Vegas officials courted British Airways for a decade

By Richard N. Velotta

Monday, May 18, 2009 | 4:49 p.m.

British Airways, the London-based carrier that will inaugurate nonstop air service between Heathrow International Airport and Las Vegas on Oct. 25, has been on the radar of officials at McCarran International Airport and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority for nearly a decade.

But it wasn’t until a tour of Las Vegas and the airport a week ago that finally sealed the deal for the airline that annually flies 36 million passengers with routes connecting six continents.

Despite the down economy and the prospect of a weak first-quarter earnings report later this week, British Airways decided to make Las Vegas its 19th U.S. destination and will fly a twin-engine Boeing 777 with three classes of service to Las Vegas.

The flight will leave daily from Heathrow from British Airways’ sparkling new Terminal 5 at 2:20 p.m., arriving at McCarran nearly 10½ hours later at 5:10 p.m. local time. The return trip will leave Las Vegas at 7 p.m. and arrive the following day at 12:50 p.m.

John Lampl, vice president of corporate communications for British Airways in the Americas, said in an interview at McCarran today that the right combination of circumstances led to the airline’s decision to zero in on Las Vegas now after local officials began courting the company in 1999.

British Airways rival Virgin Atlantic jumped aboard almost immediately, beginning nonstop service twice a week from Gatwick International Airport in 2000. The route was so good for Virgin that it gradually expanded to daily service by 2006.

McCarran and LVCVA persistence with British Airways was nearly rewarded a year ago when the airline was poised to make a move to Las Vegas. But when the economy tanked, BA withdrew plans and decided to wait things out. Officials kept regular contact with the airline, but didn’t get any affirming response until May 8 when the airline contacted Las Vegas officials to make a site visit and have meetings.

Representatives toured the city and the airport on May 12 and quickly made the decision to begin the route.

Lampl, Clark County Department of Aviation Director Randall Walker and Cathy Tull, senior vice president of marketing for the LVCVA, said BA has many reasons to try the route:

• Great Britain is the No. 3 source of international visitors for Las Vegas behind Canada and Mexico. Lampl thinks his airline will have an advantage over Virgin Atlantic because BA will fly from Heathrow, 17 miles from central London, while their rival flies from Gatwick, 40 miles away from the city.

• BA wanted to make an investment in the future and was considering several route options. Las Vegas stood out for British Airways because McCarran keeps its fees low relative to other airports.

• BA is well-connected worldwide, with 143 destinations in 69 countries. London is an ideal gateway to North America from Europe and the airline is gearing to market one-stop service to Las Vegas from all corners of the continent. The LVCVA has marketing relationships in several European countries to generate interest in the destination and BA would be able to ride those coattails.

• British Airways officials saw first-hand the construction of new hotel rooms in town and McCarran’s Terminal 3 project. They know Las Vegas is committed to regenerating the destination during the economic doldrums.

• McCarran was delighted with the scheduled arrival and departure times of the BA flights. The airport’s existing international port at Terminal 2 can process about 800 passengers an hour through U.S. Customs. The new Terminal 3 facility will be able to process 2,000 an hour. The planned 5:10 p.m. arrival time is 3½ hours after the arrival of Virgin’s London flight, which won’t present undue wait times for passenger processing.

Lampl said his airline’s Boeing 777 jets would hold 274 passengers, including a “Club World” class of customers that will enjoy seats that turn into beds, meals prepared by world-renowned chefs and a state-of-the-art entertainment system with downloadable movies, television shows and music.

McCarran’s Walker said at a press conference that the city’s bid to attract more international traffic is akin to “casting a wider net” into the travel market. International travelers spend an average $500 more per day than a typical domestic traveler and the non-gaming economic effect of one fully loaded jumbo jet is about $200,000 – roughly $75 million annually with daily flights.

British Airways will become the third European carrier to offer nonstop flights to Las Vegas. In addition to Virgin, German discount carrier Condor Flugdienst flies twice a week between Frankfurt and Las Vegas.

One other British airline that flew Las Vegas routes, British Midland, discontinued flights from Manchester last month.

British Airways is one of the key players in bids to take advantage of “open skies” agreements that will allow foreign carriers to operate between any European and U.S. port. BA already has begun flights linking John F. Kennedy International Airport with Paris and Amsterdam and Newark, N.J., with Paris.

But Lampl said he doesn’t expect Las Vegas to land any other nonstop routes to and from Europe on BA because there are greater opportunities for business travel between Europe and the East Coast.

Tickets for the new London-Las Vegas route went on sale on British Airways’ Web site Monday. Passengers could get a round-trip ticket with fees and taxes for $1,189.