The local paper of record has this about the possibility of US Airways shifting its Charlotte to London flight a year from now from Gatwick to the more desirable Heathrow airport under the new US-EU open skies agreement:
US Airways President Scott Kirby said this month that the airline would be interested in flying to Heathrow. But analysts believe the airline would initially fly from there to Philadelphia, which is US Airways’ major international hub.
Obviously don’t know the qualifications of the analysts referred to, but judging by what they said, perhaps they’re in the wrong line of work. US Airways currently only has two flights a day to Gatwick, one each from Philly and Charlotte. If US can acquire (buy or lease, slots are a commodity) landing rights at Heathrow to shift service from both cities, they would do so. Period. End of discussion.
The unstated assumption contained in the paraphrase, and adopted by the story as a whole, is that US Airways will be able to acquire at most one landing right at LHR over the next year. That may or may not be true. But that element is critical to understanding what might happen — really, it is the issue — and should be addressed head-on.
