And here I was thinking you just wanted yet another excuse to have a go at Ryanair. :rolleyes:

Paul

Of course that is all it is :rolleyes:

Interesting now to note that RYR is now Europe’s biggest short haul carrier, and number 2 between the UK and EU (in terms of seats) behind….well EZY of course. BA comes in at number 3.

I don’t know but I suspect the target may not be entirely business travellers looking for a full day in London but passengers connecting with flights from the recently announced base at LGW (eg Dusseldorf x 3 daily).

Barry

There will deifnately be an element of this, and indeed the possibility of onward connections offline (i.e. with other airlines), but I’m not certain the flight timings will suit their hub either :rolleyes:

Good news but I do feel that it should have been a LBA based aircraft in order to allow Leeds based passengers a full day in London. The reverse demand is not as high and can’t compete with the train. This does open up access to passengers in the South East though, for whom access to either Southampton or Kings Cross is awkward.

I absolutely agree with you, if you look at the overall journey time, city centre to city centre, it is going to be pretty unattractive for the northern nased traveller, especially to fly over London and then travel north again to get to the city by train for 30mins. If it was me, it’d be a no brainer, I’d take the train everytime. If you were at Leeds station by 8 (the time you’d need to be at LBA to check-in) then you’d be in the centre of London at least 30mins faster by train!

However, when you look at the return times you notice an error, because the aircraft appears to do it’s final leg on the LGW-LBA run, so suggests overnighting in Leeds…so now I’m just confused :confused: However, given that the first 4 legs match up then I assume the last two legs are just the wrong way around….which causes an even greater problem!

In considering the effectiveness of a day return air service, we always assume it is necessary to have 7.5 hours at your end destination, in theory allowing 5 hours of working day/meetings, if the aircraft doesn’t arrive at LGW until 10.10 and leaves at 17.05 then this is less than 7 hours at the London end…NOT good.

Hmmm, it all seems a bit dubious to me! Dodgy website, difficult destinations to serve (especially from LTN). I’m gonna guess this one won’t fly!

And how many have already lost their jobs in the industry (or are now subject to substantially diminished salary and working conditions) as a result of O’Riley managing to con the stupid into believing he always offers the cheapest product? Don’t get me wrong – I am no socialist (and indeed I do believe that the low-fare sector did some good in bringing down historically too-high air fares) and I think O’Riley has been very clever in what he’s done, but as I said, in the longer term I believe that the industry as a whole would be better off without one or two of the sharks that inhabit the bottom end of the market, and IMHO Ryanair is at the bottom of the bottom.

Andy

I’m not sure he has done all that much harm to the industry. The problem with aviation is that is has for a long time been very antiquated, and indeed one of the least competitive industries in the world, especially when you consider it should be one of the most contestable because of course aircraft can be moved from one location to another very easily. High salaries and luxurious working conditions were the excess fat of the industry, and a legacy of protectionism and grandour. Whilst in SOME cases, the salaries are lower for certain areas of work, in others they have taken little pounding at all. As for overall employment, I am fairly certain that this has increased over the years in the industry. Many pilots like working for LCCs because although they had to pay for type ratings etc in the first place, they like many of the social aspects associated with the job, for example almost all of these airlines operate a back to base policy, where aircraft do not nightstop, and therefore crews also do not nightstop. For those with families this has become a major selling point.

Where I think I don’t understand your argument Andy is that I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be overcharged for other products and services you buy because of wastage and lack of efficieny in an industry, so why does aviation differ?

If you would like the socialist view then I can help you a little as I work for one of the worlds leading consultancies in considering the economic benefits derived from aviation (it’s not my specialism, I’m more of business strategy specialist, but I know enough about the topic to be writing a report for a Government at the moment on the issue). Aviation is one of a basket of strong economic drivers, although can very rarely be singled out as THE main cause of economic development. I am sure I would be patronising you to explain the links between historic government owenership/protectionism/bilaterals and economic wellbeing, but for anyone who doesn’t know, these were forms of ensuring strong aviation links in lower ‘the days’ when demand wasn’t strong enough to support all of the airline industry commercially. But those times have changed and the scale of demand is such that airlines should be able to wash their face commercially. Where low fares carriers have brought advantages is to areas that major airlines are just not interested in serving, bringing tourism and links to key business centres to the local communities. Some areas have really prospered from this. In the past their only aviation link (if they were lucky) was a high fare, low capcity link to their capital city, which did little to attract tourism and inward investment, and certainly didn’t put it on the map. Basically I’m saying that if you’re counting heads of employment then you also need to consider the unmeasurable catalytic effects of onward employment.

Furthermore, socially and economically you can see other benefits brought about by these airlines in serving the points they do, not least journey time savings. We’re all so quick to discuss fares and savings which can or cannot be made there, but remember that the UK currently values a business traveller’s time at nearly £1.20 per minute, and the provision of airline services from regional points to a wider selection of destinations has driven greater efficiency in the economy overall. These airports are ones which the incumbents did not, and would not have any interest in serving.

I like your renewed statement regarding the historically high fares because this is absolutely right, but I can’t understand why you don’t think other airlines should be put under commercial pressure from airliens such as RYR or EZY. In other deregulated industries it is absolute survival of the fittest. If the low fares model was so flawed then the airlines wouldn’t be doing so well.

I will concede that I do not necessarily believe that the RYR model in particular is sustainable in the long term without being adapted, and the key will be to see how the airline changes over time to survive, but it’s survival will be driven by market demand and acceptance, which is absolutely the right position to bring consumer benefits.

I’m not saying by a long shot that it happens all the time, but it does happen for a variety of reasons as pointed out by ATR42. In 2006, a Continental 757 landed on the taxiway at EWR. It’s all about the spin you put on it to make it sound like an unbelievable incident isn’t it Andy?? I haven’t read the pprune topic on it, but if it’s not mentioned in there, then it should be noted that the runway has only just re-opened after work and that the taxiway was being used as the runway during those works.

In quoting runway figures there appears to be some misunderstanding, and I’m sure some of the pilots on here would chip in on this. Although LCY has 1508m of concrete, the entire length of this is neither available for take-off, nor landing. The runway has the following declared distances…

TORA: 1199m; TODA: 1319 (most restrictive); and LDA: 1319. (there is also the ASDA but less important for this comparison. The TORA is the length of concrete available to be used for take-off, that is to say pilots at LCY know they must be off the ground by a given point 1200m along the runway to ensure they are in the air and at an adequate height by the time they need to clear obstacles and allow adequate RESA areas where some of this is included in the runway. The TODA figure is the take-off distance available and makes an allowance for aircraft which are airborne, but not yet able to climb fully, i.e. still accelerating beyond V-R. So it’s a clearway distance really, but you’ll notice the upper limit of this is still 1319 (although 1385 in the opposite direction but for balanced field length considerations you take the lower).

You also have to bear in mind that aircraft can be payload limited for operations at such airports based on both passenger load and fuel. Modern regional jets (E-jets and C-series) have whopping ranges and are very capable aircraft, but do not require this range to reach destinations within the scope fo LCY (even MXP/MAD) and so you can pro-rata decrease the fuel load and this reduces the take-off roll required. Also bear in mind that with LCY being dominated (although decreasing) by business travel, the typical passenger is relatively light because they tend to only carry a laptop/briefcase/overnight bag and are not lugging 20Kgs of sandals, sunhats and shorts with them, which again is a factor in reducing the payload aiding operations from LCY.

Chornedsnorkack….a lot of fuss is made about LCY because of the approach angle which is highly unusual worldwide, and is made worse because of the short Landing Distance after a steep/fast approach. Aircraft need to be certified to operate to LCY and in some cases need to be modified in order to do so, for example, the Jetsream 41’s of BA which operated into LCY had an override switch which prevented the aircraft from taking avertive action when placed in such a steep decline.

Hope some of this helps.