BA Launches new Airline: "Open Skies"""

BA have announced the formation of a new airline called Open Skies to fly to New York from Paris CDG and Brussels.

The new airline will start in June from either Paris or Brussels with the second European airport being served from late 2008. There is no confirmation on which NYC airport will be used but I would guess it will be JFK.

BA will transfer two 757's to Open Skies and by end of 2009 six a/c will be used by the airline.

What has suprised the industry is that they believed Open Skies would be an all business airline with a few WTP seats. But BA said the 757's will be operated in a 3 class layout, Economy, PE and Business (no indication if they will be called WT, WTP and Club) There will be 24 Business seats that will be fully flat bed. 28 PE seats with 52inch legroom and 30 odd Y class seats. Presumably the introduction of Y is because AF are introducing their full product on LHR-LAX.

The aircraft will be fitted with winglets. I love the proposed livery- very classy in my view. The CEO is the former CEO of JEt Airways.

Further details can be seen at this BA Press Release.

The airline has a website as well at: http://www.flyopenskies.com.

Anyone got any thoughts? Certainly will be interesting to see how the likes of VS/LH etc react.

It's interesting about the seat pitch of the PE product. I wonder if the Y product will be around 38 inches ... thus giving all seats a better than rest of class comparison. Regardless, 84 seats will mean nippy loading/unloading.

Is that Web site the best they could come up with - jeez it's appalling! Like some amateur's attempt at what they think Web 2.0 should be.

I for one think BA are making a big mistake - not only because all their recent attempts at new subsidiaries have failed, witness Go, Deutsche BA, the recent one that got bought by the orange line - but because the one real thing they have in spades is a brand name and a reputation for good service. Why oh why bury the brand in some soft, flacid name like Open Skies! After all, Air France and KLM are flying from Heathrow as ... oh that's right, the same!

Oh well rant off - I just hope VS don't balls it all up by trying to copy [}:)]

Going to be interesting to see what BALPA say...there may be fun over their BA SCOPE agreement.

Originally posted by slinky09
the recent one that got bought by the orange line

Incorrect.

GB Airways was originally an airline in its own right (its roots date back to 1931 as Gibraltar Airways) and had connections with BEA when they acquired a stake in the airline (IIRC it was 49%, same % that SQ holds in VS), and this continued when the BA we all know and love (maybe not on here as much...) was formed in the 70s and only became a BA operation for proper in 1995 when it became a franchise carrier.

The franchise period was supposed to run until 2010 where BA would have had the option to buy the airline outright, but decided against this option and, as we all know, has been sold to easyJet which comes into effect towards the end of March.

To put simply GB Airways was never a BA subsidiary in the same way as Go and Deutsche BA was, instead it's a franchise carrier operation along with Loganair and BMED (before they too got sold to bmi and the GB Airways sale shares similarities), and to say that it was a subsidiary is like comparing apples to oranges.

Originally posted by slinky09

not only because all their recent attempts at new subsidiaries have failed, witness Go,

Hate to also point out that Go did not fail either. It served a purpose and made a profit throughout its 2 years under BA management. Was then sold for £100m to 3i. Go also introduced LCC's to the middle classes.

BA pilots not happy about this:
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=307881
predicting quiet skies over London after 17th Jan!

Interesting stuff. I am pretty sure that BA will have a contingency plan in order to sort this out. As they all pointed out on pprune its no different to JEtstar and Qantas.

Looking increasingly likely that BA pilots will strike.
Going to be some full VS flights soon.....
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread ... 881&page=8

[RichardMannion]

Originally posted by willd

Originally posted by slinky09

not only because all their recent attempts at new subsidiaries have failed, witness Go,

Hate to also point out that Go did not fail either. It served a purpose and made a profit throughout its 2 years under BA management. Was then sold for £100m to 3i. Go also introduced LCC's to the middle classes.

And if I recall, Go was swallowed up by EasyJet less than a year later for nearly 4 times what BA sold it for!

I ask myself whether BA can register ÔOpen SkiesÕ as a trademark?

Like the name (very VS actually) but the rest of the idea seems pretty shoddy to me.

52" in PE is very generous; that's an extra 14" over VS and certainly nothing like any Y+ product I know of. I would be spectical if that's the end result.

45.

As predicted 12 days ago - its going to be interesting!
BALPA is about to give VS CC a demonstration of how a union can operate - if everyone knows what they want!
http://www.baplane-bapilot.org/