Ryanair Expansion and TBI (LTN & BFS)

[Alloy]

Article in today’s Sunday Times (20-4-03), suggests that Ryanair may be about to expand operations out of Luton and possibly Belfast from October. The article suggests TBI is trying to encourage Ryanair to greatly increase it’s operations out of LTN and BFS just as it has out of Stockholm Skavsta (NYO). TBI operates LTN, BFS and NYO amongst other airports.

[owc]

I have it very good authority that Ryanair have indeed signed a contract to start up to three services from BFS to Europe.

[LTN man]

Source: ST

Dominic O'Connell

RYANAIR and Easyjet, the largest low-cost carriers in Europe, are set for a showdown at Luton airport later this year.
Luton is Easyjet's base and the airline accounts for two-thirds of all flights there. But Ryanair is in talks with TBI, the quoted airports group that runs Luton, which could lead to it moving "a significant number" of aircraft there from October.

Airline-industry sources said last night that a tentative agreement over Luton was struck between TBI and Ryanair earlier this year as part of a deal covering three TBI airports.

Ryanair announced in January that it had chosen Skavsta, a TBI airport near Stockholm, as one of its new bases in continental Europe. It is thought TBI has also secured in-principle agreement for Ryanair to put more aircraft into two of its other sites, Belfast International and Luton.

Keith Brooks, TBI's chief executive, declined to comment directly on the talks with Ryanair. "We have a good relationship with Ryanair and its base at Skavsta has been very successful. We have had talks about other airports," he said.

Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, confirmed that he had held talks with TBI. But he said there was no guarantee that aircraft would be moved to Luton.

"I'm always talking to six or seven airports at one time," he said.

Ryanair has just one aircraft based at Luton, operating services to Dublin. TBI is understood to be keen to increase passenger numbers at Luton. The new terminal has 60 check-in desks, but Easyjet uses only 20. Airport bosses are thought to believe that Ryanair would establish new routes to Germany, Italy and Scandinavia.

An invasion of Luton by Ryanair would concern Easyjet, which has avoided confrontation with its aggressive rival. Both airlines have large operations at Stansted but do not compete on individual routes.

Easyjet has been struggling to reverse a steady decline in its yields - the revenue brought in by each passenger.

This month the airline said that in the first half of its financial year - which began in September - it recorded a 32% rise in passenger numbers, but a 10.7% drop in average fares. Analysts expect the airline to record an interim loss. Easyjet has been cutting costs and is to close a Stansted airport call centre that it inherited from Go, the carrier it bought last year, with the loss of up to 114 jobs.

Analysts said that a move by Ryanair to Luton might not be all bad news for Easyjet.

"The two airlines have quite different business models, and they might well try to avoid competing head-to-head at Luton as they have avoided it at Stansted," one said.

[eastern wiseguy]

OWC........Lets start naming names...the number of times I have heard that RYR are coming to BFS only to find nothing happens :confused: The only thing that is certain is that MOL says he is always talking to a number of airports at any one time.So if your scource is accurate ...WHEN ? WHERE? AND HOW OFTEN?.Bet you don't have the first idea .:*

[owc]

Eastern Wiseguy

Do the initials mean anything to you


Ah Thank you, none of that here.Hogg

[Powerjet1]

I understand that the loads on the twice daily service from Bergamo are pretty good bearing in mind that ops only started in February. Ryan may well test the water further by starting additional flights from other european bases such as Skavsta and Hahn prior to actually basing a small number of aircraft at LTN. I recall reading somewhere, MOL's comments a few months ago that LTN could possibly be home to up to seven Ryan aircraft if a suitable deal could be worked out as this would improve its catchment area to the west and north-west of London. However, we all know what type of deal MOL wants from the airports he uses, and this has to be a major stumbling block. If it did happen, it would do little to help the new budget airline NOW which is trying to establish itself at LTN with flights starting sometime in the summer(if it ever gets off the ground) It should be interesting to see it anything transpires over the coming months.

[Buster the Bear]

Rumour has it that there could have been an additional couple of 200's based at Luton for summer 2003, but the airports concern relating to the residents close to the departure paths stopped this.

There is a growing local anti airport expansion lobby especially within the affluent areas of Herts, the addition of the rather noisey 200's would only have fueled their fire?

Any 300's or 800's would be welcomed by the airport however.

[Tiger]

I believe bmi have pulled out of BFS again leaving the LCC on the majority of the routes.

BFS has never been high yielding routes so perhaps better to leave to the easyjets and ryanairs of the world.

Now if Ryanair started a LTN-Quimper/Brest service I might even think about slumming it with `em....I`m one of the Herts population you talk of...;)

[Buster the Bear]

Five minutes past seven every morning when they are on easterlies, ten minutes past seven on westerlies.

331 wakes me up every morning!

You can set you clock via the 200's roar!

Roll on 800's on the route!

[Powerjet1]

MOL seems to be turning his attentions away from attacking BA and other FSAs and switching his attentions firmly to easyjet as shown in Ryan's latest advertising campaign. 'Attacking' easy in their own back yard could well be the next stage of what i'm sure will become a real 'firefight' between these two LCAs in the coming months. Interesting times.

[Tiger]

When FR attacks BA, they just make themselves look even more stupid. The products are different so to compare BA to FR is difficult.
Even more difficult is that BA has reduced fares and have proved cheaper than the LCC when the whole product is taken into consideration.

If cost per mile were taken in BA has had some excellent deals LHR-BOS-LHR £70 single plus tax LHR-GLA-LHR £14 single plus tax.

FR started competing on Go routes ex STN CIA was one.

[glynn-kayes]

tiger,how can you claim that bfs yields have never been high when the world and his his wife knows only to unfairly that fares from northern ireland to great britain were for many years some of the highest...and that both of the major airlines seving bfs for many years shared the very lucrative 2 highest contracts in northern ireland and made a fortune from it

[Tiger]

I`m not sure how far back you are going, but when BA and BM operated the route back in the late 1980`s BM had a 52% share of the BFS-LHR route, the aircraft were full but the yield was not as good as other routes.

Now these fares are quoted from BM timetable 31 Oct 1988-25 March 1989

**LHR-BFS**

SGL £72
KEY SGL £46
SBY SGL £43

3 DAY RTN £120
EXCURSION RTN £105
SUPER KEY RTN £83

**LHR-GLA/EDI**

SGL £76
KEY SGL £50
SBY SGL £48

3-DAY RTN £129
EXCURSION RTN £114
SUPER KEY RTN £77

Although not major difference in fares NI paxs seemed to pay less than Scottish paxs and then X the number of seats on a 737-300/400.

[glynn-kayes]

tiger, the gla/edi sectors were always roughly 5-10 mins longer that bfs sectors so hence the difference in fare and bfs had the first 737<g-obma>when edi and gla still had dc-9s and at the time 88/89 ba were operating a tristar on the early dep and late arr...the cheapest fare to be had to lon was a dan air fare of gbp77.00 rtn to lgw

[BillTheCoach]

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/story.jsp?story=399978

The speculation hots up !

[Findo]

Yep heard the same this morning.

The 3 European routes are to be Stansted, :eek: Dublin :eek: and Prestwick. :eek:

[BERKELEY RED]

does the arrival of ryr mean the saviour of servisair

[Tiger]

BM 737-300 first operated the LHR-EDI-LHR, while the LHR-BFS went from DC9-15 to DC9-32 series during Summer 1988.
However, on Friday afternoon/nights the 737`s were replaced by DC9 so charter flights could be operated by 73.

GLA remained DC9 operated for a longer period than the BFS/EDI trunk routes.