help the company earn the profits in the way (Fang, Zhang and Cowlagi, 2018). The
company will operate its A320 and A321 model of Airbus to run from Gatwick airport. Airlines
have the choice to choose the destination to be served when deciding for new routes. The airport
is quicker and situated at the central position and thus, British airways must operate to more
destinations from this airport of London. The new route is from London, Gatwick to
Edinburgh which is important for tourism activity. Edinburgh is a place which attracts the
tourists with its castles and vintage vibe which makes this destination best for generating profits.
Due to pandemic and lockdown, many people are going out and exploring the world before it
closes again. This has created high traffic of passengers leading to Edinburgh, a tourist
destination. This is sustainable throughout the whole year but is comparatively less functional

doing the non seasonal time of year. There are many local people working in London which will
prefer an economic flight back home during the holidays or off season. The shirt haul expansion
is best suited for the British Airways in order to earn profits during the time of pandemic is
because it is very cost convenience with low cost in components and reduced operational costs
for the company. It provides technology validation with less fuel consumption and reduced
aircraft separations. Short haul flights lasts from 30 to 3 hours of flight.
The challenges faced in the process are having loss of passenger traffic due to pandemic
and using for allocated slots. This can create a risk for the airline to be penalised. British airways
has flew in many passengers is not sure in operating from the Gatwick airport as it is
competitively considered as to be less premium airport in terms of others. Gatwick is a large
intentional airport which results in creating major role in the networks (Zhang, and et.al., 2020).
The departure from the Gatwick airport is appropriate for both long and short haul destinations
which makes it accessible to large passenger population. However, flying the shirt haul flights
from other airport will provide a smooth and uninterrupted operations as the demand to return
and restrictions for international travelling will stay at single place.
British airways has chosen this route from Gatwick, London as being influenced by the
government of UK plans to reopen the international travel which means that there will be
summer travel without any restrictions. It should start by operating limited number of short haul
flights with once a daily from Gatwick to Edinburgh to first look at the response of the
passengers. With the fleet of A320 and A321, British airways will attract more passengers to
travel at the economic price especially during summer time. People are looking for easy
accessible destinations such as Edinburgh having the direct flights from Gatwick, London.
Moreover, the passengers from Gatwick airport will receive some benefits such as food offers,
discount on hotels and parking and offers on some premium products.
The company must start with just one flight per two days as there are very few travelling
during pandemic and when the passenger traffic is more, British airways must increase the
flights to one flight per day. There are many students studying in London which are looking to
have economic trip to a place nearby within the budgets. This route is best to attract the students,
increasing the passenger traffic (Zheng, Wenqi and Wenjun, 2019). The politics, government as
well as geography are some of the important parameters which matters in the aviation field and
will continue to increase. The uncertainty due to Brexit is till posing some challenges for the

airline companies leading to create threats to restrict the flights in the event of no deal.
Moreover, there are threats due to the environmental damage, food insecurity along with the risk
of global pandemic (Li and Bai, 2020). This pandemic has done worse for the airline industry
and this short haul route is still facing challenges in managing the restriction faced due to the
pandemic. With the pandemic in mind, the meals in the flight will be offered only on choice with
a cold snack. There are not requests taken for the special meal options as it is not possible to pre-
order the meals for the economy class. The company will keep the prices low to attract
maximum customers and generate profits but in this process, in the short haul flights, the airline
will not have an option for food or drinks but just the complimentary light refreshments. In the
short haul flight from Gatwick, London, it is important for the airline to arrange for some
company at the airport which will handle in the check in, baggage and gate agent duties.
It is important for the British Airways to first look into how many passengers are ready to
travel from Gatwick to Edinburgh while choosing this airline option. The industry wide data
related to the passengers have revealed that there are very few flights operating between London
and Edinburgh which are non stop from competitor airlines. Moreover, the company is looking
to operate with the A380 configuration which is a small aircraft suitable for the less but good
passenger traffic. It makes sense to operate an aircraft with such capacity for a flight route from
Gatwick to Edinburgh. There are many long and connecting flights for this destination and just
one which is non stop. This makes the demand for non flight to this destination by British
airways rise high (Sprengart Schulze and Westphal, 2017). The aircraft runs for every alternate
day with Airbus A380 which is the smallest aircraft for the mission in the current fleet of the
aircraft. There are not many airlines targetting on this route and with high demand this becomes
the best reason to start. Flying to a smaller city with very few airlines in the competition is a
better option to earn profits for British Airways.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that pandemic has changed the business operations of the airline
industry. It is hard to earn profits when the airports were shut down. Companies like British
Airways can afford to develop some strategies in order to attain the profits to cope with the loss
due to pandemic. The company is looking to expand its operations into short haul flights from
Gatwick London. It is profitable for the airline to add in new route in their flight operations.

Route planning can be challenging and involves a deep study of the consequences and taking the
responsibility to offer new route to its passenger.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Colmenares-Quintero, R.F., Góez-Sánchez, G.D. and Colmenares-Quintero, J.C., 2018. Route
planning in real time for short-range aircraft with a constant-volume-combustor-geared
turbofan to minimize operating costs by particle swarm optimization. Cogent
Engineering. 5(1). p.1429984.
Fang, J., Zhang, Z. and Cowlagi, R.V., 2018. Decentralized route-planning to satisfy global
linear temporal logic specifications on multiple aircraft. In 2018 AIAA guidance,
navigation, and control conference (p. 1862).
Li, H. and Bai, J., 2020, October. Multi-aircraft Collaborative Route Planning Scheme Based on
Coevolution. In Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Aviation Safety
and Information Technology(pp. 399-403).
Sprengart, S.M., Schulze, J. and Westphal, J., 2017. Cost Sensitive Trajectory Generation for
Time Constrained Aircraft Route Planning. In 17th AIAA Aviation Technology,
Integration, and Operations Conference (p. 4489).
Zhang, and et.al., 2020. Research on aircraft route planning optimization problem with multi-
constraints and dual-targets. Journal of Mathematics in Industry. 10(1). pp.1-15.
Zheng, X.I.A.N.G., Wenqi, Z.H.A.N.G. and Wenjun, Z.H.A.N.G., 2019. Route planning based
on multi-aircraft conflict avoidance under thunderstorm weather. China Safety Science
Journal. 29(8). p.151.