Just to update everyone on this I eventually had a response from Ryanair HQ. I had a long e mail screed about how they do not do refunds etc and at the very end they said under the special circumstances they will send an unspecified GBP amount to me. An unspecified amount could of course end up being £2.36 but at least its positive.:o
OG

Well I think you’ve done very well to be honest. I don’t think it matters which airline it is, under thses circumstances most would be unlikely to offer any refunds. You’d probably have got a transfer to another flight with other airlines, would would still have had to pay a transfer fee, I think even BA and the likes would have taken this view.

Hi,

It would even be acceptable just to get a job in aviation for a year, even if it doesnt strictly cover the terms of a placement; any experience has got to be good in my eyes.

I disagree to be honest, you’re better off finding a role that will provide you with the skills that you want for your chosen career. I didn’t do my placement in aviation, instead I worked for a general transport planning firm, but the experience was more useful than having gone to work on check-in or security at an airport. I think that there is a fine balance between getting a placement job (not always easy) and fidning one that is actually going to offer you some benefit.

I did a BSc(Hons) in Air Transport Management at Loughborough University. Sometimes wish I’d done something more generic, such as and economics or a business course. However, I enjoy my job now, and my degree was of course directly related.

For a while BY did operate scheduled services and as such were eligble for IATA membership (which is why I remember this) but that might have been later than this. They were seen frequently on trooping flights and this might have been one of those.

I think their scheduled services were later than that, I’m sure they were in the 80s (the first time before the on-slaught of ticket only and hybrid scheduled/charters that we know now).

Out of curiosity why are we assuming CO and ERW?

Delta for instance have stated their transatlantic business strategy vies-a-vie acquired 757-200s, is to use them on European routes which have little or no American scheduled service.

More likly that Delta would do LBIA-JFK then CO doing the Newark run imo.

I would assume CO because it fits their strategy more, Delta’s policy of 757s is less mature and they have been in negotiations with a lot of airports, but with Delta there is a lot of talk, and a lack of action sometimes. Unlike CO.

Without access to a comprehensive hub and spoke network of internal flights (of it’s own or via codeshare) to destinations accross the USA, any airline flying LBA-EWR (or LBA-JFK or ORD for that matter) would struggle. For example, if you take a look at American’s MAN-ORD service, a very large percentage of the passengers make onward connections to all points in the USA. Frankly, much as I’d love to see a sucessful Jet 2 Transatlantic service, I don’t think they’d have the clout to negotiate a viable codeshare deal, but I’d love them to prove me wrong!

Absolutely right, and goes with the point I wa smaking earlier. Looking at EWR, in 2006, 48% of passengers from MAN were terminating their flights at EWR (for NYC), meaning 52% were flying on to other destinations. Of those passengers using the service from Yorks and Humber, 56% were onward connecting, with only 44% (24k pax) bound for New York itself.

To illustrate the point further (for all MAN pax and not just Yorks and Humb), for Dubai, 23% of all pax flying on the route were heading for DXB itself, the other 77% were making onward connections. For ORD, the figure is 19% going to Chicago, with 81% making connecting flights.

This explains why, from a regional airport, airlines like Jet2 will struggle without onwards.

The 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.
Rob

Yes, but this forgets the fact that there is a large overlap in the catchment area of the two, and that infact some parts of Yorkshire are more accessible from MAN. If you look at the CAA Survey data for 2006 for EWR then you will see that 49% of the 189k pax are from the North West, and 30% from Yorks and Humber. 30% amounts to 56K pax, which is insufficient to sustain a service of this nature, especially remembering the smaller catchment area of LBA, and the overlap between the two.

Whats more important is that 62% of all business traffic on the route comes from the North West, compared to 23% from Yorks and Humber. So it can be assumed that the North West provides a better yield to the airline.

Furthermore if you use the survey data to look at the 56K from Yorks and Humber then you will see that only 19% were flying on business, whilst 81% are leisure travellers. By comparison, of the 93K pax from the North West, 31% are business travellers.

Therefore MAN is more appealing to the airlines on this type of route because they need to offer higher frequencies to attract the business pax, and therefore they will do that from the largest base of premium travellers. They know that, because the market is more limited from LBA, they can expect the passengers to travel to MAN.

Of course, this is only looking at this route, and it MUST be remembered that passengers make LH connections from both airports via other hubs, such as AMS and LHR. Also remember that in the case of EWR, it is a major hub airport and many of the pax are onward travellers. Therefore a route from LBA would be best operated by CO rather than LS because it can fill more seats through the ability to offer onward connections.

Often CAA survey data is used to quote high level figures, such as those put forward by Rob, and for some arguments this is fine, but then for some it is essential to lok a little deeper and understand the other factors at play. However, having said that, I have done forecast work for LBA and there is a market for NYC in the future.

DXB looks even better from MAN.