They still do, don’t they?

It’s only when you look at a thread like this that you realise how many types have operated in Virgin colours over the years, and that they weren’t always so image conscious as they are now.

1L.

Yes, they still do, but thats because they’re in the Air France family now, with AF owning a stake, but when CityJet first started they operated in VS colours, until the route didn’t match VS’s strategy.

I think it is interesting that nobody has mentioned the Vickers Viscounts which operated in VS colours inthe 1980’s, serving Maastricht from LGW. Go find those photos…. 🙂

I am finding it difficult trying to find out what routes they serve, their exact fleet and that sort of stuff as well as financial information (such as revenues, profits/losses) and passenger numbers.

British Airways does not release individual financial results for its regional operations, they are purely included in BA’s bottomline figures, and probbaly well disquised in there.

For their year 2004 (1st Jan – 31st Dec) they report 4.16million passengers, down from 4.6m the year before and 5.6m the year before that. In 2004 the average load factor was marginally over 58%, down on the previous 2 years. In total 2004 saw 5.766 million available passenger km, with revenue passenger km being 3.401 million.

Finally, is their any more news on the rebranding?

I spoke to David Evans (Managing Director) at a recent conference and he was letting NOTHING slip out! They’re keeping it very close to their chest, although I understand that Business fares/class will still be available across their network.

Have you studied any economic theories, because thinking about it, deregulation (exciting stuff 😀 ) is heavily reliant on an understanding of how the markets work etc. I just opened my dissertation, here are a few suggestions for background reading if you need to concentrate on the effects of deregulation/privatisation more:

Bailey, E.E., Graham, D.R. and Kaplan, D.P. (1985) Deregulating the airlines, MIT Press, Cambridge

Bailey, E.E. and Baumol, W.J. (1984) Deregulation and the theory of contestable markets, Yale Journal on Regulation, 1:111-137

Button, K.J. (1991) Airline Deregulation: International Experiences, David Fulton Publishers, London

Doganis, R. (1991) Flying off course: the economics of international airlines, Routledge, London

Goetz, A.R. (2002) Deregulation, competition, and antitrust implications in the US airline industry, Journal of Transport Geography, 10:1-19

Keeler, T.E. (1991) Airline deregulation and market performance: the economic basis for regulatory reform and lessons from the US experience. In D. Banister and K.J. Button (eds) Transport in a Free Market Economy, Macmillan, London

Levine, M.E. (1987) Airline competition in deregulated markets: theory, firm strategy and public policy, Yale Journal on Regulation, 4:393-494

O’Connor, W.E. (1995) An Introduction to Airline Economics, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut; London

I just think its a bit difficult to dive into an essay on deregulating the industry if you haven’t done the background stuff, hope this helps.

Hi all,

I am studying an air travel degree at university, and am doing some research into globalisation/deregulation and state owned airlines…

I LOVE this topic..am sad?? :rolleyes:

And I would also like to pose this question to anyone that can answer it – why doesn’t the Greek Government let the airline go into insolvency and then rebuild from the ashes…either that or give it to someone else to transform, because they clearly cannot cope with the problems that it is causing…

Did you know… it is currently costing Greek taxpayers 1.5m Euros to operate the airline on a daily basis…!

You need to do a little more background reading I would say to understand why the airline industry started out regulated, and that will go some way to answering your question. The fact is that airlines were protected to guarantee air servcies, it was a fundamental part of the Chicago Convention, to preserve air services to generate economic prosperity. Before the major explosions in passenger demand the airliens were state owned to stop harmful competition. The benefits of having air services, which generate business links etc, were considered extremely important, and a large number of airlines fighting for a small number of passengers was not sensible in order to preserve economic growth.

To a country like Greece, the airline may be costing 1.5m euros per day, but the results of having these guaranteed links will be generating far in excess of that in the national economy each day, through direct/indirect/induced employment, but more importantly through catalytic benefits, which are essentially impossible to measure. These are the business generating effects of having air services available.

The Greek government is in a position where it is potentially generating more economic benefit by keeping it ‘in-house’ than by letting it go. If it was privatised then one ofthe first things likely to take place would be a major cull of employees and routes, neither of which would help the economy OVERALL in the short run.

This is not the exclusive answer, it is one element of many as to the reason that the airline is not privatised. And remember, 1.5m euros really isn’t a lot of money in either the airline industry or the balance sheets of a government.

It is useless for anyone with a bit of aviation knowledge.

I did an aviation based degree, and judging by most of the people on my course, and the knowledge they had then this book was probably what some of them based their dissertations on!!!

I never read Trip reports, but the headline of Bahrain – BHX confused me greatly so I clicked, and I’m actually pleased I did…no comments about how one piece of ice was larger than the other in the soft drinks, or how cabin crew member X smiled nicely on leaving the aircraft.

No, this one was really interesting I thought, the other side of flying that many never get to hear about.

I like the livery, but have never seen this airline before, where do they operate from/to?

They’re a Turkish charter carrier, also operating low fares domestic services, formed in 1992. Has a fleet of A300’s, A320’s, A321’s and MD-88s. Regular visitor to the UK.

Hare is good eating! 😀
Interesting to know who would have won a race to the end of the runway! 😀 😀 🙂

Well what you didn’t see was the pic taken 20 seconds earlier when the hare was behind the aircraft!!!!!! 😮