subject: British Airways To Use Chartered Planes For Christmas Flights Backlog [print this page] British Airways To Use Chartered Planes For Christmas Flights Backlog
UK's leading airline British Airways has been one of the many highly affected airlines during the long week of Snow Chaos. During the past week, in addition to Gatwick, Edinburg and Dublin London Heathrow airport also remained close to traffic and at times, catering to only reduced travels.
According to recent news by British Airways, the airline has come up with a contingency plan and will be using chartered flights to coop with the need of the hour. Hundreds and Thousands of passengers are stranded in worldwide destinations due to adverse weather and frozen airports in Europe.
British Airways has announced to use four chartered planes that will be setting the airports in motion again and thousands of air travelers will be able to make it to their destinations. The airline chartered four aircraft complete with crew for today and yesterday, and will also use them tomorrow to get people to their destinations in time for Christmas.
December, is a peak season month and is considered the busiest for any airline. However, this air the adverse weather conditions have made air travel almost impossible. The airport closures due to snow over the past six days have resulted in the cancellation of approximately 2,000 flights. British Airways CEO Willie Walsh has stated that it is a "huge logistical task". He added:
"We typically spend six weeks pulling together the complex Christmas rosters for our 14,000 cabin crew and more than 3,000 pilots. Those 17,000 rosters are like a giant global jigsaw puzzle, which has been torn up by the days of disruption at Heathrow and around the world."
In addition to the charter flights, the airline has also increased capacity by using 275-seat B777s instead of B767 or A320 Aircraft on busy routes including flights to Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Madrid. British Airways has started a normal operation from December 23, 2010 resuming a normal flight schedule, as much as possible.
Other important and challenging routes for British Airways include flights to Johannesburg, Nairobi, Mombasa, Lusaka, Cape Town, Sydney, Auckland, Lagos, Durbanand other warmer destinations that are most selling routes during European winters.
