The UK media has been quick to report about how airlines are reducing capacity in the domestic market and how capacity constraints at London Heathrow mean that operators are dropping internal reports and using the lucrative slots on more profitable medium- and long-haul routes. Well, British Airways (BA) has now firmly closed that chapter with the revelation that it will significantly increase weekly flights between London Heathrow and Glasgow this winter and will actually use a widebodied Boeing 767-300ER on some of the services. 
According to its proposed Northern Winter 2011/2012 schedule, BA will increase weekly flights on the London Heathrow – Glasgow route from 52 to 60 from October 30, adding an additional daily rotation from January 9, 2012 to bring weekly services to 67. Its first departure of a weekday will also be operated on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays by a 252-seat Boeing 767-300ER, rather than the smaller Airbus A320 Family aircraft which are scheduled on its other flights.
BA’s move will fill some of the capacity lost following the closure of bmi British Midland International’s own services on the route. The airline suspended its own flights between London Heathrow and Glasgow at the start of the Northern Summer schedules in March and used its slots in the UK capital to introduce new flights to Bergen, Casablanca, Marrakech and Stavanger. It had offered up to seven flights per day, albeit some of these services were operated using small Embraer ERJ 145 regional jet equipment.
The closure of bmi’s service has resulted in an expected decline in passenger traffic. In the past year an estimated 627,000 O&D passengers flew on the route, down 2.2 per cent on the previous 12 months. This is down from a high of 944,000 O&D passengers in the 2006 calendar a period when the route has faced increased competition from rail connections between the two cities.
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