Originally Posted by
runway30
Costs will be increased to provide Virgin service standards and pay fees for using the Virgin name. Anything that doesn’t feed Virgin or contribute to the growth of SEN must surely be at risk.
There will be a training element to the virgin customer service standards, that will simply replace the current BE training. BE rarely get criticised for their customer service, more so their operational performance.
Costs will be saved by transferring to current VS call centres and streamlining the whole process. Feeder Airlines are often marginal but provide much needed feed to the parent airline. That's why keeping the profitable domestic and european routes that don't feed into the hubs will boost financial performance.
If VS uses this as an opportunity to expand from MAN it will likely mainly be USA routes, which normally depart before lunchtime. That means anyone connecting onto those flights will need to arrive in MAN between say 0800-1000, if not earlier. With the US arrivals being between say 0500-0800, pretty much only one bank of flights being needed, so say any feeder flights arriving and departing between 0900-1000. It depends how VS can work the long haul arrival and departure times. They will need to do something with the aircraft the rest of the day. VS have shrunk their Asia and Africa flights from LHR over recent years so its unlikely to see any from MAN in the immediate future. Most feeder Airlines feed into big hugs with short haul and long haul flights throughout the world, operating all day long. AF/KL, BA, LH, IB. VS don't have short haul to feed into or with the exception if some LHR flights, hardly any in the afternoon from other bases.