My main point of raising Flybe in context of domestic flights from BOH, was to note that Flybe is becoming a dominant provider in the wider UK domestic market. Dominant usually means higher prices and quality glitches.
That situation normally creates enough momentum for a competitor to emerge, which in turn is an opportunity for airports like BOH. New competitors look for gaps in the market to establish.
I agree with you. My flight up this morning to MAN and back on Friday was £200. The 07:20 is operated by an EMB195 and had less than 30 people on-board. Granted this is half-term week but I can't help but thinking that the high price is affecting loads.
The challenge for any new entrant will be in their ability to put on a service that appeals to the business traveller and not just the leisure sector. In the morning I have a choice of 07:20 or 08:55 to MAN and 15:35, 17:05, 18:40. On some days there is a 20:25.
While a service from BOH would be ideal I doubt any new entrant could offer that level of service. From a purely selfish point of view a single morning service at around 8:00 would suffice, although depending on whether it originated in MAN or SOU the timings of the MAN-BOH leg would not be ideal for southbound traffic. In the evening a couple of flights from 16:00 to 18:00 would be ideal.
Will it happen? I doubt it very much. As I said earlier SOU has a bigger busines catchement area and a railway on the doorstep. I suspect BOH will continue to serve the leisure market with SOU catering to a mix of business and leisure.
I think that for someone to be able to compete with BE anywhere in the country, they need to have A LOT of money behind them. BE are now the U2/FR on the domestic circuit. By that I mean they have the resources and financial back up to fight a start up into the ground.
Secondly, they also have a much better starting point in terms of a customer base. A new airline would be trying to take traffic that is already FlyBE's. Also, if they got wiff on a start up, they can use their marketing and, dependant on the new airlines backing, for them to give up before even operating their debut sector!
Finally, what makes BE work is that they operate frequent services on their major routes. Between the UK's larger cities, there are not many of their routes that operate less than 2, maybe 3 times daily. There key is to have bases at either end.
For example, BE operated MAN-BHD at 7am this morning. Now that aircraft can either turn around in BHD (which it does) and fly back to MAN or onto another destination from BHD, say SOU for arguments sake. Now, five minutes before the E95 left MAN at 7am, a Dash left BHD for MAN. By having bases at both ends it allows the airline to take both MAN and BHD bound business traffic without arriving in one city late for a full working day. BA have operated this policy on their LON-Regions flights for as long as I can remember and it works.
A new start up pretty much has no chance against BE now, they are simply too powerful on the domestic stage. New aircraft, large bases, dedicated customer base - you would need SERIOUS money to even stand a chance, and then you have to make that back!
I think the only real "competitor" (and I use the phrase loosely) seems to be Eastern Airways, who out of NCL have carved an operation that seems to work to BHX, ABZ, SOU and CWL.
The company I work for, for some reason always books me on Eastern rather than BE (to southampton). So despite their significantly higher prices, they have found a niche that allows them to compete on older, smaller and more restricted aircraft.
That market may exist in BOH, for the right operator with the right aircraft. A small 20seater with high frequency to somewhere like MAN is not going to warrant BE starting their own operation out of BOH. They might lower their prices from SOU a bit, but thy aren't going to dedicate a Q400 to BOH (and dilute their current SOU-MAN service loads).
OK so its not groundbreaking, and not going to set the aviation world alight, but the market may well be there, but i doubt its there in the present economic climate.
In terms of leisure destinations, I think that for Summer 2010 Ryanair could always have a go at the following routes:
- Alghero or Cagliari (Sardinia)
- Luqa (Malta)
- Porto
- Trieste
- Venice
- Rome
Balkan Holidays have finally got the right idea, by giving the Bourgas route a try for August/September 2010, but hopefully they can improve their presence at Bournemouth by possibly adding a Varna route in the near future.
I'd agree with Area 51, more Italy, Rome especially, all the carriers are flying from Bournemouth to Spain/Portugal at the moment, probably because its a safe bet. Ryanair used to do Bergamo last year which is a handy place to start from in Italy, being central in the North.
Definitely more Eastern holiday destinations are required. such as Croatia/Bulgaria/Greece etc.
Thompson are doing Turkey and Sharm-el Sheik next year on their new 737-800, which will be nice!
On the domestic front surely Manx2, Eastern or Air Southwest could be lured into Bournemouth without upsetting Flybe too much? Such as to Blackpool or Liverpool etc thereby not competing with SOU-MAN route.
On the domestic front surely Manx2, Eastern or Air Southwest could be lured into Bournemouth without upsetting Flybe too much? Such as to Blackpool or Liverpool etc thereby not competing with SOU-MAN route.
So you don't think that BOH-LPL would be seen as competition to SOU-MAN??
On the domestic front surely Manx2, Eastern or Air Southwest could be lured into Bournemouth without upsetting Flybe too much? Such as to Blackpool or Liverpool etc thereby not competing with SOU-MAN route.
Manx2 won't be basing any planes in BLK any time soon. Also, SOU-BLK/LPL has not worked for a number of carriers (MAN has 6 daily flights) so I doubt that BOH would work.
Flybe already operate a SOU-LPL route three times a day now.
The only way BOH would be able to get enough domestic volume to make any impact - because of SOU's adequate hold on high freq domestic routes - would be with easyJet (GLA, NCL) Ryanair (LPL, BHD, INV, EDI) and Jet2 (summer weekend services from BLK, MAN, LBA much like NQY manages to attract)
EASTERN airways already operate from SOU in a big enough way to prevent them from looking seriously at BOH. Even if they got pi*^ed off with SOU/Flybe; moving to BOH would not solve their problems - there is no business traffic; they would effectively be shrinking their catchment.
AIR SOUTHWEST would potentially be good on JER, GCI, MAN but depends on the deal the airport can give; i doubt they would base a/c which means only w options. I would like to be proved wrong here though.
I do believe there is potential for a new leisure focused 30-50 seat start-up so long as it has code-shares for onward connections, affiliation with or franchise with a major brand and operates at good timings and adds routes like JER, MAN, BHD, GLA, FRA, EGC, AMS, CDG. But one major problem - how to persuade inbound travellers to use the flights without the noise created by Low Cost Carriers? Ryanair have no problem pushing inbound into BOH.
Some good points made there guys.
So for domestics are not really viable unless a BIG company with plenty of funds comes in to whether the competition storm that will ensue and/or BOH/MAN give some preferential rates to those that do come.
Otherwise it's international flights Bournemouth but what would happen if Southampton encroached aggressively on this?
Pottwiddler- cant see how SOU could really encroach on the BOH leisure market . SOU has the catchment area but the shorter runway thus restricting aircraft types and BOH has the longer runway but is "off centre" of the main catchment area and is less easy to get to. Some years ago Palmair did summer charters from both SOU and BOH using the 146 but it was short lived and they dropped SOU after , I think, one season.
It also looks like Thomsons are no longer flying their sole weekly charter to Palma from SOU next year and will concentrate on BOH.
Never understood why BAA did not make an approach to buy BOH!
Close friend flew through their recently and had security claim see through bag for toiletries wasn't self sealing, they had tied it and was refusing to allow it go through BUT would sell them a bag for a pound and rapidly produced a bag from their pocket.
Security member was asked "Oh so you sell them then can I have a receipt" at which point he suggested on this occasion they would allow it go through.
Of course it may be a one off with security member just happening to have a bag in his pocket.
Not in the near future while the ADP is still at £11 or rising. BOH doesn't have a huge catchment for Ryanair passengers so basing another aircraft will be quite a big deal so the airport will have to prove itself before another aircraft is swept in.
Also, why on earth do you put all those capital letters in your setences?!
At the moment one aircraft seems to suffice with Ryanair with a busy schedule and W patterns from other base s makes just the right balance
Thomson also have a full and busy summer schedule for next year with very little gaps for extra flights but a second aircraft would i think be to much at the moment
MUFC fan,
Thanks for info re Ryanair sorry about capital letters kind of been working on aircraft too long and trying to comm with management, Where you have to emphasise Everything so as to get a reasoned response if at all
Cheers
Now that we have the capital letters discussion closed, lets move on (-:
It's almost 2010, 17 years after Jersey European discontinued their BOH-JER and GCI daily F27 flights and STILL no operator has replaced them with continued operations. JEA and charter operators used to operate up to 5 departures on a saturday alone.
These routes used to carry 40-50,000 high yielding passengers a year together; do we seriously believe that the market has completely evaporated?
The spend per passenger in the airport was very high too - wealthy market. So what on earth is the issue?
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