The (niche) case for the A380

Why the A380 still makes sense for British Airways

In a recent route announcement, British Airways made changes to its Cape Town schedule that went largely unnoticed. In many respects, the change aren’t noteworthy: BA is increasing its seasonal capacity between London and Cape Town and switching some of the seasonal capacity from Gatwick to Heathrow.

South Africa is an important market for BA with multiple daily flights to both Johannesburg and Cape Town. At times it has also served Durban and had, until their demise in early 2020, a unique franchise agreement with Comair who operated domestic and regional services under the BA brand.

BA typically schedule overnight flights in both directions requiring a long ground time in South Africa. Ostensibly, overnight flights are more popular with travellers, particularly business travellers, helping BA generating stronger yields in the premium cabins. Overnight flights are also more efficient for connecting traffic at Heathrow, including connections to/from the rest of Europe and North American flights fed by BA and American Airlines’s massive trans Atlantic network (BA have a joint venture partnership with AA).

Johannesburg and Cape Town are also very different destinations, with business travel and domestic and regional connections focused on Johannesburg and leisure travel heavily focussed on Cape Town. As a result, Johannesburg’s schedule and capacity is consistent across seasons, including the current northern summer (NS 24) and forthcoming northern winter (NW 24/25) seasons. Cape Town’s schedule and capacity increases from a single daily flight during the current NS 24 season and increases to between two and three daily flights during the forthcoming NW 24/25 season.