bmi to drop Paris routes to LHR & LBA

If you look at the official bmi reasons for dropping LHR-CDG then they make perfect sense, and in truth, they’ve droppe dit before the squeeze really bites. Basically the market between the two cities has declined for air travel in recent years, mainly due to the Eurostar service, and the opening of the CTRL will provide the second terminal in London for Eurostar, putting greater pressure on air services. Add to that the fact that there are now more carriers serving the city pair than ever before and you understand that with a declining passenger base, somebody had to ‘give’ first, and its bmi, which isn’t wholly suprising.

Indeed… Eurostar already has the majority of the London-Paris point to point market, and High Speed One (as CTRL is now known) will have an impact on travel to Paris from further afield. With a fast GNER (or whoever it will be next year) train from Leeds to London and St Pancras International 100 meters from Kings Cross, city-centre to city-centre rail is going to be competitve on time and far less hassle – a no-brainer unless you are really penny pinching, and that’s not the market bmi want. If Eurostar could get their act together with the domestic TOCs and offer attractively priced tickets not just for their own services but for travel from north of London, they could seriously dent Jet2 from Leeds and bmiBaby from EMA too.

And

Quote:
Originally Posted by UK Commercials
I’ve heard from a reliable source at BMI that the LBA-CDG services will be withdrawn in the very near future as this route is under performing.

Hi

This can’t be right. The Paris route is one off the better performing routes from LBA for bmi regional. Theses Flights are always over 35/40 passengers on them. Even though it’s up against a 1 daily mid day Jet2 B737-300 service.

If any route was under performing from LBA for bmi regional I would say it’s the Glasgow route. Passenger figures a dropping like fly’s just at the moment for some reason. They are having to stick the smaller ERJ135 on sometimes, as they can’t even fill the larger ERJ145 that is scheduled to operate the route.

Its not as cut and dried as that I’m afraid. It doesn’t matter how many bums on seats you have. With an airline like bmi, its about yield too. I used to be a manager in the sales department for years, so I should know!

Bmi used to rely on business class yield, but obviously now they rely on people buying the more expensive flexible tickets on non-business class routes. Bmi regional rely on business class yield. If we have 30 or 40 bums on seats who’ve all paid £25.00 each way, doesn’t make for a profitable flight does it?

Good news about Jet2 looking at increaseing capacity on there daily LBA-Paris Route. I’m taking a guess that they’ll be putting the B757’s on instead off the B737 For a while. Well thats until they can get an early morning an Evening slots at Paris.

Anyway bmi british midland released an official statement on there website today about the dropping off there daily Heathrow and Leeds routes to Paris.

Heres the full press release from http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/travelinformation/flightinformation/newsaffectingtravel.aspx#86

bmi suspends services to Paris Charles de Gaulle

With regret, due to commercial reasons, our services to Paris Charles de Gaulle are to be suspended from our summer schedule.

bmi services between London Heathrow and Paris will be suspended from 25 March 2007 inclusive (additional cancellations for this route during February and March may be possible and will be communicated when known)

bmi regional services between Leeds Bradford and Paris will be suspended from 25 March 2007 inclusive
All passengers affected will be re-accommodated and further information will be available shortly.

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused and will endeavour to re-accommodate our passengers with minimum disruption.

Jet2 have posted the following on their website…

Business travellers, romantics and families planning a trip to Disneyland Paris should not be too disappointed about BMI’s announcement that they have dropped their high fare flights to Paris from Leeds Bradford. Canny Francophiles throughout Yorkshire however can continue to get their cheap flights to the French capital with Jet2.com.

Here at Yorkshire’s low cost airline, we’re committed to continuing our daily low cost flight to Paris, from just £4.99 one way ex. taxes! What’s more, we will be adding additional capacity over 2007 to our Paris flights, so everyone can get to Paris at the right price!

So hopefully, we will be seeing more Paris flights added soon!

[QUOTE=Dantheman77;1068485]According to various sources…

3. Airbuses released from the Heathrow ops by the ERJ will displace A321s slowly being phased out. Plus one A320 operating a full-week charter programme from Leeds this summer for MyTravel

A320 down to A319 presumably loses about 35 seats?

If you look at the official bmi reasons for dropping LHR-CDG then they make perfect sense, and in truth, they’ve droppe dit before the squeeze really bites. Basically the market between the two cities has declined for air travel in recent years, mainly due to the Eurostar service, and the opening of the CTRL will provide the second terminal in London for Eurostar, putting greater pressure on air services. Add to that the fact that there are now more carriers serving the city pair than ever before and you understand that with a declining passenger base, somebody had to ‘give’ first, and its bmi, which isn’t wholly suprising.

According to various sources…

1.BMi are getting 4 new EMB145’s
2. LHR-Aberdeen is going EMB145
3. Airbuses released from the Heathrow ops by the ERJ will displace A321s slowly being phased out. Plus one A320 operating a full-week charter programme from Leeds this summer for MyTravel
4. The A330, that had the MLG problem has gone or is going to Virgin Nigeria until May 2007, when it will be replaced by 2 767-300s that Astraeus will fly for VN. When the A330 comes back, it will replace the Arkefly 767-300, so will most presumably go on to the LHR-Saudi route

I used LBA-CDG each week for over a year and neverpaid £300 for a ticket, usually booked quite late on too – I even used KLM LBA-AMS-CDG a fair bit (usually to get back earlier on a Sat AM if I booked a return trip) – even this could be sought for around £150-170 return as a last option, although the most conveniant schedule for me was bmi out at Lunchtime and Jet2 back Sat PM – purely so I had some kip after finishing work early Sat AM (if lucky!)

My thoughts… Well there needs to be a BMI Airbus to operate the charter programme over the summer – wonder where that’ll come from? Well we would have a spare E145 if we dropped the CDG – hell, lets put the Embraer on the LHR to free the A320 for the LBA charters?

Sounds fairly logical in my humble opinion?

I’ve heard that it’s not so much the competion from Jet2. The client base is completely different. It’s over the Pennines that’s the problem. BA and AF are in direct competition at MAN and this is driving down the revenue at LBA too. Who wants to pay £300.00 for a ticket from LBA when you can pick one up at a fraction of the cost from MAN. CPH is a different story. There’s no competition as only SK operate from Manchester and they will be code sharing the the LBA service too.

Does not surprise me in the least to be honest, the chance is there for Jet2 to go for the jugular providing the slots are available and go for at least two flights a day.

What gets me is that bmi say there up against strong compertition up at LBA.

Now what i can’t understand is that they say there up against strong compertition at LBA. This is not true. bmi regional only operate the ERJ145, 3 times daily and seems to get good loads. If it’s only the morning and evening flights that are doing well why not go down to twice daily and don’t operate the mid day service.

Jet2 only run a once daily service from LBA which is’nt any good to the business man who only wants to go for a day return. Yes it is good for the kiddies going to Disneyland and for a cheap romantic weekend away in Paris though. While Thomsonfly from DSA only operate once daily and thats into Orly. This service by TOM is also been withdraw at the end of the winter scheduled.

So once TOM go at DSA and BD go at LBA It leaves whole of Yorkshire with only flight daily to Paris from LBA with Jet2.com.

I told you so

lbaspotter

I told you this last week but you didn’t beleive me!

Quote:
Originally Posted by UK Commercials
I’ve heard from a reliable source at BMI that the LBA-CDG services will be withdrawn in the very near future as this route is under performing.

Hi

This can’t be right. The Paris route is one off the better performing routes from LBA for bmi regional. Theses Flights are always over 35/40 passengers on them. Even though it’s up against a 1 daily mid day Jet2 B737-300 service.

If any route was under performing from LBA for bmi regional I would say it’s the Glasgow route. Passenger figures a dropping like fly’s just at the moment for some reason. They are having to stick the smaller ERJ135 on sometimes, as they can’t even fill the larger ERJ145 that is scheduled to operate the route.

If you’d asked this question a couple off months ago though. I would have said the Brussels run would have been axed. But this route seems to have picked up just off late. It’s scheduled to be operated by the ERJ135 but now they are having to put the larger ER145 on it.

What do the rest off the LBA regulars think???
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Old for New routes maybe?

Dropping routes means slots at Heathrow become available or does British Midland have something up there sleeve and use thses slots on something else or not.

Heathrow slots are valiable so they want give them away.

Would they be in a position to start another route there has been speculation that a Heathrow-Jersey route could be on the cards would the slots be given to operate this route that British Airways held for many years??

Another sign of BMIs erratic behaviour.

I always imagined LHR-CDG being one of the better performing BD routes.

I suppose when you look further into it LHR is a huge O/W hub and CDG a S/T one then BD operating for *A were never going to transport alot of connecting traffic on the route espeically when most *A carriers operated their own flights to CDG and LHR anway.

And again with O/D traffic the other forms of transport between London and Paris just expedited BD decision to drop the route.

This decsision then raises questions about what BD will use the LHR slots for?

More long haul routes? or more stupid short haul routes like NAP and VCE.

How about a double daily INV service although I know loads on the 1 daily flight are not great. How about ORK-O/W dominate this with EI now feeding alot of passengers onto SQ services, Im sure SQ would rather feed BD as a fellow *A partner. Any other suggestion?