The flight now leaving Heathrow is...empty

[MD90]

An airline is flying an empty passenger jet between Heathrow and Cardiff on a daily basis — just so that it can hold on to its lucrative slots at the London airport.

The flights, which have pumped hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the past five months, threaten to undermine the aviation industry’s public stance of trying to reduce emissions. The flights are being run by British Mediterranean Airways (BMed) — until recently part-owned by the family of Wafic Said, the Syrian-born financier — which flies the Airbus passenger plane from Heathrow to Cardiff and back six times a week. As a British Airways franchise, it pays a percentage of its revenue to BA in return for operating in its livery.

No tickets are sold and all 124 passenger seats are empty. Because there are no passengers, the “ghost” flights, which have run since October, do not appear on departure or arrival boards. By the end of this month the flights will also have cost BMed at least £2m. There is a £2,500 fuel bill for each flight, plus £300,000 a month for the lease, insurance, crew and maintenance charges.

BMed has just eight aircraft and flies as a BA franchise to destinations such as Tehran, Beirut, Yerevan in Armenia, Baku in Azerbaijan and Tbilisi in Georgia — a list that has led some to describe it as “BA with balls”. It came up with the Cardiff plan after it was forced to scrap flights to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, at the end of October after civil unrest there.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1496766.ece