BA, Cathay recall jumbos from desert

Boeing Co 747 jumbo jets are being brought out of desert storage as surging bookings spur carriers including British Airways (BA) Plc, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd and United Airlines to return their biggest planes to traffic.

BA will restore a second 747-400 to its winter timetable in October after recalling one in May for use on its London-New York route. UAL Corp’s United brought a jumbo out of storage in California in June for deployment to Asia, London and Frankfurt and Cathay Pacific has reinstated five freighters.

Wide-body planes accounted for about 25 per cent of the 200 aircraft retrieved from storage in May and June as carriers sought to tap rising demand for long-haul trips and a leap in cargo shipments. The number of 747s recalled in June exceeded those mothballed for the first time since January 2009, data compiled by aviation consultant Ascend Worldwide Ltd. shows.

“Everybody is getting very excited about passenger and cargo volumes coming back, but there’s a great temptation to add too much capacity,” said Chris Tarry, an independent airline analyst and strategy consultant in London who has followed the industry for almost three decades. “What may be rational fleet decisions for individual airlines can add up to a problem for the industry when taken together.”

British Airways is lifting winter capacity about 7 per cent from a year earlier but will only add seats where it can do so without depressing yields, a measure of prices, spokesman Euan Fordyce said by telephone. Europe’s third-largest airline has learnt a lesson from the 1990s, when it brought back “chunks” of capacity too quickly, Treasurer George Stinnes said in June.