Club World London City was an executive all-business-class flight service between

London City Airport London City Airport is an international airport in London, England. It is located in the Royal Docks in the London Borough of Newham, Borough of Newham, about east of the City of London and east of Canary Wharf. These are the two centres ...

and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

marketed by

British Airways British Airways plc (BA) is the flag carrier of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main Airline hub, hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and pass ...

. The service launched in September 2009 and operated until March 2020.

Service

In September 2009,

launched Club World London City using two

Airbus A318 The Airbus A318, nicknamed the "Baby Bus", is the smallest and least numerous variant airliner of the Airbus A320 family. The A318 carries 107 to 132 passengers and has a maximum range of . Final assembly of the aircraft took place in Hambur ...

s fitted with 32 lie-flat beds in an all business class cabin. Flights operated under the numbers previously reserved for

Concorde Concorde () is a retired Anglo-French supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and the United Kingdom signed a treaty establishin ...

: BA001 – BA004. Until 2016, the service operated twice-daily on weekdays between

and

John F Kennedy International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport is a major international airport serving New York City and its metropolitan area. JFK Airport is located on the southwestern shore of Long Island, in Queens, New York City, bordering Jamaica Bay. It is t ...

with one daily service operating at weekends. Due to the short runway at London City Airport limiting fuel uptake, westbound flights from London to New York made a stop at

Shannon Airport Shannon Airport () is an international airport located in County Clare in Ireland. It is adjacent to the Shannon Estuary and lies halfway between Ennis and Limerick. With almost 2 million passengers in 2023, the airport is the third busiest ...

for refueling, where passengers on board flight BA1 cleared US Customs and Immigration, arriving in New York as domestic passengers. Although the fuel stop in Shannon led to a longer flight time compared to flights departing from

Heathrow Airport Heathrow Airport , also colloquially known as London Heathrow Airport and named ''London Airport'' until 1966, is the primary and largest international airport serving London, the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdo ...

to New York, passengers still saved time flying the London City service because they could check a bag just 20 minutes before departure compared to the 60 minutes required at Heathrow. The ability to clear US Customs and Immigration during the refueling allowed passengers to save time after landing in New York; however, the introduction of

Global Entry Global Entry is a program of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection service that allows pre-approved, low-risk travelers to receive expedited clearance upon arrival into the United States through automatic kiosks at select airports and via the S ...

negated some of these time savings. BA3, the second daily flight, enjoyed preclearance until 2012 when the US preclearance facility in Shannon shortened its operating hours. The flight was cancelled in 2016, leaving one daily service which preclears in Shannon. The service was suspended in March 2020 during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, before being officially cancelled in August 2020.

Operations

British Airways (BA) LimitedBritish Airways (BA) Limited

Companies House Companies House is the executive agency of the British Government that maintains the Company register, register of companies, employs the company registrars and is responsible for Incorporation (business), incorporating all forms of Company, co ...

was a British airline and a subsidiary of British Airways created in 2012 to operate the Club World London City service. The subsidiary was established as Acoperco Limited on 14 March 2012, which applied for operating and route licences with the Civil Aviation Authority the same month. British Airways transferred its two A318 aircraft to the certificate of the new subsidiary. The airline had

codeshare A codeshare agreement, also known simply as codeshare, is a business arrangement, common in the aviation industry, in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight under their own airline designator and flight number (the "airli ...

agreements with

American Airlines American Airlines, Inc. is a major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the ...

Finnair Finnair Plc (, ) is the flag carrier and largest full-service legacy airline of Finland, with headquarters in Vantaa on the grounds of Helsinki Airport, its airline hub, hub. Finnair and its subsidiaries dominate both domestic and international ...

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, compri ...

and

US Airways US Airways was a major airline in the United States. It was originally founded in History of aviation in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called All American Aviation, which soon became a commercial passenger airline. In 1953, it ...

. The Club World London City services returned to being operated directly by British Airways in 2015 although no changes were made to the aircraft, crews or product offered.

Fleet

The service was operated using two 2008 built Airbus A318-100s, G-EUNA and G-EUNB. Between 2012 and 2015, British Airways Limited operated the aircraft under a wet-

lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

arrangement with British Airways. After 2015, they were directly operated by the mainline British Airways, with no changes to the service offered. Each aircraft had 32 business class seats in a 2-2 configuration of eight rows which reclined fully-flat.

In-flight entertainment In-flight entertainment (IFE) refers to entertainment and other value-added services available to aircraft passengers during a flight. Frequently managed by content service providers, the types of in-flight entertainment and their content vary s ...

was provided via

iPads The iPad is a brand of tablet computers developed and marketed by Apple that run the company's mobile operating systems iOS and later iPadOS. The first-generation iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010. Since then, the iPad product lin ...

distributed to passengers. G-EUNB was sold to

Titan Airways Titan Airways Limited is a British charter airline based at London Stansted Airport. The carrier specialises in short-notice ACMI (aircraft, crew, maintenance, and insurance) and wet lease operations, as well as ad-hoc passenger and cargo char ...

in 2017 after the second service ceased but has since been scrapped. G-EUNA, after 11 months in store, at Madrid-Barajas Airport was ferried to

Enschede Airport Twente Twente Airport is located outside of Enschede in Overijssel, Netherlands. It has one runway (05/23), though two of the current taxiways and platforms have been used as runways (Platform A, former runway 11/29 and Platform C, former runway 16/34 ...

in February 2021 and scrapped.Bon-voyage BA baby bus ''

Airliner World ''Airliner World'' is an aviation magazine published by Key Publishing in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England. In the United States, the magazine is distributed from the Key Publishing office in Avenel, New Jersey. The first edition of ''Airliner Wo ...

'' May 2021 page 6

References

{{International Airlines Group Airlines established in 2012 Airlines disestablished in 2015 Airlines based in London British Airways Business class airlines Commercial flights Defunct airlines of the United Kingdom Former Oneworld affiliate members 2009 establishments in England 2020 disestablishments in England