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'Welcome aboard'
This is the sister website to our main 'nostalgia' pages on Facebook...
and contains more in the way of basic information for everyone.
The same rules apply with regard to you having to be either current or
former crew with British Airways, its predecessors or associated companies.
Either way, if you have any queries, please contact us at:-
'crewsocial@yahoo.com'.
BA TO THE US of A
For obvious reasons, British Airways is the largest operator between Europe and the US by passenger numbers. Between March 2025 and February 2026, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) shows that it carried 7.4 million passengers and filled 84.4% of seats.
Compared to the prior 12 months, BA's passengers fell by 2%, while the market as a whole rose slightly. The traffic reduction was driven by a 14% drop at London Gatwick Airport (LGW) due to ending routes to Las Vegas and New York JFK last October. The UK's busiest airport, London Heathrow Airport (LHR), was not spared, as traffic fell by 1%. This was mainly because BA did not serve Dallas/Fort Worth last summer.
DOT data was used to analyze the oneworld member's entire US route network in the 12 months to February 2026. This process identified its worst and best performing routes by load factor (really, it's seat factor), passenger traffic, and more. As usual, loads should not be considered in isolation, and it's always critical to understand how they were achieved.
With only 68.9% of seats filled, LGW to Tampa International Airport (TPA) had BA's lowest result (142,899 round-trip passengers were carried). BA has operated this route to Florida since 1985. It has always been served from the UK's second-busiest airport. For most of the past 41 years, BA has had the non-stop market for itself, although some carriers have come and gone.
The most significant development was the arrival of Virgin Atlantic in 2022, which continues to fly from LHR to TPA. BA's insufficient performance at LGW (half of the months in the examined period had fewer than seven in ten seats filled) and rising head-to-head competition probably led the carrier to announce the switch to LHR.
BA's first LHR-TPA flight will take place in October 2026. But as the DOT shows that TPA is also Virgin's US route with the lowest load, there is probably simply too much capacity. Cirium Diio data shows that BA will have the same winter frequency from LHR as it did from LGW (great for maintaining market share). However, swapping the 336-seat, LGW-configured Boeing 777-200ER for the 256-seat, Boeing 787-10 means nearly a quarter fewer seats are available. This will help to improve loads and yields.
By James Pearson - Simple Flying