Exactly because Jet2 have stolen all the traditional charter pax, theres no benefit in charter airlines basing more aircraft there to expand when their traditional customer base has changed over to LoCo airlines. As long as this continues there wont be any significant charter expansion from LBA

err, Bristol, Newcastle, Manchester, East Mids, Gatwick, Glasgow, Birmingham? Don’t they all have LoCo airlines as well as charter pax. At Doncaster you’ve even got the same company offering LoCo flights and charter flights alongside each other. So sorry, that argument doesn’t wash.
LoCo’s will affect some charter routes to Spain, but pretty much anywhere else such as Greece and Turkey and Cyprus, they have no bearing.

Rob

It’s hard to be certain; but it’s very likely that LBA-Heraklion, Rhodes, Zakynthos, Taba and Banjul all would not have happened if a 757 was the only aircraft available to fly them.

Taba and Banjul maybe but not sure about those Greece destinations. Just look at what goes from NCL this summer.

4 757s a week going from NCL to Rhodes
3 757s, 1 A320 and 1 737 a week going NCL to Heraklion
2 757s and 1 A320 NCL going NCL to Zakynthos

All this to serve what, 2m people something like that. How many people live in West Yorkshire alone? 2.3m + North Yorkshire so hard to believe LBA would struggle to fill a single 757.

Rob

Manchester’s problem is that it’s only grown to be where it is by feeding off of the catchment areas of other airports. It has always really been ‘Manchester, Liverppol, Blackpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull’ international airport. Must be close to 20 million people in that area and while ever their own local airports offered no choice, MAN was always going to do well. The problem now is that for a lot of the short-haul market, it isn’t the only choice. If someone had have said 5 years ago you’d be able to fly from Liverpool to Krakow or Riga, Blackpool to Prague or that there would be daily 757 scheduled services from Leeds to Alicante, Palma, Malage and Faro, the white coats would have been on the scene as quick as a flash. But here we are and as people are flying more and more, so the importance of local, convenient, hassle free airports grows. Who wants to battle across the M62, pay a fortune to park somewhere miles away from the airport and then traipse round mammoth shopping malls trying to find gate 200 or something. Give me a £20 taxi ride to the doorstep of my regional airport anyday. The other problem for MAN is that LPL is not only serving it’s own local market that used to go to MAN, but is also pulling in passengers from all over MAN’s catchment area. To most of Joe Public low-cost = Ryanair and Easyjet only and these are the sites they search first, these more often than not have the cheapest fares and this is why the likes of Jet2 and bmibaby can’t get a proper foothold in the Northwest. The final problem is that MAN can’t grow it’s long-haul business quickly enough to keep up with the loss of short-haul business. Long-haul is for now where MAN can still operate without competition from anywhere else in the Noth, but the airlines are vary wary of the yields from MAN especially with fuel cost / tonne where it is today. Most of the non-European hubs are served and it’s hard to see other than the odd quasi-charter flights like bmi / VS to the Carribean, where it can go next.

Put it this way, if shares in airports were able to be traded, I’d be selling MAN and buying LPL, BLK and DSA!

RobT

Jet2 don’t fly to Florence (FLO). Do you mean Pisa (PSA) or Rome (FCO)

I’m sorry, but …..

Just because the weather is below CAT3a at Leeds – there is no suggestion it would be below CAT3 at Manch. If it was, why would they go there? For a start MME is the primary alternate for Jet2 at Leeds. It’s also very unusual for an aircraft that has burned holding fuel awaiting weather improvements at one airfied to then shoot off to another airport where the weather is marginal. The delays into MAN on a single runway ops in low viz just mean you would avoid it like the plague.

Also a certified CAT3 aircraft, with certified CAT3 crew and a certified CAT3 airflied, does not have to go making practice approaches into an airport like MAN before they are allowed to make a live approach.

Oh and the 14 ILS at Leeds is CAT1 only – not CAT2.

Rob

Forgotten that DL is to send 764s on JFK-MAN next year? If it is to be an American airline, it will be CO – as to affecting their MAN ops…it may cause a bit of a drop but I doubt that CO is seeing as much as half it’s MAN operation being “bankrolled” by Yorkshire.

I wouldn’t underestimate just how much of MAN’s long-haul business comes from outside of the North West. 50% is the rule-of-thumb that the CAA worked on for the studies on 5th freedom access. To me. it’s not really rocket science. A tad over 5 million people live in Yorkshire – pretty much the same as Scotland. Scheduled traffic to the US from Scotland is worth about 50,000 passengers a month. Scheduled traffic to the US from Manchester is about twice that number. Also passenger numbers to Dubai from Manchester are about twice that of Glasgow. Not all of this uplift can be put down to the “Yorkshire” factor, but I think its completely naive to assume that a population base the size of Scotland that has no direct long-haul flights of its own hasn’t made a big difference to Manchester’s success in this area.