Originally Posted by
FFMAN
Sorry - can't let you get away with that bit of opinion dressed as fact. Who has said the MAN service is 'on the rocks'? How do you know it is under-performing unless you work for the airline's finance department?...which you almost certainly do not. You have no idea whatsoever of the route's performance so don't pretend that you do.
On the other hand - it has been well reported that the Edinburgh service is 'under negotiation'.
Actually I don't know and was just surmising and maybe that wasn't wise. I'm not an aviation route expert in anyway or form, in fact far from it. Apologies for making assumptions.
The Hainan PEK route may have some similarities to the MAN Saudi route before when Saudi were using 777 aircraft with low load factors but with a very healthy belly of cargo. I may also be wrong. I can imagine MAN - PEK being a healthy cargo route though for Hainan.
Let's also not forget that Hainan started off 4 weekly all year round, went up to 7 weekly, dropped down to 3 weekly in the winter and then dropped down to 4 weekly in the summer. I'm not sure of the winter schedule now. Is it still 3 weekly? From reading Scottie Dog's analysis reports the load factors don't appear to be very good compared year on year, that doesn't mean as you say that the route is underperforming in the eyes of Hainan.
Scottie Dog would you be able to work out an average load factor for the last two years of operations? This would be interesting to see.