ROUTE SPECULATION

[SWBKCB]

Skippy - see what you've started? You've forgot to use the "tongue in cheek" emoticon...

[MerchantVenturer]

Don't Airbus operate there own private shuttle from Chester?

Yes they do between Hawarden, Bristol and Toulouse airports and now operated by Eastern Airways E145s who took over the contract from bmi regional a few weeks ago.

[Bagso]

Wizzair not using Manchester is bizarre !

They surround Manchester but don't actually fly from it. Now thee only lo cost airline not to use the largest airport outside London.

A myriad opportunities to Eastern Europe are available !

[mwm991]

It's not bizarre. Liverpool is cheaper and half an hour down the road.

[Fairdealfrank]

Gatwick to Nassau (British Airways)

There's already LHR-NAS 5 days/week, extended to GCM 4 days/week.

[Dobbo_Dobbo]

As this is my first post on pprune, let me say hello. Perhaps some of you will recognise my handle, in which case hello again!

There has been a fair amount of chatter regarding long haul routes ex MAN on a number of forums that I am a member of. Some of these have been mentioned but it may be worth my while to offer my two cents.

Cape Town - as LAX_LHR mentions this would be a dream route for TCX. It did not work with SAA but should do with the right aircraft. I'd like to see VS perform this route but in their current position I suspect that is beyond a long shot. Johannesburg would also be a good one, but less of a leisure route for TCX.

Shanghai - this seems likely to be launched by Air China sometime after Hainan launch the Beijing route.

LAX/SFO - although TCX have launched a route to LAX this summer, it is only twice a week and seasonal. The indications are that demand is stronger for that route, and I'm sure there are a number of airlines who will watch with interest. BA used to offer this in the past and VS have long been credited with an interest. The partnership with DL has been productive in Atlanta and a further expansion west might benefit both parties. I doubt both would be launched but I would not be shocked if one was within the next year. A left field operator in the shape of Air New Zealand have been interested in the past.

Bangkok - as mentioned, another good TCX route. Apparent TG were keen on MAN before their recent problems. Not sure why, but hey ho.

Kuala Lumpur - big market, served by MH in the past but their wel publicised issues mean it is unrealistic. Air Asia X have sniffed around this route but we're put off by APD.

Tokyo - long running interest from JAL. Who knows if anything would come from it but it would be a great one to have.

Delhi/Mumbai - quite how AI have not opened this is beyond me. BHX do really well on the route and I suspect MAN would equal that (unless they feel it would dilute their pax market?)

Dallas - AA have tweeted about running a 788 on this route. Whether anything happens is anyone's guess.

Singapore - who knows what SQ will do. On another forum I have posted that MAN supply comfortably over half the average PAX load to SIN from MUC. How much of those are premium PAX I do not know. The figures are not a million miles away from the early 2000s when it was daily in the 772ER and the suggestion is they they will try non stop again with an A359.

JFK/EWR - big increase in PAX in 2015. Hopefully someone Will offer a different departure time than early morning!!!

Hong Kong - a daily or 8x weekly CX service I think will launch in 2017.

On BA, as Shed says they would argue that their partner and alliance airlines serve MAN. They are not the national operator, but a hub airline - same as the MEB3, SQ, CX etc. MAN is a spoke, but a pretty large spoke. Do I think they could make a long haul operation at MAN work? Possibly, but I doubt they'll try. There is clearly a market for it, but there would need to be no half measures and some people have long memories of BA abandoning MAN and that would be difficult to circumvent. They may need to change their business model to a dual hub a la LH - who are not exactly in the best of shapes.

[Ringwayman]

Liverpool is cheaper and half an hour down the road.

Yep. And we saw what Ryanair and easyJet have done after focusing in on the apparently "cheaper" airport.

[MANFOD]

What other Eastern European/Baltic destinations are MAN missing that could be a winner?

Some that come to mind are Tallinn; Vilnius; Katowice; Poznan; and Cluj as well as Bucharest. Some of those have been tried in the past and the routes pulled, but it doesn't mean they couldn't work in future.

The difficulty is that they operate from competitor airports already by various carriers, so it needs an airline to take up the challenge. While easyjet fly to cities such as Berlin and Madrid from both LPL and MAN, I don't see Wizz doing the same with its destinations. Routes served from DSA and BHX but not LPL would be less of an issue for them I guess.

Edit: Of the possible routes mentioned, it seems Wizz only fly to KTW from LPL. Ryanair fly to Vilnius and Poznan from LPL but they do duplicate one or two routes I believe. Blue Air have flights to Bucharest and Cluj.

[Firstaid]

Glasgow - New York JFK (American)
With the daily Delta and American as well the double daily United service to Newark demand may be over estimated at Edinburgh and Glasgow could gain a new service.

Glasgow - Charleroi (Ryanair)
Glasgow - Beauvais (Ryanair)
Glasgow - Knock (Ryanair)
Glasgow - Shannon (Ryanair)
All routes previously operated by Ryanair from Prestwick but could be revived at Glasgow. Beauvais in particular carried 20000+ pax per month in past years.

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by Porky Speedpig

The IAG group and other BA joint ventures are slowly but surely increasing their presence at MAN, currently roughly 10/day to London (BA), 8/day to Ireland (EI), 3/day to USA (AA), up to 3-4/day to Spain/Italy (IB/I2/VY), Billund/Helsinki (EZ/AY), so arguably up to nearly 30 flights a day.

10/day to London (BA) BA Hub
8/day to Ireland (EI) EI hub
3/day to USA (AA) All to AA hubs
up to 3-4/day to Spain/Italy (IB/I2/VY)MAD - IB Hub; BCN = VY Hub
Billund/Helsinki (EZ/AY), EZ and AY Hubs

That's how it is now. An ideal route is 50% O&D to the major metropolitan area where the hub is located, and 50% connecting traffic there onward to other destinations on the network. If you can get a greater share of the O&D (Dublin likely) that's to the good because revenue per seat is commonly better than the "attributed share" of a through fare, but the connecting traffic brings notable economies of scale.

[Jetaway]

The "logistical headache" of re-positioning BA aircraft to be based out of MAN is actually not that hard. VS already carries this out with their ATL service in which aircraft swap routes out in ATL therefore allowing major maintenance to be carried out at LHR without the need of a positioning flight. BA could easily do this with the frequency of flights they have to multiple destinations they have in the USA. The 787-8 is the perfect aircraft for these types of flights as it was what is was designed for long thin routes.

With regards to diluting the market DL added their JFK service last year and yields on AA have roughly stayed the same. BA could possibly make the 2nd service somewhat later in the day as they have done for their new LGW-JFK service.

Other flights I would like to see from MAN would be:
MAN - WAW (LOT)
MAN - DXB (Using QF Metal)
MAN - NRT/HND (JAL/ANA)
MAN - BKK (TG)
MAN - DEL/BOM (AI/9W)

[AvGeek1]

Could we see any full-service airlines from Eastern Europe operating to MAN? LOT (to WAW), Czech Airlines (to PRG), TAROM (to OTP), Bulgaria Air (to SOF)?

I was also thinking about British Airways Gatwick operations and what routes they could add from there. Came up with these;

LGW-DUB
LGW-LPA
LGW-PMI
LGW-TXL
LGW-MXP

What are your thoughts? Any other suggestions?

[robbie1973]

Bit far fetched and I know it's never likely to happen but how about a few new domestic routes -

LTN - NQY (BE/EZY)
LTN - NCL (EXS/EZY)
LTN - CWL (BE)
LTN - MAN (EZY)

Mid haul Routes -

LTN - RAI (BY/ZB)
LTN - PDL (BY/ZB)
LTN - ODS (WZZ)

[EI-BUD]

This certainly is an interesting discussion point. Many of the routes could be viable. However, given the consolidation that has happened in the industry in Europe and the US (Europe not done yet), airlines are cherry picking what they believe to be the most profitable routes to deploy their aircraft. Shareholder demand plays a large part and a maximisation of yield and optimisation of the schedules are to the fore... Nonetheless I'll add my two pence worth.

Coming at this from a Northern Ireland then an Ireland perspective ;

Belfast International - Toronto ( was traditionally a well established route, Canada has large NI diaspora) surprised Norwegian or Westjet haven't went in though, I'd imagine Westjet looked before..

Belfast City - Cork: bring this route back pure financial crash and air crash by Manx 2 Aer Arann had very respectable business schedule that was well subscribed. The drive is long, and I believe this route is probably the most viable routes inside the Island.

Belfast ( either airport) - Naples, Venice. Huge demand on seasonal basis. Peak summer flights on holiday routes tend to be packed and fares very high.

Time is also right to bring back Belfast to Gdansk and Warsaw in Poland. Large Polish continent in Belfast, all of who fly via Dublin.

Belfast (either airport) - Berlin. Was withdrawn in the worst of times. It used to do well and Berlin is great city break.

Belfast (either airport but probably at City) - Madrid, by Iberia express. Willie Walsh stated that despite the failure of Vueling on BCN, they'd look at opportunities ex Belfast. He said if route development fund was offered, Madrid by Iberia Express could be a real possibility.

Dublin - China and Thailand. But the former is reported to be coming on line from winter next.

[canberra97]

Fairdealfrank


With regards to Nassau I think he meant the transfer of NAS and GCM from LHR to LGW to join the rest of the Caribbean destinations.

[Shed-on-a-Pole]

Could we see any full-service airlines from Eastern Europe operating to MAN? LOT (to WAW), Czech Airlines (to PRG), TAROM (to OTP), Bulgaria Air (to SOF)?

All four of these carriers have served these very routes in times past. They eventually succumbed to competition from more nimble no-frills competitors (from LPL as well as MAN). Three of those four cities are now served from MAN by no-frills carriers, so there would be robust competition to contend with. Czech Airlines has now repositioned itself as a no-frills operation in its own right, even down to serving unlikely obscure airports.

The "logistical headache" of re-positioning BA aircraft to be based out of MAN is actually not that hard.

But it is also not a compelling proposition when they can just leave the heavy lifting to their codeshare partner and close buddy American Airlines. It is certainly less hard for them.

MAN - DXB (Using QF Metal)

Aircraft enthusiasts would welcome this, but what is in it for the airline? High-volume bookings already come in via the existing codeshare arrangements.

It did not work with SAA but should do with the right aircraft

Actually, SAA did fine on MAN-JNB/CPT for several years. Everything changed when international sanctions against South Africa were lifted following the abolition of Apartheid. Overnight, a world of international opportunities opened up to SAA's limited fleet resources. New glamorous global destinations were launched, MAN made way. Of course, today's SAA is a very different beast and the market has changed beyond recognition. The VFR market has collapsed (more dramatically than Canada). The draw for South Africa now has to be tourism-driven, but some of its cities are today considered very high risk for visitors from a safety perspective.

Bangkok - as mentioned, another good TCX route.

Leisure operators such as Thomas Cook and Thomson will likely favour the exotic resorts rather than the capital. An airline such as Thai can offer connections across Thailand from BKK; TCX and TOM cannot do this. The island beaches are the big mass-market draw. However, if they do decide to offer BKK I'll be delighted.

Delhi/Mumbai - quite how AI have not opened this is beyond me. BHX do really well on the route

Ethnic distribution is a key consideration here. Political correctness urges us to speak of "Asians", but Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are not the same (let alone other nationalities comprising Asia). Birmingham and the Midlands has a very large ethnic Indian population, including a concentration of Sikhs who travel to Amritsar. The North West is home to far more Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, as are some areas of West Yorkshire. There are Indians resident in the NW, but on nothing like the scale of those living around Birmingham Airport's catchment. Having said that, I do believe that MAN could support a service to India (it is a BRIC and a tourism hotspot, after all) but BHX undeniably has the stronger market in this instance.

Air Asia X have sniffed around this route [Kuala Lumpur] but were put off by APD.

Never say never. MAN remains a medium-term objective for Air Asia X according to some informed sources. MAN wasn't top pick in earlier rounds, but it is still on the agenda.

[wallp]

Originally Posted by Fairdealfrank

There's already LHR-NAS 5 days/week, extended to GCM 4 days/week.

Yes indeed there is and it's a route that could comfortably fit into BA's long haul network at Gatwick especially now the route is switching from a 767 to 777. That's what I was speculating about.

[wallp]

How about

Luton to Stockholm
Luton to Oslo

Aside from the CPH battle between FR and EZY, Scandinavia is still woefully underserved at Luton. Maybe an opportunity for Norwegian to develop a new operation or for easyJet to expand to countries in Europe they don't currently serve?

[Ribble56]

Looks like it irks some people that Wizzair use Liverpool, indeed expanding at Liverpool an obscure airport that Czech Airlines also use.

[mwm991]

Originally Posted by Ribble56

Looks like it irks some people that Wizzair use Liverpool, indeed expanding at Liverpool an obscure airport that Czech Airlines also use.

Indeed, the way people go on you'd also think Merseyside was the location of some rural backwater airport like PIK or MME.