In view of all the recent comment I hope that this is not taken as too negative, but I'm really scratching my head on the prospect of a Jet2 2* weekly NYC service. I've made many posts on this site on my views on NCL-NYC & an operation such as this gives me no great comfort. i) The timing to commence W07 at this stage gives little time for marketing, in particular inclusion in tour operators short break brochures. ii) 2x weekly is a bit of a 'cop out' & is neither one thing nor the other, zero use for business market & restrictive on others, as well as being a more difficult perception to market. iii) Actual demand for this type of non business service is questionable, presumably little prospect of much 'non NYC' traffic without agreement with a US carrier. iv) Having regard to the other points, then where is the profit? pricing is likely to be critical with need for constant high load factors & is there likely to be any freight contracts on such an occasional service ?
From other views I never gave GSM's LPL-NYC daily service any chance & really it is too easy to blame their recent troubles for it's collapse. I didn't see the demand & in reality neither did GSM which is presumably why they added NOC as an intermediate stop. So what is Jet2 to do when demand becomes thin, add LBA ?
Finally it has to be noted that the 'perceived' success of the forthcoming daily EK DXB is down to it's ability to attract onward traffic, a statistic that I recently saw quoted was as much as 70% going on to other destinations. So I leave one to consider had EK not done DXB & that this route had been available to Jet2 on a 2x weekly then would they have been so successful in filling it??
My point is simple success is about taking risks and NCL-NYC is an all or nothing operation by a US carrier. Proving demand is the key to this & unfortunately a limited operation by Jet2 may just serve to illustrate to potential suitors that demand is not there.
