BA has announced it is retiring its sole A318 (32 seats), pulling the plug on BA1/BA2 all Business Class flights operated between London City and New York JFK. (With a refuelling stop and U.S. pre-clearance at Shannon, Ireland.)
IAG said it was “exiting the A318 fleet” as a response to the “worst quarterly result” in its history, with a loss of over €1.3 billion between April-June 2020 and the expectation that “it will take until at least 2023 for passenger demand to recover to 2019 levels.”
G-EUNA (11 years old) offered 32 seats withdrawn from service on 18 March and parked in Madrid since 20 March.
This flight was unofficially known as the ‘POSH’ flight, as it offered luxury first class seating in four abreast per row. With the COVID-19 pandemic, this is the ideal time to replace this aircraft with the A220 with minimal loss of revenue.