On Tue, 7 Apr 2020 07:50:42 +0000 (UTC), wrote:

On Mon, 06 Apr 2020 21:06:43 +0100
Graham Harrison wrote:
It's my belief we will see more and more "long, thin, routes" in years
to come and that, in the case of South America, the need to travel via
Madrid or Amsterdam will slowly fade. In any case, my own preference
in recent years has been to use a non stop flight from London to one
of the few places in South America (e.g. Sao Paulo) and then get my
connection rather than going via Madrid although I accept that for
destinations in countries in the northwest corner of the continent
(e.g. Ecuador) that might not be ideal.

First world problems eh?

Indeed.

Let's face it, the whole airport/air travel debate is a first world
problem. The rest of the world just want to catch up.

"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:


"Graham Harrison" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 6 Apr 2020 14:42:57 +0100, "tim..."
wrote:



"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:


"Recliner" wrote in message
...
tim... wrote:

thus
reducing the use of other hubs like Madrid or Schiphol. Those
benefit
both UK residents

if it happens

and the planet.

how?

Flights from these other hubs are still going to operate.

There will be fewer of them

but, certainly in the case of South America, that's not going to
happen

I've flown the LON-MAD-S America route and 90% of the passengers on
the
long
haul part are Spanish Speaking.

Which routes have you flown?

I flew to Bolivia and Panama

not destinations noted for direct flights from London (if there was I
would
have used them), and yet there were few non Spanish on the flight

Several major South American cities do have
direct London flights,

agreed

ones which are currently popular destination for Brits to go to
(business
or
pleasure)

that's the point

the ones that Brits mostly want to go to already have direct flights

opening up slots to enable direct flights to extra destinations will
not
result in these extra destinations being South America destinations
currently not served, as they aren't popular enough

so not many Brits would take the MAD indirect route
unless it was a lot cheaper .

they do it because the only alternative is having to pass through US
immigration (or sometimes KLM via AMS)

tim


The economics of aircraft like the 787 are changing route structures.
I very much doubt BA would have opened routes like London/Santiago or
London/Lima without it even allowing for the increase in people going
to such destinations.

It's my belief we will see more and more "long, thin, routes" in years
to come and that, in the case of South America, the need to travel via
Madrid or Amsterdam will slowly fade.

I hope to live long enough to find out

unfortunately, I don't think I will

In any case, my own preference
in recent years has been to use a non stop flight from London to one
of the few places in South America (e.g. Sao Paulo) and then get my
connection rather than going via Madrid although I accept that for
destinations in countries in the northwest corner of the continent
(e.g. Ecuador) that might not be ideal.

the North of the continent is served directly by Avianca to Bogotá

When I flew to Bogotá, it was va Amsterdam.

difficult to do a reliable check right now [1]

but I suspect that the indirect flight being cheaper rule makes via AMS more
competitively priced to BOG

though if your destination is Quito, then via BOG is likely to be as
competitive as any other route

tim

[1] I was recently offered stupidly cheap seats BA direct to LIM for May,
but I'd bet my house that the flight wont be operating