Dear Sir,

Earlier this month there was an article in The Times in London headed “Take off for the world’s longest flight”, describing Singapore Airlines’ new route, nonstop from Singapore to New York, using the brand-new Airbus A350-900.

After reading this article, I did a comparison and was immediately struck by the cost to fly for 19 hours with SIA:

Premium Economy $1,615 or Business $5,025

Compared with the cost of flying for about seven hours with British Airways from London to Bermuda, where some of my family live, on 20-year-old Boeing 777s:

Premium Economy $2,318 or Business $4,764

It is a tragedy that the airlines who have tried, over the past few decades, to operate flights between Britain and Bermuda have been driven off the route by BA, which now exploits its monopoly with the existing price structure, and the use of, by modern standards, very old aircraft, which certainly show their age with the state of the passenger cabins.

It would also be interesting to compare BA’s punctuality on this route compared with other routes where there is competition.

IAN SLIGHT

BA Captain (Retired)