Originally Posted by
Northsky
I dont post much, but post 2478 gave me some food for thought. In particular the posters concern about what effect Jet2 putting a base in a nearby airport might do to Manchester and how management appears to be incompetent as a result.
I look at it a different way. Manchester historically has been so good at drumming up business that it punches well above its weight for the area it serves. So much so that it has a monopoly to many destinations from the North West/Yorkshire.
Manchester has become so successful that alot of people will put MAN into a search engine before checking their local airport. They book the flight and then drive past their local airport to reach MAN, despite a flight often being available from say LPL or LBA. I've lost count of the times I've asked someone why they didn't fly from LPL when they live much closer, and the response being "Oh I didn't know you could".
To help me illustrate my point, take TFS, Manchester's busiest route in 2022 (and one to be launched by Jet2 at LPL) and compare passenger traffic compared to LBA/LPL
MAN 814,495
LBA 191,476
LPL 71,690
Considering the population of all three metropolitan areas (forget political boundaries) are not vastly different, its clear to see how effective MAN management have been historically in securing business.
Further to this, with Liverpool in particular, the difference in journey times by car from most areas away from these cities is relatively small.
To consider the thoughts in your post, is this not a bit of long overdue rebalancing? For short haul/high demand destinations at least, which is exactly Jet2's core market.
Why should the locals of Leeds/Liverpool trek all the way to Manchester when their own city is certainly large enough and connected enough to sustain a more diverse choice of flights?
Why should airlines put all their eggs in one basket and not have a base at others to trade the two off to get better fees.
To me, the average consumer, I can only see it as a positive that there is more choice. I consider MAN to have enjoyed a near monopoly in the North for too long and a dose of competition is what's needed to benefit the wider public.
I would imagine in an ideal world, the quick selling short haul destinations market would be fairly equal in size from MAN/LBA/LPL, with MAN excelling in the more niche markets and long haul as it is more central to the wider population. The reality is far from that, even with considering all the quirks of the aviation industry (e.g duplicating base costs).
Long post to demonstrate a total lack of understanding on economic literacy, and the important aviation industry driving forces.
Manchester is in competition with Düsseldorf , Hamburg, Milan, Barcelona , Vienna, Scandinavian capitals (and i’ll add Edinburgh of late ) on the global stage to capture the secondary traffic potential and very limited opportunities beyond the golden triangle covering the primary european centres and associated alliance hubs.
For the last forty years Manchester has far from punched above its weight - Just the opposite in fact, attracting and delivering a significant global network and almost complete Pan- European network.
The most comparable is Ruhr/Westphalia - You know what has in common ? a major airport at Dusseldorf , a second primary freight airport and LCC terminal at Koln and a tertiary airport at Dortmund
Those three combined handled 40.5 million in 2019
Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool were pretty close at 39 million in 2019
Both regions also have similar population and societal mixes to boot.
Similar dynamics lead to similar outcomes a general economic principle and truism at work.
For the entire North of England this has been a massively positive economical driver and quite remarkable without a resident UK hub carrier at that !
Combined with the group cargo hub in East Midlands - MAG are a massively important business delivering growth and revenues for the City region ( share and stakeholders alike ) and indeed the wider UK economy.
I can categorically say were the ‘as you suggest’ the love were shared the range of services in the north would been a magnitude fewer !
An even weaker economy ensue and fewer people would be employed across the region in the supporting industries and more widely.
The aviation industry is one that thrives after a certain point of demand is reached and supply catches up with the bean-counters allocating the resources to deliver the lovely revenue streams.
Manchester reached that point twenty plus years ago and now continues to capture those global carrier precious and valuable reserves for secondary city services on merit - Kuwait, Gulf Air, Egypt, Ethiopian, Hainan, Cathay, and just about every EU carrier plus of course the ME3; one operating 3 daily on the 380 at that .
You think three airports competing would have that depth - not a chance ! I’d suggest the region would lose upward of 7 million passengers per year !
Evidence from the US where airports have been de-hubbed after mergers certainly imply this is a realistic scenario. Think St Louis, Charlotte, indeed even O’Hare all have suffered contractions that have damaged wider service levels .
The inevitable beneficiary for that lost capacity wouldn’t be Liverpool Leeds or even Birmingham but the usual four suspects round London - That’s great for the North isn't it - A LOUD AND RESOUNDING NO !!!
Indeed these comments chime with and are demonstrated with the Davies report and R3 debate . He tacitly stated regional long haul should be sacrificed !
Now has there been disappointments along the way? Sure collapses of two UK carriers none the least, impacts of alliances and resultant wider consolidation particularly on the North Atlantic ( and the massive over capacity of economy seats at Heathrow for much of the year leading to fare dumping on an industrial scale damaging regional competitiveness across the UK)
Suffice to say imho Liverpool and to a lesser extent Leeds growth must be be organic and the idea of divesting capacity from Manchester is far from beneficial (that’s no growth at all ) and when it’s been applied elsewhere for instance London in the eighties it failed on a huge scale and would again.
Airlines demand a magnitude at scale to support their investments and deliver a wide and extensive range of services .
That doesn’t happen by accident and is weakened when spread across differing yet geographically close airport infrastructure.
Go look at the US and their largely domestic mega hubs they aren’t in neighbouring cities 40 miles apart !
Caveat New York I suppose.
Finally I agree with our Scottish friend; the UK regions almost certainly have far to many airports relative to size and population density all chasing similar traffic and generally diluting the ability to have an effective counterweight to Heathrow as potential Hub style operation.
This was eloquently demonstrated back in the day by BA when rather than having a single hub deep in strength in the regions they were split and competed against themselves at Manchester and Birmingham- Flybe continued that tradition into bankruptcy .
So in summary the reality is the UK ( outside of the South East corner) can only support a few large airports delivering a globally competitive range of services and those are already in place at Birmingham , Manchester and Edinburgh with Bristol a mentionable fourth.