Just some thoughts I'd like to put down about the 'positive spin' being put out by some people about the LHR route, before the first flight has ever taken off.
BA have had this order in for new long haul aircraft for some time. I guess they must have had a credible plan for using them within the then existing slot availabilty. Somehow I don't believe they ordered them on the off chance that a load of spare slots would suddenly fall into their lap.
Of course, they may well want to use some of the windfall of bmi slots for long haul expansion, but as they have said, they need quality feeder traffic to go with them. This is what the LBA flights are designed to do, forget the old concept of day returns to the capital, it is dead. BD couldn't make it work from Leeds nor could BE. The train is far superior at doing this, I would suggest from all English regions, apart from possibly the far south west. Scotland may have a stronger claim to this sort of traffic, but their airports also have significant numbers of flights to LGW, LCY etc. to cater for this.
Now, if in due course BA do decide to convert some domestic slots at LHR into long haul, here are some statistics to consider:
North east- pop. 2.6m; pop. growth (2001-10) 2.6%; flights to LHR 6
North west- pop. 6.9m; pop. growth (") 2.4%; flights to LHR 17
Flights are from all airports in region, so for Scotland means ABZ, EDI and GLA, and are for a typical weekday in December, as taken from BA timetable. I have ignored other London airports. Other data is from ONS.
Now, where would you reduce capacity to make extra long haul slots available?
Quote: "That schedule has LHR 'slot-sitter' written all over it!"
Not neccesarily, it operates to/from LHR5, so ideal for connections.
Quote: "Domestically, the service cannot compete point to point with the train. The route is aimed purley at the connecting market similar to that that exist on the MAN-LHR shuttles whose breakdown of passengers consist of about 80-90% transferring."
This is true for city centre to city centre, except on sundays when there are no fast trains and weekends when there is engineering work.
Not all pax are doing city centre to city centre journeys. This extends choice and offers alternatives so beneficial all round.
Quote: "How contstrained is T5 on domestic? Is it just stands 501, 502, 503, 505, 506 which have access to UK arrivals? Given they were flying GLA, EDI, ABZ, NCL and MAN, no one really expected any more domestic destinations to be added when T5 was built."
AFAIK, 507,508 and 509 also have access to UK arrivals, 510 (gate A10) is the "back to the 1960s gate", for those unfortunates taking a bus to a remote stand.
Quote: "I mean had you suggested BA would be flying LBA-LHR four daily on the A319 most would have scoffed at the thought."
Excellent, good to see that route revived! Hope it's not the only one.
Quote: Just some thoughts I'd like to put down about the 'positive spin' being put out by some people about the LHR route, before the first flight has ever taken off.
BA have had this order in for new long haul aircraft for some time. I guess they must have had a credible plan for using them within the then existing slot availabilty. Somehow I don't believe they ordered them on the off chance that a load of spare slots would suddenly fall into their lap.
Of course, they may well want to use some of the windfall of bmi slots for long haul expansion, but as they have said, they need quality feeder traffic to go with them. This is what the LBA flights are designed to do, forget the old concept of day returns to the capital, it is dead. BD couldn't make it work from Leeds nor could BE. The train is far superior at doing this, I would suggest from all English regions, apart from possibly the far south west. Scotland may have a stronger claim to this sort of traffic, but their airports also have significant numbers of flights to LGW, LCY etc. to cater for this.
Now, if in due course BA do decide to convert some domestic slots at LHR into long haul, here are some statistics to consider:
North east- pop. 2.6m; pop. growth (2001-10) 2.6%; flights to LHR 6
North west- pop. 6.9m; pop. growth (") 2.4%; flights to LHR 17
Flights are from all airports in region, so for Scotland means ABZ, EDI and GLA, and are for a typical weekday in December, as taken from BA timetable. I have ignored other London airports. Other data is from ONS.
Now, where would you reduce capacity to make extra long haul slots available?"
BA have stated that the split of the new slots will be about one third longhaul and two thirds shorthaul, which makes sense.
Without decent feeds, many longhaul routes are unsustainable, at least in the short term.
Some of the ABZ, EDI, and GLA slots have to be divested eventually, so the Scotland figures will be reduced. It's unlikely that there will be 17 MAN-LHR flights/day forever, 3-4 shifted to LPL would be good, probably unlikely though.
Now, where would you reduce capacity to make extra long haul slots available?
The current combined 17 per day MAN - LHR schedule becomes 11 per day in W12. That allows 4 to be rejigged into the LBA service and 2 spare for the pot. Similar patterns will exist on the Scottish routes thus the already announced Longhaul expansion to Seoul etc. Next will be a cull of the`BMI midhaul routes.
I see LBA as a long term plan not slot sitting........
Worth remembering that no Scottish city is within 2 to 3 hours surface journey of London, so wouldn’t you kind of expect there to be greater demand for domestic air travel between Scotland and LHR, than there would be to parts of Northern England?
Also, Scotland’s airports aren’t nearly as well served for direct international flights as MAN, even though things are slowly improving, so again the LHR flights remain important for connecting Scotland to the wider world.
Edinburgh is the second most visited city in the UK, and Glasgow and the Highlands also rank quite highly. Also, factor in Aberdeen’s exceptionally strong demand for business flights, and it’s not hard to see why BA might determine that there is a greater call for flights to the Scottish airports than there might be to airports in northern England. Simply looking at population factors close to each airport doesn’t tell the full story in terms of total demand to/from an airport. You have to look beyond the UK to see what the inbound demand is like too!
Problem with DSA and HUY they don't have the industry and economy to support the route and to the volume necessary, the LPL and surrounding economy is massive, I believe 2nd largest outside London (NW in general that is?)
It's a great achievement for LBA to attract a LHR service and I really hope the route is a success! However, once the 787 and A380 arrive and BA are granted access to airport capacity in China then these flights will disappear. Shame for the airport I know.
Anyone who understands airline economics will know that longhaul far exceeds shorthaul on a return-on-investment basis for a carrier like BA. Airports such as AMS, FRA and CDG are all supporting new, regional Chinese (and other far east destinations) services for which LHR has a long wait list for.
MAN, LBA and RTM (potentially) are all slot-sitter services ex LHR.
However, I really hope LBA take full advantage of this service and work together with BA to maximise the potential, however long the route may operate.
@BKSAirTransport: Your last point is rather blinkered in terms of overall market capacity.
Yorks/Humb have a drive time to Manchester in the region of 60-90 minutes. EK offer in the region of 1000 seats a day to the Middle/Far East and Australasia for rock-bottom fares - throw in Etihad and Qatar and you begin to hit 1500. IN addition, the US carriers offer up to 1000 seats a day westbound. It would be pointless for BA to compete with these carriers through LHR. The North East and Scotland have a lack of capacity to the Middle East/USA and therefore BA can attract transfer passengers through LHR on this basis. Hence the frequency you describe and and hence the lack of regional LHR service to the Yorks/Humb area.
In time, I have no doubt that BA will reduce MAN to 4 x flights a day following the same market trends.
What a load of cr ap. Drive time TO leeds is 60 90 minutes. We are not in jersey now. Leeds is massively behind where it should be - even BA know it. Leeds has always lagged behind MAN - yeah due to where it is located but also due to politics. So many people have got rich. They say russia is corrupt.
Anyone who understands airline economics will know that longhaul far exceeds shorthaul on a return-on-investment basis for a carrier like BA
Long haul doesn't really work without short haul feed though? Through the Executive Club, BA must know that they have a core of flyers out of MAN based across the Penines that aren't doing all of their long haul on BA. Trying to steal some of those back from KLM and making sure the new B787s and A380s don't leave LHR half empty is a good balancing act.
Quote:
It would be pointless for BA to compete with these carriers through LHR.
No, that would be the whole point. One does not surrender the market if one doesn't need to. You can drive to MAN, fly to the US then connect on to your final destination, or you can fly straight from LBA and change at T5 to your final destination.
Last edited by Skipness One Echo; 30th Jun 2012 at 00:16.
Leeds Approach..Agreed, but at least the new owners are trying to improve the situation. Give them time they may surprise us all, it's a shame the councils that profited from the sale of the airport dont invest in some decent links to "their" airport!
If you compare to Liverpool where I think in 2011 they had around 5.3 million passengers, then I would agree LBA should have the potential to reach that figue. However Liverpool got in to the LoCo market (for want of a better term) early in the game. Whether that is possible in the current climate at LBA I am not sure, in the future you would hope so.
I think the new owners need to be given credit, with the new BA route, Jet2 adding another 757, Monarch with new routes and potentially a new base, Thomson with 10 routes, 8 off them new, thinks defintley seem on the up!
When I did some work with MAG a couple of years back, the 'LS' post code was the biggest traffic feed for MAN outside of the North West. Also much more likely to park compared to people who live closer to MAN, so a big revenue earner for the airport which had people a bit twitchy.
Wouldn't surprise me if there was still an easy 1mppa for LBA to get after and with the blokes they've got running LBA these days, I'd back them to succeed.
LBA are doing ok ,And given its location it has a lot of traffic. I'm surprised the amount of diversions over the past couple of years of dodgy weather haven't affected things . It must make some airlines rule it out . Man doesn't seem to ever really have that issue .
Yes, if anyone from BA route planning is reading, I vote for a LPL-LHR route, great feed potential for sure!
Well if your voting for LPL i vote for NQY-LHR BA service
on the subject of NQY, before SZ were folded by Eastern the NQY-BRS-LBA operated twice daily (i think). Its a little surprising that nobody has picked up the route. Yes i know that some of that traffic would of been BRS-LBA but some of the punters were flying NQY-LBA
LEEDS APPROACH - I may live in Jersey, however, I do leave the Island every now and again. Working at a high level in commercial aviation, I assure you my facts are well proven and time will demonstrate this.
I give it 12 months then BA will stop the route the simple fact is that BA are far to expensive for business men like me, I travel to the Far East at least twice a year and as we all know BA are using this as a feeder route to LHR but compare MAN-HKG with either Qatar or Air France and its over £700.00 cheaper than LBA-HKG via LHR (business class) and being a business man who flys to HKG and CAN twice a year I would rather fly with Qatar who are SUPERB and a true 5 star airline rather than BA who are no better than Air France, very poor.
Living in Ilkley I would love to use my local airport but the cost is far to much as I always travel with a member of staff and we normally save between £1500 - £2500 flying from Manchester (bus class combined) which pays our hotel, drinks etc and the stop over timings from MAN-CDG-HKG or CAN and MAN-DOH-HKG or CAN are far shorter than LBA-LHR-HKG, I am sorry to say its not going to work.
