Long Haul?

Very true but both are limiting, AMS means you have to go on KLM and LHR means you probably lose your bags

I can’t really agree with that. Well… You probably will lose your bags if BA have anything to do with your onward sector, but flying with KLM through AMS on a semi-regular basis I can say the only time they lost our bags was early last year. Our outbound KLM flight to AMS was cancelled so we were re-booked with bmi to CDG than AF to LIS. I usually fly with a band consisting of 12 people and around 26 pieces of luggage, so it’s quite important everything gets to our destination. We hardly ever have problems flying through airports like AMS, MAN, CDG, FRA, LIS, OPO, FAO, CPH, OSL, LBA or even LHR. Then again, BA having stupid baggage restrictions now means we can’t fly with them anymore.

I’m failing, however, to see how flying a very short sector into two of the world’s busiest airports can possibly be described as limiting! I’ve done that for long haul flights before and I regularly fly to AMS for connections elsewhere. It really is quite simple. Plus going through AMS means going to the Crown Lounge for free red wine. 🙂

Paul

Going further afield to Pakistan/India, it depends if you want to compete directly with MAN with non-stop service (if we remember than airblue intend non-stop services as and when they get the equipment) or offer one-stop service like the set up at BHX where a variety of airlines operate BHX-“homebase”-India/Pakistan.

Their isn’t a sizable Indian community in Yorkshire to warrant any kind of service to India – the only slight possibility i could see for India is one of charters to Goa and the like, flights to Pakistan is a different matter, Bradford and South Yorkshire towns have sizable Pakistani communities which i believe could sustain such a service.

MAN is relatively close by and we have regular flights to LHR and AMS, so getting a connection to most long haul destinations is never really that difficult.

Very true but both are limiting, AMS means you have to go on KLM and LHR means you probably lose your bags, if Air France and or Lufthansa set up in the future then it would be perfect.

Are ThomsonFly still doing the Barbados flight?

LBA being my home airport I’d love to see a long haul route open, particularly transatlantic. Unfortunately I just can’t see it happening. MAN is relatively close by and we have regular flights to LHR and AMS, so getting a connection to most long haul destinations is never really that difficult.

There’s also the small matter of our not so long runway and the big hill at the end of rwy 32!

Paul

tfly have used a 767 to new orleans from lba.

A sizeable chunk of passengers from the natural LBA catchment area use MAN on long-haul. Whether it’s now reached a critical mass for an airline to exploit it has to be seen; however, the advent of 757s on “thin” long-haul transatlantic routes may make a LBA-USA link more viable now. Going further afield to Pakistan/India, it depends if you want to compete directly with MAN with non-stop service (if we remember than airblue intend non-stop services as and when they get the equipment) or offer one-stop service like the set up at BHX where a variety of airlines operate BHX-“home base”-India/Pakistan.

Will LBA ever in the future see a Long Haul Connection?

I think you are asking the wrong question…

The question you should be asking is..’Is there really a market for long-haul flights from LBA…if so, which destinations would be served, and by which airline?’

I would of thought the majority of people would continue to use MAN for long-haul flights.