David KerrOpen skies or not I dont think American law will allow foreign owned companies to operate on their turf. Note the trouble Virgin-USA has had with the federales.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen photos of IB and AF A320-series aircraft that side of the pond (though AF may be more likely doing Caribbean “local” services rather than venturing to the States)
David KerrBesides, why is nobody slating Virgin or BMI for ignoring the regions? Virgin don’t bother apart from touristy stuff and BMI started, and stuffed it up totally (and we all know they only started because LHR was not on the table for them at that time).
I’m just wondering what Branson is doing in China. The hot potato rumour is for a MAN-Shanghai service to be announced – quite why, only he will know. If the aircraft is going to be MAN based, it’s going to have to be a 744 in thier more “leisure” focused config, and that’s going to be too big an aircraft. If it’s an A340, are they really going to do a W pattern for 2 or 3 flights a week as I’m sure it would make better sense for an A340 to be based at MAN with another route (or two) to commence – BOM for example? It would be a strange base though: 1.5 747s and 1 A340.
BD have, at least, not screwed up recently on their long-haul ex-MAN. The pleasing aspect is that the new A330 config is due to passenger demand. So their current 5 routes here should be safe for a while. But we can forget about LHR not on the table for them…..it was only the USA that was off limits – if they wanted long-haul at LHR badly enough, they could and should have started with other routes.
But if you base aircaft at New York, then the regional airports only get one service: New York. To serve 4,5,6 destinations from MAN you need to base a fleet there.
Only put my reponse in those terms as you said “identical services”. YEs, a base would be needed for multiple destinations, but previoulsy, I qutoed what the thinking was about T1BA and MAN ops. Something happened -they really did not develop MAN into a hub for some reason which would have aided matters no end; it is rather pointless to offer JFK and LAX ex-MAN when there is nothing to feed onto!
David Kerr1. A lot of those flights are mostly economy-only aren’t they? That isn’t BA’s target market (see point 3)
You mean 16J/156Y? config. I once had an interesting Because you’d be mistaken if you’re think 188Y. It’s the utter reluctance for BA to attempt anything at the regional airports and tie-in with the oneworld alliance that galls. And when an airline wants to come to the regions, who complains? BA! Sorry, they can’t have it both ways. Either serve Britain or rebrand to London and Europe Airways, and I’m saying that even though MAN-JFK is served by them.
2. If BA were to launch identical services, they would most likely need to establish a base at the regional airport in question. Otherwise they’d have to ferry aircraft around to position them. If you’re going to the expense of opening a new base, you would want more than 1 route to justify the investment.
Why? I thought the European venture was to be based out of New York. Basing a fleet of 6 aircraft there means no need to set up base at the regional. And aren’t we forgetting the MAN-LAX, MAN-JFK, BHX-JFK and GLA-JFK routes in 1993-4, with the MAN-LAX dropped then with the BHX + GLa routes continuing for 3 more years, when they had a sub-fleet of 4 aircaft for 3 airports.
David KerrWas just wondering what sort of cost bmi would be looking at for this kind of charter and if they’d still be turning a profit?
Can be quite expensive I would imagine. Wonder how much money BA lost for the CitiExpress/Connect operations when for days at a time it was necessary for either Flightline or Titan aircraft to operate for them. The “best” substitution was Titan operating a 757 on MAN-MAD
David KerrHave BA ever had ETOPS approval for 757 ops.
I would have thought so, seeing that they did GLA-JFK and BHX-JFK with 757s (G-BPEC and G-BPEE I believe were 2 of the 757s involved)
For the CO routes….
GLA-LAX = GLA-EWR-LAX
EDI-MCO = EDI-EWR-MCO.
i.e. CO shifting through their EWR hub. What BA were doing with their regional transatlantic was predominantely point-to-point; they intended builiding their MAN ops into a hub of sorts but never really got to grips with improving feed and were more focused on getting people through LHR (to this end, BA are still myopic, as they have the ability to codeshare non-LHR/LGW routes to the States but refused to codeshare AA’s MAN-MIA run in case in harmed them. Presumably the passengers routing MAN-LHR-MIA are the ones that make the LHR-MIA sector work.)
David KerrQuote from July 7, 1998 by Robert Ayling:
“It demonstrates BA’s commitment to the regions….We look forward to working with Manchester Airport as our business continues to grow. Manchester plays a key role in our global network”
!) Name the event it relates to
2) Spot the falsehood(s) in that quote
3) Why is it nearly 10 years on when prosperity in the UK regions has never been greater, BA is going to fly more routes to New York from mainland Europe than it does it the part of Britain known as “not London”.
4) What objections would BA raise should other airlines decide that, as per then 1950s and 1960s, Manchester (and the other regional airports) are being neglected by the perceived “national” airline, then they can make a quick buck or three by doing it themselves. Lufthansa (GB), anyone, especially if BD (rather Sir Michael Bishop) decides to sell themelves to LH, given that LH know exactly how many premium passengers flying long-haul ex FRA and MUC have arrived from MAN?
David KerrViceroy Territory? My siggestion = VT. Unless they want to spend needless time altering all the paperwork to a new prefix. If they do want the latter, perhaps SI standing for Subcontinental India. (Would have done IS for Indian Subcontinent but don’t think it would be allowed)
David KerreasyJet have not yet formally taken GB Airways over as they are still waiting for regulatory approval. GB Airways focus at MAN over the past 12 to 18 months and now at LGW has been more toward the easyJet way of operating and less the ways of BA, so it’s not going to be too big a shake-up as you fear.
Tomorrow (1st Jan) should see the announcment of MAN routes – it may be that the approval has gone through and they are merely going to rubber stamp the existing summer schedule that was in place, with the addition of Malaga services. Or may be the launch of services by mainland European based aircraft into MAN. I tend to think it is the latter.
CX may have MAN in their sights but we are not going to have them relaunching services unless the Moscow stopover and 5th freedom rights that they perversely want are granted.
The major event not listed in the thread opener is the Flybe launch of the old BAConnect services. Hopefully all the retained routes are doing as well as hoped!
As for the 787 rollout, I daresay Airbus will look to roll out an A350 in just as much a flyable state as the 787 was. That is this year’s big blooper from Boeing, alongside the denial of delays until they magically woke on a Monday saying 6 months delay when on the previous Friday there were none!
David KerrDoes anyone else remember Gulf Air VC10s? 🙂
Only saw the one at MAN (16/10/77 or thereabouts. A4O-VG), which parked on Pier A. That’s over ******* 30 years ago 😮
David KerrI try and avoid LHR as much as possible,but others tell me if your connecting there with BA its almost certain you will lose some of your luggage.
Errr..it’s not BA’s direct problem. It’s the BAA’s problem regarding baggage handling. Other airlines are affected just as badly but as they don’t have quite an extensive route network or have a high profile, it’s not publicised.
Theoretically, the BAA’s problem with BA’s baggage should for the most part be minimised, but there will probably be some given that some services, I’m led to believe, will not operate out of T5.
David KerrGulf Air have been long since based in Bahrain.
Yet they were unable to secure BAH-MAN rights, having to operate AUH-MAN instead, via AMS and then CDG.
The Abu Dhabi government got out when Etihad was started.
Aren’t they the national airline of the UAE and not Emirates?
BTW: Just a little bug-bear of mine… The prefix for Oman is A4O (Alpha Four Oscar), not A40 (not Alpha Four Zero)
Is it V8-007 or V8-OO7
David KerrThe busy factor may be a lame factor for you but consider:
LHR’s biggest problem is that it’s running at near enough full capacity every hour from 6am to 10pm. Any kind of inclement weather will result in delays, even if all domestic routes are cancelled.
For LGW, the problem is that it’s the busiest single runway airport in Europe (world?). So it’s similar to LHR when bad weather’s around.
Until there is extra runway capacity at LHR/LGW, these problems will remain.
For the other airports – SOU has been fogbound, London City is so badly affected that it’s hard to see across to Canary Wharf, Luton is in a valley (at least that’s my dim recollection of my single vist there too many years ago) so when fog comes, it’s likely to stay, STN can and often does get a bit of fog in winter time.
MAN has a new runway that’s not CAT3 capable (but think it may be rectified sooner or later), LBA’s runway can see certain types divert when other types land (i.e. DHC8 land, 757 divert), etc.
David KerrIt may be possible for all airlines to co-exist within the confines of their planned programmes – I did see that Jet2’s cut backs are on the “marginal profitable” routes – should either easyJet or Ryanair decide to start those routes themselves, it may become “more profitable” given the much higher profile those airlines have within Europe; it may have been a lack of non-UK passengers that caused their demise of Jet2’s operations.
Flybe and bmi/bmibaby co-exist on France as they operate into different airports, and given the frequency that Ryanair will be introducing on routes (up to 4 weekly), they would probably still survive given that in Flybe’s case, their French regional routes are “thin” and bmi/bmibaby’s routes operate near enough daily.
As for Thomsonfly, I don’t envisage them having too many problems either given they are a known brand.
Going into analytical mode now….
In terms of seats, FR with 12 services a week and an estimation of 4.3 weeks for a month, we find 12 services * 2 sectors * 4.3 weeks * 189 seats a sector = 19,500 seats available to fill a month. At a typical Ryanair load of 80%, it still means 15,500 passengers carried. Charter passenger wise, unable to determine available capacity, I’m going off what should be the peak passenger month for charter numbers i.e. August. This year, 1.09 million passengers were on those flights – to go for zero growth in the overall international passenger market (unlikely) with passenger substitution to scheduled services, the biggest hit MAN could take is a 1.75% reduction in the charter figures i.e. each 10,000 charter passenger number reduction is about 1% fall. To lose 50,000 passengers a month means that it would take until the 3rd phase of Ryanair expansion to register growth figures for MAN (all to be taken with a pinch of salt as one trusts other airline’s passenger numbers will grow!).
David KerrIt is massive expansion by FR at MAN – two destinations currently to 6 in March, 10 by June and 14 by 2009. That is pretty impressive stuff, even if frequencies on the routes are likely to be 3 or 4 weekly.
David KerrWell it is if you think about it. FR could of done that last week or even before EZY acquired GB Airways. Instead they think right beacuse EZY is expanding from MAN we shall expand from MAN
I understand FR have been talking to MAN for just as long as EZY so there ciuld have been two sets of negotiating teams at MAN, neither of whom at liberty to disclose to the other airlines what was happening. You may have noticed that over the past couple of years, FR introdued SNN and increased it and have expanded DUB to 5 daily -> there was a time when the cut back drastically from MAN due to “high charges”, but recently most times when Michael O’Leary has spoken about STN’s new runway costing so much, he’s compared to the cost of the new one at MAN. The era of having MAN looking toward BA and their entourage has now officially ended. The future’s blue and orange! The 40 million passengers per year by 2025 is perhaps not now an overly ambitious total:
Adding 3 easyJet 156s seat A319s operating 3 sectors each day makes about 1,000,000 available seats to fill when compared to now.
Even if FR were to base just 2 189 seat 738s operating 3 sectors each day, it would add a further 800,000 seats available. So that’s a hell of a jump: it works out to be an 8% increase for MAN from 2 airlines growth.
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