Originally Posted by
Planeraz
DL who own VS from a strategic and commercial point of view clearly see EDI as a bigger and more established market. VS will certainly hope to offset any loses from this route with the expectation that the MCO route performs strongly. The forward bookings for MCO, particularly at the popular school holiday dates appear to be very promising. The inbound services from the US to EDI appear to be solidly booked throughout, especially in the premium cabins. In the bigger picture however, VS do strange things at random times. Until recently, they had a substantial presence at Manchester. They have slashed this recently and appear to be concentrating heavily again on LHR. Who knows if they will stick with EDI in the medium to long term.
Delta neither own nor control VS, they have a say but they're not in control. The move from GLA to EDI says more about GLA being harder to get to than before even with the M74 as well as EDI discounting to win the business. The retirement of the B744 also made EDI an option, the relative strength of EDI is being a bigger draw in the US-Scotland market than GLA, and you'll note BGI is almost 100% UK originating. The House of Mouse used to be overwhelmingly UK originating but I understand Delta now feed US outbound traffic via MCO so the move to EDI may make more sense. MAN still has BGI/ATL/JFK/MCO/ISB with LAS/BOS/west coast suspended. They closed LGW and retrenched to LHR to survive but we haven't seen a post COVID market yet, that should be interesting.