Overview
During the summer, I was fortunate to be invited for work experience at British Airways. I visited the iconic Waterside British Airways office in Heathrow and later attended an Apprenticeship insight day. The project I was tasked with during my visit to the office was to decide which new narrowbody aircraft British Airways should invest in by creating a presentation and touching on the following:
- Aircraft range & payload
- Pilot training & fleet commonality
- Network opportunities
- Purchase price
- Competitor fleets
- Slot availability at bases
Links
My Presentation
I started by listing all of the possible narrowbody aircraft that British Airways could choose, this included the Boeing 737s, the Airbus A220 and A320 families, aswell as the Embraers E-jet family.
I then focused on the slot availability at the different operational bases that British Airways are at, including Heathrow, Gatwick and London City, concluding that Heathrow was extremely busy, whilst London City had a lot of free slots and was recently authorised to increase passenger movements by 39%.
Therefore, I began to focus on London City Airport as it had sufficent slot capacity for an expansion. Listing out the aircraft that were suitable for London City Airport brought my options down to the E-jets family (3 of them) or the A220-100, whilst the A320neo and A220-300 were pending regulatory approval.
After examining the remaining options in terms of range, network opportunities and competitors, I concluded
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The E195-E2 would be the best option for profitability due to an increased range over the current E190-E1, great fuel efficiency, cockpit commonality and a higher capacity compared to the A220.
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However, the A320neo would be a great fit for London City Airport if certified, as it offers an increased number of passenger movements without increasing the airport's aircraft movements, provides perfect fleet commanality and offers the superior fuel efficiency of all the aircraft compared.
Future Improvements
After presenting and recieving some feedback, I think I would have touched more on the other bases that British Airways operates out of, as they are also active at Manchester Airport.
I should have also touched more on the seat layout of the aircrafts i.e. business vs all-economy and how that may affect profitability.
What I learnt
I learnt a significantly lot more about the Embraer E-jet series from my vague knowledge about them before.
I also corrected my mistake that direct transatlantic flights from London City Aircraft were possible, actually, the runway length of the airport is too small for the fuel payload (i.e. weight) required.
There are significant opportunities for British Airways to expand at London City Airport.