bmi longhaul plans

[Curious Pax]

Heard a rumour that bmi plan to start Manchester-Miami next year - anyone in the know? Presumably they will be looking for something to do with the third 330 once South African finish with it in December, and Miami is probably a reasonable destination to pick (if they are sticking to the East coast US especially). Would suit me with a planned Florida jaunt next year, but CP and family in the cheap seats won't hugely influence the profits I don't think!

[BAe 146-100]

Hi,

I think this would be a good route for bmi considering no other airline operates this service from UK. When bmi get the A330 back from SAA are they going to paint it in the new Star Alliance livery? bmi have 1 A321 in this livery already. It was previously in old Star Alliance colours shown in the picture below.

http://www.lockonaviation.net/assets/images/tn_sa_austrian_04_jpg.jpg

BAe 146-100

[EGCC]

Personally, I wish one airline would start flights to the West coast of the US - Los Angeles/San Francisco. Although I'm not sure the A330-200 has the range for this from MAN.

Maybe Miami would work for bmi, but there are already a large amount of flights to Florida from MAN, aswell as Virgin Atlantic's service. However there's no business or first class on the florida routes. The VS route has economy and premium economy.

[BAe 146-100]

Hi,

European have first class on the 747-200's from MAN to SFB (Orlando Sanford).

http://www.airliners.net/photos/small/5/0/2/294205.jpg

BAe 146-100

[limpbiscuits]

Bae - dont mean to be rude......

but have you ever flown first class?

European do have "upgraded economy" section......

but i dont think it could ever be described as first class......

[CandyBender]

Upgraded economy on the upper deck & BA Club "Cradle" seats in A zone.......
http://www.travelcity.co.uk/jumbo.pdf

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

I'd happily pay £20 to ensure that I don't have to sit next to the missus!!!

[Striker]

BA flew MAN-LAX a few years ago with a B767, but pulled off the route, persumably due to poor loads.

I would guess that an A330-200 could manage MAN-LAX no problem, although if any pilots know differently please feel free to correct me.

Bmi said they wanted to start flying long haul to the far east, maybe Hong Kong or Singapore, but that they would need a different a/c to the A330.

[MAN777]

The LAX flight was actually flown by a B747-400 in a very half hearted attempt at long haul, around about the same time as the defunct HK flights. I remember at the time the PAX figures being high but the usual Low yield problem arose (2 many canny northerners paying peanuts to go on holiday)

[MarkD]

EGCC

EI flies 332s quite comfortably DUB-LAX which is only about 115nm nearer (4502 v 4617)

[GOLF-INDIA BRAVO]

MAN777 I don`t think you are correct there it was a B767 when BA tried a few trans at flights from MAN/BHX/GLA from what I remember the route did quite well but as per the rest of the routes except MAN-JFK was reduced and cut out completely ( not enough premium class pax

Ian

[spunkydunkie]

monarch used to fly a330 man - las vegas summer 1999/2000!

[MAN777]

Strange that ? I am sure the flight I took to LAX had 4 of rolls royces finest, winglets and the cockpit on top !!

[EastMids]

MAN-LAX was 767 when I went on it!

Talk around the home base is that investigating the A330 being put onto BMIBaby ops UK-Florida have taken place, failing placement of said A330 onto anything more lucrative!

[Thunderball]

I still hear rumours of Ghana or UAE - both on a ACMI or even (ultimately) dry basis.

[BAe 146-100]

Hi,

MyTravel operate summer charters from Manchester to Las Vegas on the A330.

http://www.airliners.net/photos/small/3/2/3/290323.jpg

BAe 146-100

[SSC]

Striker, MAN777, Golf India Bravo, East Mids:

A quick analysis of OAG (such as I've got) shows a published BA 5-a-week 767 Non-Stop in 1994 Dept 1020 Arr 1320.

No other direct flights listed before or after: AA and DL dropped in later with one-stops over ORD & ATL respectively. Not for long though....

[Mr A Tis]

Well, I wish they (BMI) would look at MAN-BOS, New England very popular place. Relatively "short" longhaul route.
Olympic proposed a ATH-MAN-BOS service a couple of years ago-but dropped it at the very last minute.
BTW MAN-LAX was a B767. Like all BA longhaul regional routes, profit / loads etc means nothing, London Airways is just not interested. There's money in belly cargo before you even start to think about the pax side.

[Ringwayman]

Olympic's problem was that their A300s weren't ETOPs certified and then the FAA dropped them into category 2 which precluded them from starting new services.

I'm sure bmi's next long-haul venture will be out of LHR.

David

[maxy101]

Problem with the BA Man-LAX flights was BA´s Cobra yield mgmt system constantly feeds high revenue traffic through LHR, hence the regions and LGW will always be "low yield" in BA´s eyes. The results of which can now be seen as BA mainline retreats from the regions complaining that costs outstrip revenue

[donder10]

But the number of business class passengers from MAN is low.Manchester doesn't compare to Munich.

[limpbiscuits]

Concerning BA longhaul routes ex MAN :

I seem to remember 747 (dunno whether 200's or 400's) opp to ISB, MCO, BGI, HKG, BKK, JFK and i think LAX......
Around about 1987-1989....
Then they bought the LAX back mid 90's for a while with 767...

Maybe its the tablets giving me memory mirages....

[GrahamK]

The ISB flights in the '90s operated LGW-MAN-ISB-MAN-LGW before being transferred to LHR-MAN-ISB-MAN-LHR before the MAN segments were dropped completly. Flights had been operated by 747-200s and then 747-400s.

Wasnt there some rumours in the 1990s about BA basing a few 777s at MAN to operate some long haul flights?