Airport lands nonstop flights to London
British Airways to fly route four days a week
When Christina Cassotis became CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority in 2015, her first overseas visit was to British Airways offices. That investment is about to pay huge dividends.
For the first time since 1999, the airline is touching down at Pittsburgh International Airport. British Airways will fly nonstop year round to London starting April 2. It will fly into its Heathrow Airport hub four days a week — Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
Landing British Airways and the London route is a major coup for the airport authority, the region, and Ms. Cassotis, who made the flight one of her top priorities since taking the helm more than three years ago.
“It’s a really big deal. It signals an important milestone for Pittsburgh. This is an airline that left and is coming back in a new economy. They recognize we have made big changes since they left,” Ms. Cassotis said.
The flight, announced Wednesday, came with the kind of fanfare usually reserved for Steelers playoff games. The River City Brass Band played British music. The celebratory cake was in the shape of a British-style double-decker bus. Next to it were cake replicas of
the two Big Bens — the clock and the quarterback (Let the marketing ties begin).
British Airways will fly a 214-seat Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner jet with business, premium economy and economy seating between the two cities. The flight will leave Pittsburgh at 10 p.m. and arrive in London at 10:35 a.m. The return flight will depart Heathrow at 5 p.m. and land here at 8:15 p.m.
The airline hasn’t flown from Pittsburgh since 1999. It dropped its nonstop service to Gatwick Airport on Oct. 31 that year, claiming that the flight was unprofitable.
Pittsburgh hasn’t had a nonstop to London since 2004, when US Airways, now part of American Airlines, dropped its service, also to Gatwick.
“This is really, really a big deal for the folks in Pittsburgh. It really does begin to put you on the global map with such a respected carrier as British Airways. To get a true global network player in your city suggests that your dot on the map is increasingly important,” said William Swelbar, chief industry strategist for Richmond,Va.,-based DeltaAirport Consultants.
Simon Brooks, British Airways senior vice president for North America, said there were “many great compelling reasons” to start service again in Pittsburgh. He cited the health care, tech, and manufacturing sectors and the region’s universities as examples.
“What we see is a thriving city with sustained growth and I’m talking about over the last five to 10 years,” he told reporters. “We know this place is really happening nowand it’s just taking off.”
Another factor, Mr. Brooks said, is that British Airwaysis taking delivery of more new airplanes over the next two years and is looking for new markets to serve.
Making the flight more satisfying is that British Airways is going into Heathrow, London’s premier airport. From there the carrier flies to more than 130 destinations in Europe, Africa, Asia, the MiddleEast and elsewhere.
While service will start at four days a week, the goal is to go daily, Ms. Cassotis said.
“This is just the beginning. Let’s partner together and see what can happen after that,” Mr. Brooks said.
The agreement with British Airways is for two years.
It comes with the largest incentive package offered to an airline starting service in Pittsburgh. The airline will receive $1.5 million in incentives in each of two years to operate the flight. The money will come from a state economic development fund, not the authority.
The amount tops the $800,000 the authority is paying to Wow Air over two years to fly to Iceland and the $500,000 over two years it is giving to Condor Airlines for a seasonal flight to Frankfurt, Germany.
But Mr. Swelbar said it is “very much in line” with what other cities have offered, including Nashville, which secured a British Airways’ London flight that launched in May.
Tennessee is giving the airline $1.5 million in subsidies over two years. The Metro Nashville government is putting up $500,000 for losses if needed. The airport is providing $1 million in marketing over two years.
Michael Boyd, a Coloradobased aviation consultant, said the incentives being offered locally for the London flight are “peanuts” compared to the economic value of the service.
“That just shows your love and devotion to the airline. The fact is the economic impact of this flight probably will equal that in the first week,” he said.
The authority estimates the annual economic impact of the flight at $57 million. “No other service has that kind of impact. That helps us justify our initial investment,” Ms. Cassotis said.
By the authority’s count, 45,000 to 50,000 local travelers fly to and from London each year. It expects that number to increase with the start of the nonstop service.
London is a big business destination for Pittsburgh companies, particularly law and tech firms, as well as a popular leisure spot.
The authority also is working with VisitPittsburgh to bring more European traffic to Pittsburgh. That will be a priority, Ms. Cassotis said.
Ron Francis, a partner at the Reed Smith law firm, whose largest office is in London, said 40 percent of the firm’s offices and more than a third of its lawyers are overseas.
The flight not only will help Reed Smith get to London quicker, it will provide onestop connections to “every major important business center” in Europe, Africa, the MiddleEast and Asia.
“That’s really important to us. We have offices all over those places and our clients have many, many offices all over the world. So this service is really important and I think it will be a real boon to the business community herein Pittsburgh,” he said.
Audrey Russo, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, said the flight will give local companies easier access to London’s tech ecosystem. It also will be helpful to the region’s financial technology firms and in attracting tech talent generally.
“It puts us on the map in terms of when you are attracting people here that are looking at opportunities and thinking, ‘Is this a place that I can easily get to other places to?’” she said.
Ms. Cassotis doesn’t expect the London flight to hurt the Wow or Condor service or Delta’s nonstop to Paris. She maintained each of those flights serves a different market segment. “We feel this market can support all of that service,” she said.
One not surprised by Wednesday’s announcement was Mr. Boyd. He said British Airways has been turning to secondary markets more and more to feed its Heathrow hub. He sees the Pittsburgh service as part of that trend.
“It’s great to have but it was inevitable. It wasn’t like they had to go and put someone in London in a headlock. What Pittsburgh offers British British Airways needs,” he said. “There’s too muchvalue in Western Pennsylvaniafor them to ignore.”