London to Dubai air route takes off: study

LONDON, July 25, 2006 (AFP) - Six of the world's 10 fastest-growing long-haul air routes involve London, with flights between the British capital and Dubai topping the list, according to figures published Tuesday.

The number of available seats on offer between London and Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, has trebled over the last decade, according to data from air transport information company Ascend.

The second fastest-growing route is between London and Chicago, followed by London-Hong Kong and Melbourne-Singapore.

The number of seats available between London and Dubai has soared to 1.25 million in the first half of 2006 compared with 405,433 a decade earlier, according to the firm based at London Heathrow Airport.

The growth was mainly driven by the expansion of Dubai-based airline Emirates, which operates 62 services per week on the route.

British airline Virgin Atlantic began London-Dubai flights earlier this year.

"The huge increase of passenger activity between London and Dubai has mirrored Dubai's growth as a substantial regional power in the areas of tourism, construction, finance and trade over the past decade," said Gehan Talwatte, Ascend's managing director.

"Free trade zones, a shift towards a more service-orientated economy, a state-of-the-art international airport, and wide choice of luxury resorts are all making Dubai an increasingly attractive destination for tourists."

Ascend's 10 fastest-growing long-haul routes in terms of the increase in available seats between the first half of 1996 and the first half of 2006:

1. London-Dubai up 848,270 seats

2. London-Chicago up 552,691 seats

3. London-Hong Kong up 481,675 seats

4. Melbourne-Singapore up 470,023 seats

5. Sydney-Singapore up 441,954 seats

6. London-Singapore up 407,773 seats

7. London-Mumbai up 390,940 seats

8. Dubai-Singapore up 370,630 seats

9. London-New York up 369,885 seats

10. Brisbane-Singapore up 308,952 seats

Well done London! :guns1:

I have done some stats on Hong Kong and Dubai myself:


Dubai and Hong Kong now second only to New York as London's favourite long haul

Demand is exploding to Dubai and Hong Kong! There will soon be twelve daily flights from London to Dubai and eleven or twelve to Hong Kong. Chicago currently has eleven daily flights but they are in smaller planes and enjoy lower loading factors. However this is still well below the more than 28 daily flights (197 per week) that depart London for New York.


London-Dubai (84):
Emirates fly an astonishing eight daily flights to London Heathrow and Gatwick. British Airways also offers a twice daily service, Royal Brunei offer the eleventh, and Virgin Atlantic will offer the twelth daily service by June 1st. Emirates have ordered 45 x A380s (nearly a third of the total ordered number of A380s by all airlines worldwide) and will use them first on their London route. This will only increase capacity and reduce prices even further.

- Emirates = 56
- British Airways = 14
- Virgin Atlantic = 7
- Royal Brunei = 7


London-Hong Kong (82):
Capacity will have virtually doubled to Hong Kong in the last 12 months by the time Air New Zealand's newly announced Hong Kong service commences from October 28th. British Airways recently went from two daily to three daily and Cathay Pacific upped its offer from three to four. Qantas recently upped its frequency to daily and Virgin Atlantic adds the ninth daily service and will add a tenth in two stages in November 2006 and Febraury 2007. Air New Zealand will add the eleventh daily service from late October and longhaul start-up Oasis Airlines will add services to Gatwick from late summer which will create twelve daily London-Hong Kong services on the days that they fly (five per week). Almost all of these services use the largest aircraft flying (Boeing 747-400s, 777s, or A340-600s).

- Cathay Pacific = 28
- British Airways = 21
- Virgin Atlantic = 14
- Qantas Airways = 7
- Air New Zealand = 7
- Oasis Airlines = 5






....and for comparison:






London-Chicago (77):
- American Airlines = 35
- United Airlines = 21
- British Airways = 21


London-New York (197):
- British Airways = 75
- Virgin Atlantic = 42
- American Airlines = 41
- Continental = 18
- United Airlines = 7
- Eos Airlines = 7
- MaxJet = 7


A skyscraper lover's charter! :okay:

Are there figures for actual seat-miles flown, or only seats available?

Dubai's growth has been fast and amazing but I would assume that the majority of flights between London and Dubai, especially on Emirates which has by far the most flights, don't involve more in Dubai than a plane change to India, Pakistan or Australia.

However, I doubt that flights from London to Hong Kong are carrying passengers who plan on transferring to another flight once they finally reach Hong Kong.

The world's top 10 long-haul global growth routes are:
1. London - Dubai
2. London - Chicago
3. London - Hong Kong
4. Melbourne - Singapore
5. Sydney - Singapore
6. London - Singapore
7. London - Mumbai
8. Dubai - Singapore
9. London - New York
10. Brisbane - Singapore

The growth of Singapore to various long-haul destinations suprised me. It's behind London, which is on one end of six of the ten fastest growing long-haul routes, with five of the top ten routes including it. Three are to eastern Australian cities, one to London and one to Dubai. The Dubai-Singapore route is kind of strange as I mainly think of both cities as hubs and not huge destinations or origins of passengers.

I don't know how New York City is booming that much.

I don't know how New York City is booming that much.

All the forumers coming up from Peachtree City in their golf carts! :) :)

Wow, great to see 3 Aussie cities in there!! :)

Dubai's growth has been fast and amazing but I would assume that the majority of flights between London and Dubai, especially on Emirates which has by far the most flights, don't involve more in Dubai than a plane change to India, Pakistan or Australia.

However, I doubt that flights from London to Hong Kong are carrying passengers who plan on transferring to another flight once they finally reach Hong Kong.

The world's top 10 long-haul global growth routes are:
1. London - Dubai
2. London - Chicago
3. London - Hong Kong
4. Melbourne - Singapore
5. Sydney - Singapore
6. London - Singapore
7. London - Mumbai
8. Dubai - Singapore
9. London - New York
10. Brisbane - Singapore

The growth of Singapore to various long-haul destinations suprised me. It's behind London, which is on one end of six of the ten fastest growing long-haul routes, with five of the top ten routes including it. Three are to eastern Australian cities, one to London and one to Dubai. The Dubai-Singapore route is kind of strange as I mainly think of both cities as hubs and not huge destinations or origins of passengers.

WTG, London-Chicago #2! Apparently Londoners are intersting in skyscraper cities like Chicago, Dubai and HK....The 3 top contender for the world's best skyline next few years! :)
and of course NYC, but it is #9 on the rank so....

WTG, London-Chicago #2! Apparently Londoners are intersting in skyscraper cities like Chicago, Dubai and HK....The 3 top contender for the world's best skyline next few years! :)
and of course NYC, but it is #9 on the rank so....
As typical the wrong conclusion.

The main routes are between cities that serve as hubs. Chicago, by being smack in the middle of the country, gives you access to the greater United States. So, people flying to Chicago, like people flying to Dubai, are flying there typically to go to another destination especially the country's second largest city, LA, with some obviously staying in Chicago itself. However, London-New York flights ending in New York are typically going to have most people staying in New York.

As typical the wrong conclusion.

The main routes are between cities that serve as hubs. Chicago, by being smack in the middle of the country, gives you access to the greater United States. So, people flying to Chicago, like people flying to Dubai, are flying there typically to go to another destination especially the country's second largest city, LA, with some obviously staying in Chicago itself. However, London-New York flights ending in New York are typically going to have most people staying in New York.

lol, oh really, I can see that why you are so concern about people flying to Chicago because they only want to be connected, you are from NYC, what do you know how people are connecting or not in Chicago. The important thing is that Chicago - London are #2 on the fastest long haul air routes while NYC is #9 :)

lol, oh really, I can see that why you are so concern about people flying to Chicago because they only want to be connected, you are from NYC, what do you know how people are connecting or not in Chicago. The important thing is that Chicago - London are #2 on the fastest long haul air routes while NYC is #9 :)
.......because you can't fly directly from London to America's second city, LA. ;)

The sole reason why NYC fails miserably as a hub is because of its location. Chicago, however, is blessed by it. It would kind of make sense for more people to fly from London, one of the world's financial centers, to New York, one of the other world's financial center's don't ya thik?

.......because you can't fly directly from London to America's second city, LA. ;)

The sole reason why NYC fails miserably as a hub is because of its location. Chicago, however, is blessed by it. It would kind of make sense for more people to fly from London, one of the world's financial centers, to New York, one of the other world's financial center's don't ya thik?

Yes, and another reason to fly to the world's furture financial center don't you think??? :)

That explains why the #2 fastest growing long haul air traffics in Chicago! :runaway:

.......because you can't fly directly from London to America's second city, LA. ;)I hope you are joking! There are almost as many flights from London to Los Angeles as there are from London to Chicago!

I also don't agree that New York has a poor location for a hub. It simply lacks a major hub airline. In fact New York is ideally placed to feed Trans-Atlantic traffic to the rest of the United States - better than Chicago in fact. Imagine a passenger from Europe aiming for a final destination somewhere on the US's densely populated and economically important eastern seaboard. If he transfers in Chicago he has fly over his destination to the Mid West and then turn around and fly back to the coast again! If he arrives in New York he simply flies down the coast - a far more efficient transfer.

Otherwise you are completely right however. The reason Chicago is a hub is because American Airlines, the world's largest airline, and British Airways, the world's largest long-haul and Trans-Atlantic airline, are Oneworld partners. Any destinations in the US that BA does not fly to direct are likely to involve a transfer through Chicago with AA.

Also the figures are already out-of-date. If the figures for the latter half of 2006 are included then Hong Kong has grown much faster than Chicago. Also London-New York has added a lot more new capacity this year. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have both added an extra daily flight to New York this year and two entirely new airlines (Eos and MaxJet) have started flying London to New York with business class only. Yet another new airline, SilverJet, will commence London to New York business-only operations in the next six months. For the first time traffic has exceeded the previous records set in in 2000 (ie before September 11th). London to New York remains by far the world's busiest and most most competitive long-haul route. :)

Dubai's growth has been fast and amazing but I would assume that the majority of flights between London and Dubai, especially on Emirates which has by far the most flights, don't involve more in Dubai than a plane change to India, Pakistan or Australia.

However, I doubt that flights from London to Hong Kong are carrying passengers who plan on transferring to another flight once they finally reach Hong Kong.

The growth of Singapore to various long-haul destinations suprised me. It's behind London, which is on one end of six of the ten fastest growing long-haul routes, with five of the top ten routes including it. Three are to eastern Australian cities, one to London and one to Dubai. The Dubai-Singapore route is kind of strange as I mainly think of both cities as hubs and not huge destinations or origins of passengers.There is a lot of kangaroo traffic (ie London to Australia) via Hong Kong and Singapore as well as Dubai. In fact both of the far eastern cities offer a faster transfer between London and Sydney than via Dubai. Virgin Atlantic and Qantas will soon be joined by Air New Zealand in offering services from London to Australasia via Hong Kong. Of course Cathay Pacific offers this sevice too. British Airways route their kangeroo services through Bangkok and Singapore where they compete with Thai and Singapore Airlines. However even British Airways feed a lot of Asia and Australasia bound traffic to Hong Kong, where they can be transfered to their final destination by their Oneworld partner, Cathay Pacific.

However there is undoubtedly a very large and growing O&D traffic between London and Hong Kong too. Hong Kong is booming and has consolidated its lead as the preferred base for British business in China and Asia/Pacific. There is also a substantial community of British expats in Hong Kong and perhaps the majority of Britain's established Chinese community (ie not including illegals or students) originate from Hong Kong. There are also loads of Chinese students in British universities (about the same amount in total as in US universities - and more than half of the EU total of Chinese students). A lot of these are from Hong Kong and Taiwan - the Taiwanese very often come via Hong Kong too. Britain's Filipinos also tend to transfer between London and the Philippines via Hong Kong.

The world's top 10 long-haul global growth routes are:
1. London - Dubai
2. London - Chicago
3. London - Hong Kong
4. Melbourne - Singapore
5. Sydney - Singapore
6. London - Singapore
7. London - Mumbai
8. Dubai - Singapore
9. London - New York
10. Brisbane - Singapore

The growth of Singapore to various long-haul destinations suprised me. It's behind London, which is on one end of six of the ten fastest growing long-haul routes, with five of the top ten routes including it. Three are to eastern Australian cities, one to London and one to Dubai. The Dubai-Singapore route is kind of strange as I mainly think of both cities as hubs and not huge destinations or origins of passengers.

I guess Singapore and Dubai is feeding passengers to each other....:lol:

@ nick in atlanta: what do you think hubs are...? they work as a hub for short distance to long and the other way round. therefore the dubai-singapore is quite understandable. many flights from smaller countries in the gulf or eastern africa do not fly directly to many destinations in eastern asia so they grab a flight to dubai, change onto a long-haul to singapore and from there on they can reach virtually any destination in eastern asia. quite logical imo.

New York would be a good hub for eastern USA but for most of the rest Chicago is just as well placed as New York. See this map showing flight paths from LHR to JFK, ORD, and LAX...

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gcmap?PATH=LHR-LAX,LHR-JFK,LHR-ORD

The London-Dubai route can't have nearly as much O/D traffic as LHR-NYC, LHR-HKG and so on...

The only reason why DXB enjoys extremely increasing passenger figures is spelled E m i r a t e s A i r l i n e s, which the Dubai government simply pumps money into, in order for DXB to become a big hub.

London <> New York
London <> Mumbai
London <> Dubai
Dubai <> Singapore

New York would be a good hub for eastern USA but for most of the rest Chicago is just as well placed as New York. See this map showing flight paths from LHR to JFK, ORD, and LAX...

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gcmap?PATH=LHR-LAX,LHR-JFK,LHR-ORD

Nice graphically representation!
Anyway...
2. London-Chicago up 552,691 seats

London-NYC long-haul growth rates still remain behind Chicago due to Chicago's wonderful position as intern-domestic-transcational hub in the center of the universe! :jk:

I was wondering how many flights a day does BA have to Singapore?

I know Gulf Air flies two of these routes (used to be 3 though)

I was wondering how many flights a day does BA have to Singapore?From London there are 4 x British Airways flights per day to Singapore. Some of these go onwards to Sydney as well.

From London there are 4 x British Airways flights per day to Singapore. Some of these go onwards to Sydney as well.

Only 2x British Airways flights per day, other are 2 x QF and 3 x SQ

^^ Thanks

I guess Singapore and Dubai is feeding passengers to each other....:lol:

Well that's my point. Two hub airports feeding ongoing traffic to each other. It doesn't really make sense. When someone flies from Sydney to London they need to make a stop due to the distance and maybe because flying through a hub airport is often cheaper than a nonstop flight. So they'd fly Sydney-Singapore-London or Sydney-Dubai-London, but who'd fly Sydney-Singapore-Dubai-London. Firstly, you'd probably have to fly two different airlines, which is almost always more expensive and secondly, you'd have to change planes twice instead of just once. Not very likely. :)

I hope you are joking! There are almost as many flights from London to Los Angeles as there are from London to Chicago!

I also don't agree that New York has a poor location for a hub. It simply lacks a major hub airline. In fact New York is ideally placed to feed Trans-Atlantic traffic to the rest of the United States - better than Chicago in fact. Imagine a passenger from Europe aiming for a final destination somewhere on the US's densely populated and economically important eastern seaboard. If he transfers in Chicago he has fly over his destination to the Mid West and then turn around and fly back to the coast again! If he arrives in New York he simply flies down the coast - a far more efficient transfer.

Otherwise you are completely right however. The reason Chicago is a hub is because American Airlines, the world's largest airline, and British Airways, the world's largest long-haul and Trans-Atlantic airline, are Oneworld partners. Any destinations in the US that BA does not fly to direct are likely to involve a transfer through Chicago with AA.

Also the figures are already out-of-date. If the figures for the latter half of 2006 are included then Hong Kong has grown much faster than Chicago. Also London-New York has added a lot more new capacity this year. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have both added an extra daily flight to New York this year and two entirely new airlines (Eos and MaxJet) have started flying London to New York with business class only. Yet another new airline, SilverJet, will commence London to New York business-only operations in the next six months. For the first time traffic has exceeded the previous records set in in 2000 (ie before September 11th). London to New York remains by far the world's busiest and most most competitive long-haul route. :)


good post....it's good to see some intelligent posts as opposed to biased posts based on people's origin/location....
by the way....nyc does have jetblue...which isn't a hub-and-spoke airline but it does offer a lot of flights from ny-metro airports....especially jfk

Well that's my point. Two hub airports feeding ongoing traffic to each other. It doesn't really make sense. When someone flies from Sydney to London they need to make a stop due to the distance and maybe because flying through a hub airport is often cheaper than a nonstop flight. So they'd fly Sydney-Singapore-London or Sydney-Dubai-London, but who'd fly Sydney-Singapore-Dubai-London. Firstly, you'd probably have to fly two different airlines, which is almost always more expensive and secondly, you'd have to change planes twice instead of just once. Not very likely. :)

There are a lot of middle east tourist who come to SEA for travel, I guess thats the reason why the traffic between Singapore and Dubai grows so fast.....:yes:

Emirates operates daily Dubai-Singapore-Brisbane return (EK432/433) as well as daily Dubai-Singapore-Melbourne return (EK404/405). In Melbourne's case they operate twice daily with the second service going Dubai nonstop with the A345.

Many Australians that fly Emirates are connecting to destinations in Europe particularly London.

BA advertisements in Singapore MRT:

http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/7950/pic0313814lw.jpg
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/4545/pic0313714rv.jpg

taken by babystan03

^^That is quite clever. BA has always had some clever advertising. I was visiting relatives in Cape Town, South Africa in early 1990s and BA had twice weekly nonstop service to London. The sign at the airport said "Pick a Tuesday, pick a Thursday, Piccadilly!" I still remember it 15 years later.

^ Wow!

Last time I was in Nairobi (Kenya), there were quite a few BA advertisements along the main highway through the city (Uhuru Highway). I can't remember what they said though.

BA flies twice daily to Nairobi, with a Boeing 747-400 (BA064 or 065) and a 767. The airliner uses Nairobi as a stop-over to the Seychelles, Lilongwe and some other places in Africa.

BA really is the undisputed king of long-haul air travel!
Their ads are very common here as well. Especially on taxis.

Yep, from London they fly to: (not including franchise airlines)

- Algiers
- Luanda
- Cairo
- Accra
- Nairobi
- Tripoli
- Lilongwe
- Mahebourg
- Abuja
- Lagos
- Cape Town
- Johannesburg
- Dar Es Salaam
- Entebbe (Kampala)
- Lusaka
- Harare

-Beijing
- Hong Kong
- Shanghai
- Tokyo
- Dhaka
- Chennai
- Mumbai
- Kolkata
- New Delhi
- Bangalore
- Islamabad
- Singapore
- Bangkok

- Manama
- Tel Aviv
- Kuwait City
- Muscat
- Doha
- Abu Dhabi
- Dubai

- Calgary
- Vancouver
- Toronto
- Montreal
- Mexico City
- Phoenix/Scottsdale
- Los Angeles
- San Francisco
- Denver
- Miami
- Orlando
- Tampa
- Atlanta
- Chicago
- Baltimore
- Boston
- Detroit
- Newark
- New York City
- Philadelphia
- Dallas/Ft. Worth
- Houston
- Washington DC
- Seattle/Tacoma

- Buenos Aires
- Sao Paulo
- Rio de Janeiro
- Antigua
- Nassau, Bahamas
- Bridgetown, Barbados
- Grenada
- Kingston, Jamaica
- Vieux-Fort, Saint Lucia
- Trinidad & Tobago
- Bermuda
- Georgetown, Grand Cayman
- Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands

- Sydney

^^
That's amazingly impressive.
The number of asian destinations is surprisingly small though, I think.

CAN, KIX, NGO, SGN, MNL, CGK and KUL are holes in the destination map I think! :)

Yep, even I was surprised as I was writing this down. I knew they didn't fly to KUL, but they could really pick up on some other routes.

A route they could exploit is London-Amritsar. There is a large Indian population towards the west of London (concentrated around Southall), as well as across the UK, and many of these are Punjabi and Sikh. Amritsar is the centre of the Punjab region, as well as home to the gold-temple, just about the most important place in the Sikh religion.

If they flew there direct from the UK, they would be the only airliner to do so, and make alotta money out of it! I have one Sikh friend who travelled to Amritsar via Moscow and Almaty...

Another place they should fly to is Seoul!.. but I won't give a long reason why :)

^^
Oh, I completely forgot about ICN too. :)

I think British Airways used to serve ICN but then stopped flying there.

BA dropped a lot of routes to E/SE Asia in the 90s. They used to fly to Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Osaka, Taipei, Manila, and Jakarta. Now they are reduced to just Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok, and Singapore. Of these Shanghai is the only recently opened route (until 2005 Virgin Atlantic was the sole British carrier awarded the rights to Shanghai by the Chinese government). BA's retreat from the Far East followed the Asian economic crisis in the late '90s and also its own programme to persue profits rather than "flag waving" - a legacy of when it had been a state run airline. Another reason has been membership of Oneworld where partner airlines like Cathay Pacific and, to a lesser extent, Qantas, can offer the onward connections to smaller E/SE Asian cities leaving BA to focus exclusively on the major hubs - often with increased frequencies to attract business traffic. Routes like Manila and Taipei were always onward hops from Hong Kong even when operated by BA. It makes more sense for Cathay Pacific to offer connections to those cities than for BA to operate them themselves. Yet another reason is the fact that most traffic between Britain and Seoul, Osaka, and Taipei is for Japanese, Koreans and Taiwanese rather than Brits. None of these cities are major tourist destinations for Brits and British business in Asia is based in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and, to a lesser extent, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. For that reason it makes more sense for JAL, Korean Air, Asiana, and EVA to offer the direct flights to London from Osaka, Seoul, and Taipei. London-Seoul has seen strong growth in recent years but I doubt BA will re-enter the market as the increase in traffic is being generated by newly affluent Koreans rather than Brits. Kuala Lumpur is the only route that BA is likely to re-enter in the next few years. Despite the pruning of less profitable routes in the late '90s, BA has never carried more passengers to E/SE Asia than today. That can be put down to the growth of China, recovery of SE Asia, and the increase in frequencies to E/SE Asian cities with the strongest demand. They have the right strategy. :)

The other area where BA has been shedding destinations is South America. Caracas and Bogata have recently been dropped. There is relatively little business or tourist traffic to these destinations originating in Britain. BA would rather use the limited slots at Heathrow to provide additional services on its key profitable routes - such as New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong etc.... Also BA's Oneworld partner, Iberia, operates a lot of South American routes via Madrid.

I'm surprised by a lot of the cities BA don't serve too (Seou, Osaka, Durban). They have a lot of service to the US though (19 cities!). That's a really neat ad in the Singapore MRT. It's Gloucester Road, I believe?

BA's Middle East and Africa revenue and capacity growth rates are very strong relative to other regions.

June 2006 (vs. y/y)
# Pax carried +17% to 276k
RPK +16% to 1.84 million (larger than Asia)
ASK +15% to 2.4 million (larger than Asia)

BA dropped a lot of routes to E/SE Asia in the 90s. They used to fly to Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Osaka, Taipei, Manila, and Jakarta.
Well, most European carriers dropped "such routes" by that time. SAS, for example, had a massive route network world wide at that time.

BA should be serving those destinations simply for prestigeous reasons! :D

And, Monkey, could you please put some space within your text - it's annoying to read it when it's lumped together like that. ;) :)

I'm surprised by a lot of the cities BA don't serve too (Seou, Osaka, Durban). They have a lot of service to the US though (19 cities!).

You can talk about all the long-haul route growth that you want, but over half of BA's revenues are generated between the US and Heathrow/Gatwick. Rapidly growing markets like London-Dubai, etc. may be rapidly growing markets, but large established markets like the US are the core of BA's business.

You can talk about all the long-haul route growth that you want, but over half of BA's revenues are generated between the US and Heathrow/Gatwick. Rapidly growing markets like London-Dubai, etc. may be rapidly growing markets, but large established markets like the US are the core of BA's business.

I read in a news article last year and am not sure if this true..

http://www.blonnet.com/2005/11/15/stories/2005111503030900.htm

Mr Willie Walsh, CEO, who is on his first visit to the country, said India was British Airways' second biggest long-haul market after North America and the third biggest after the UK and the US.

@Suncity: India may be the third largest market for BA after the US, but I would think it is quite far behind the US. There must be between 30 and 40 daily flights between the US and Heathrow/Gatwick on BA, while there are only 35 weekly flights to five cities in India at present. The article makes a mistake and says there are 35 daily flights to India for BA, but if you read the article again you'll see it must be 35 flights a week.