RoberttI dont think there is that much room on a night at LBA, I think at most about 4 or 5 stands at the mo!
so more than enough for the 2 aircraft that Ryanair would look to put in there based on what they done just about everywhere else in the UK recently.
RoberttSo, anyone who visits LBA often, please answer this.
Lets assume Ryanair have a base at Leeds/Bradford and eventually fly to 20 different destinations, that means possibly 4-5 of Ryanairs aircraft based there, if you add all the Jet2 aircraft, plus BMI, Eastern etc, where will all these aircraft park at night ?
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No where near 4 or 5 aircraft needed. Ryanair operate 20 routes from BRS with 2 x based aircraft. In fact, isn’t it the case that anything of any significance from Ryanair of late in the UK regions has been lots of routes at low frequency. Everyone fell off their chair when they recently announced MAN – Wheezer, or whatever it’s called, and it was actually DAILY.
RoberttProfit wise MAN-JFK has been going backwards for a while for BA. Economy yields got hit once DL came onto the route and the general economic conditions stateside hit westbound traffic. Throw in the fuel rise and there was only one way this was going to go. DL/CO have been suffering too so as long as there is no immediate rush to throw more seats back into the market, economy yields should start to rise.
RoberttAcross the UK there are some pretty drastic reductions in short haul charter capacity being planned for next summer following the TUI/FCA and MYT/TCX mergers. The size of the charter reductions (between 15 and 30%) are well known but seem to have gone completely unoticed by the various airport fan clubs round the net – strange really considering the general unhealthy interest in passenger numbers as the be all and end all. At MAN or LGW for example, just a 10% reduction in short-haul seats will take about 50,000 passengers out of the system per month. Ryanair’s “massive expansion” at MAN adds about 10,000 per month back in.
Impact on other loco operators is unknown in the short term but no-one in the business is predicting much in the way of overall passenger growth for next summer or winter. If one airline grows rapidly in a certain market it’s inevitable there will be pain felt by the people already operating there.
RoberttThe massive expansion that was hinted at in the press the day before related to the fact RYR were going to announce alot of routes in total. This they did, but I think people generally misinterpreted this to mean it meant massive expansion at evey airport a press conference was being held. Looking at the announcements – it obviously didn’t.
Was told today that the MAN announcement, and the very public hint at more routes, is all part of a tactical game being played out with 2 other Northern Airports where Ryanair actually want to base 2 or 3 aircraft from Winter 08/09. Keep watching on that one.
Robertt£100 invested in the FTSE 100 5 years ago= £150 today. Had you put the money in Easyjet, it would be now worth £160. Had you put in BA, it would be worth £205. I just do not understand the why anyone could ever believe that BA have deliberately turned profitable routes into unprofitable ones when their stock has outperformed the market by a factor of 2.
RoberttRoutes with best potential for BA return in 10 to 15 years:
LAX, HKGNew routes in 10 to 15 years:
BOM, JNB via CPT, NRTBiggest problem? Known as BA1382 through to BA1407 or BA2901 to BA2915.
Not according the CAA report. Yield negatively correlates with distance and the availability of indirect options via intermediary hubs. Premium traffic is a massive positive factor.
LAX, HKG and NRT are long in great circle terms and have a range of indirect options via hubs and are unlikely to attract premium numbers and would therefore score woefully.
Biggest problem for UK regions are these economic realities. Hard to make money anyway on long, long range but availability of indirect options & not enough premium yield kills it off. If I heard news that BA were going to stick big machines into MAN or BHX or GLA to run point to point long range, I’d sell my shares. It really is financial madness.
RoberttAll the answers you need are in here.
http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=33&pagetype=65&appid=11&mode=detail&id=2838
Read it, digest it and hopefully you’ll realise why this London Airways claptrap is exactly that.
RoberttThey have bought GB for the LGW consolidation – simultaneously removing a competitor and getting slots for expansion. The MAN set-up is a small base with a handful of routes and so natural that it won’t be top of their priorities. I’m not really sure why EZY would be desperate to get into MAN really considering they must be more than happy with LPL if they have signed up to the sort of long term deal people say they have and serving the same catchment area from two bases doesn’t make a lot of sense from a low-cost perspective.
RoberttSo what are your opinions on these and what are the obstacles preventing them from being launched.
Just one obstacle really – none of the routes are likely to massively profitable.
Robertt[QUOTE=AJ_
I still want to see a copy of the Dart Group statement if anyone has it.[/QUOTE]
Try the Dart Group website – then the most recent report and accounts, within which is very specific mention that they have plans to grow the 757 fleet and acquire similar, larger types.
RoberttBut it all depends on the business class market and how full that is. It’s no use for CO to carry 110,000 pax on LBA-EWR in 105,000 pax are not paying the premium fares and are upgrading a large number of economy passengers into the business class..
Of course, But unless the economy / business split on a 757 out of LBA is going to be fundamentally different from that achieved by CO achieve elsewhere in provincial UK is it an issue?
Why on earth would you want LBA-XXX-Pakistan? That’s implying that LBA-Pakistan would not be viable as a non-stop service.
err because by getting LBA-XXX-Pakistan you get LBA-XXX-lots of destinations. My point is that a connecting service into one of the gulf hubs gives you all of the fantastic onward connections to Aus, Nz, Far East with the bonus of a marketable service to the local asian communities to multiple destinations in Pakistan. There is then at least the ability for LBA of offer some competition to MAN to try and claw back passenger leakage on Pakistan routes. Doesn’t stop you chasing a direct Pakistan service or imply that such a service is “unviable”.
Hopefully I’m wrong about the constraints of the LBA runway in this regard.
Runway is about 130m shorter than NCL in terms of available take off run, so probably needs a starter strip at one end to get something of A330 size up and away. CO should be OK as things stands
RoberttI think there is overlap in the catchment area between LBA and MAN, but then again 99% of all the routes offered out of LBA are available from MAN (Lille is the only one I can think of that is unique to LBA). Of this 99%, I would say about 80% are available with the same carrier. Jet2, bmi, klm, flybe, Ryanair, mytravel, tui etc all operating the same routes from both airports.
This is what the owners of Jet2 had to say about the situation in their last financial report
“Jet2.com, the low cost airline, has had an encouraging summer’s business from its six northern bases which, whilst serving seperate catchment areas, have considerable synergies in terms of marketing and operations”
If LBA with no investment in terminal facilities or transport access can still pull in 3m passengers on routes that are duplicated with the same airlines from MAN, then I would say it has a bright future if Bridgepoint get the right people in and invest in the right areas.
As for the US, 1.7m passengers were on MAN – USA services last year. 1.1m on scheduled routes, 0.6m to Florida. If you reckon crudely that 75% of the 1.1m were connecting onwards into the US and of those 25% were from the LBA area, that’s a 200,000 opportunity. BRS-EWR, supposedly a success, carried 85,000 people in 2006. BFS-EWR was 102,000. Sounds to me like there is a market for a connecting service without a doubt. Not so sure about the point to point market with someone like Jet2 – much would depend on whether it would actually grow the market. Cheap fares, big advertising, convenient departure point might get people interested in a break there who wouldn’t have considered it otherwise. By the look of the MAN stats though, the LBA-Florida market is the bigger fish to chase, as is the eastbound connecting market. LBA-XXX-pakistan, far east, australia etc is a big market lost to MAN at the moment and the success of NCL-DXB will be a interesting one to watch to see whether this might work elsewhere
RoberttThe CAA passenger surverys reckon that slightly over half of all passengers using long-haul from MAN are from outside of the North West and Yorkshire / Humberside is the biggest contributor to this. Ideal would be for Continental to switch one of their 757 services into Leeds or Doncaster to spread the econominc benefits but MAN will fight like hell to keep their long-haul domination in place and CO will not move unless a competitor forces their hand. Probably will need a trailblazer in the form of jet2 or globespan to do something and pinch a few passengers off of the MAN services to force a reaction. Yorkshire region needs something eastbound as well – the gulf flights from MAN are massively supported by Yorks / Humber customers – especially the booming leisure market to Aus and NZ via DXB or SIN and the VFR market with Ethiad / Emirates and Qatar into Pakistan. Arguably a bigger market from Yorks than the US to be honest. New owners at LBA are already talking about a connection to Pakistan as a priority, supported by the community leaders in Bradford who’ve been moaning for years about the lack of an alternative to MAN. All easier said than done.
Rob
RoberttWhat demand is there from Leeds area to New Yoik?
General rule of thumb is that about 40% of MAN’s long-haul traffic comes from Yorks and Humberside – add to that people connecting from LBA through LHR or AMS and then people travelling by road to LHR etc, then should be enough. Of course, if you have a carrier offering connections onward through New York, then it becomes even bigger; because then you have the 40% on pretty much all of the MAN-USA services to go at.
Based on population size etc, if someone thinks it would work from NCL, it will definitely work from LBA (runway / operational restrictions permitting)
Rob
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