Face it

If you’re going to “land” on water it’s going to seriously ruin your day….

You mean I wouldn’t make it to my meeting? I’m gonna check if another airline will guarantee not to ruin me day if we have to land on water….:diablo:

If EVERYONE in the aviation food chain – airline and airport alike – can’t make money, then to be honest I believe that the flights shouldn’t operate.

That’s exactly the point though – right now, its all for Ryanair and nothing for BLK.

I don’t see BLK’s desire to develop and improve facilities as being “gold plating” – they want to grow their market, and in order to do so need to improve their facilities. In order to do so, they need to make some money from their existing customers. What’s wrong with that? See previous comments to the effect that if all parties aren’t making enough money to develop and grow, it probably shouldn’t be happening.

A

On the first two points, the point is that everyone shall have a piece of the pie, but this has to come through volume growth rather than charging the limited number of pax through the roof.

On the second point, I was invited by the Airport to the opening of their extension and felt that the facility was more than adequate for the type and scale of their traffic.

The margins are now very tight for all concerned admittedly, and perhaps you make a fair point regarding all parties being able to make money, but the business model has changed, and for regional airports the scope for making money is through volume growth. Don’t forget, the same facilities were loss making in the days when they saw a single daily Bandeirante service, but they now see RYR as a way to make money, which is fine, but then don’t get greedy until your time has come.

Perhaps I should have suggested a Comet 4…?:rolleyes::)

LOL, yeh, the devil’s in the detail.

Ryanair throwing their toys out of their pram again – surely not! :rolleyes:

It seems sometimes that according to the law of Ryanair, no one can make money or grow their business except Ryanair. I think that half the time its Ryanair rhetoric – they’re not making money but because of the deals they have made with airports they wait until there’s someone else to blame before they pull services. Grow up Ryanair – airports need to make money (BLK is loss-making at present) and need to provide reasonable facilities.

A

I disagree with you I’m afraid. The airline needs to achieve it’s desired load factors, at a suitable yield, and I know the yield at BLK is very low. This is because they have to sell very cheap tickets to sell the seats as the market is weak, both in terms of size and value. Bear in mind that the economy of the Blackpool area is actually quite weak, and there isn’t an awful lot of money to be spent on flights.

You have to think of it in the perspective of a ticket price, and the effect of £10 on that. If somebody buys a ticket to Dublin for £20 return, because that makes it cheaper to go to Dublin for the weekend than Manchester then the £10 charge is 50% more, and may make Manchester cheaper by train (this is a hypothetical, I don’t know what exact figures would be). Therefore some of those buying £20 tickets would choose not to fly, so RYR has 2 choices, go with the existing number of passengers still willing to pay £20+£10, or lower the fares to make Dublin cheaper, including the Airport’s £10, than Manchester. Either way, the yield per seat drops, and I have to say, from my understanding, it would not take much of a drop to make BLK unprofitable! Then you have to ask, why should RYR keep an unprofitable route? That goes against the contestable nature of their business because they would have to cross subsidise the route from other parts of their network, which cannot be done under their business model.

One problem is that a lot of perfectly functional airports want to gold plate themselves when the airlines don’t see it as necessary (as they NEED the lowest cost). It’s all very well saying passengers are the clients of the airport, but remember, without airlines, there will be no passengers, and you have to ask yourself how many passengers are only there because their fare was £1 instead of £90. I know over the last year I have been to Dublin twice because the fare was 1p, I wouldn’t have gone if the fare had been £100, or maybe even £10.01 in one case. So actually, by buying 1p tickets passengers are saying, we prefer low fares than frilly airports, even without realising/thinking about it. In some cases there is a blind view that “If you build it they will come”, and we all know, unless you have a field of dreams, this is utter rubbish.

Where the Catch 22 situation really comes into play is on the necessary development, such as runway resurfacing etc, because many of these airports are loss making and cannot access the funds to do the work, either through reserves of their own cash, or on the money market because their business plan would suggest they are a risk to lend to. But they need to deliver volume growth to profit.

As I’m sure I don’t need to spell out, modern airport management is a difficult task.

Does anyone know which airlines used to fly from Tempelhof at all?

Most recently it was very limited. Brussels Airlines, Streling and one of the regional german carriers (can’t remember which, but they operated Metroliners to and from Templehof if I remmber rightly) were the last operators. Brussels Airlines still took advantage of being able to park undercover to allow their pax to disembark in the dry.

I’m in mixed minds about the closure, it is sad because of being such an historic place, and there is definately a role for some city airports. On the otherhand though, we all have to accept that aviation has to become more sustainable, and it’s environmental impacts must be measured against the benefits offered by services/facilities. In the case of Templehof, the local noise and air quality issues outweighed the benefits of retaining the facility.

The new apron is not exclusively for the A318s. Four new stands have been created, and these are the only stands which can be used for the A318.

Mmm like the tail, dislike the union rag bit:confused: (Thought it was Virgin OZ!!)

Erm….maybe a quick search on google for the Australian flag will reveal its presence in this livery :rolleyes:

AFAIK, the line is enjoying a stay of execution whilst the 787 languishes in delays. Apparently there is a plan by Boeing to offer new build 763’s to 787 customers as appeasement for delayed Dreamliners.

ANA’s order for 767-300s was officially added to Boeing’s orderbook late last week…

Boeing adds ANA 767s to orderbook
Stephen Trimble, Washington DC (03Oct08, 22:24 GMT, 140 words)

Boeing’s order and deliveries web site confirms nine 767-300ERs were sold to All Nippon Airways in late September.

As previously reported, the Star Alliance carrier has reached an agreement with Boeing that provides the 767s as interim lift while it waits for 787 deliveries.

All Nippon anticipates the 767s will be delivered from 2010 to 2011.

Boeing has reached a similar agreement with Japan Airlines (JAL), which has announced buying 767s for interim lift. Boeing’s orders and deliveries site still lists an order for nine 767s as from an unidentified customer. JAL’s agreement also reportedly includes adding two 777s.

Boeing has delayed the first 787 delivery at least 15 months to the third quarter of 2009. However, the ongoing labour strike by Boeing’s machinists is nearly four weeks old, and is expected to cause a day-for-day delay to the programme.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news