Skipness, I would echo Shed's point about your questions. I've been watching Manchester since 1956 when I was 9. My first letter to the Evening News was when I was in the sixth form to protest the removal of SABENA's fifth freedom rights to New York after a decade of successful operation to protect BOAC. The same thing happened with Aer Lingus later to protect BEA's flights into Europe. I, and Shed et al, know what we are talking about from experience and involvement. You know we know the answers, as you do if you have done your research, which, of course you have.
Taking up the point on the London connection, the facts are these. Virgin Trains provide a train every twenty minutes between Manchester and London for much of the day with a journey time between 2 hrs 8 mins and 2hrs 20 mins. The business people travelling to/from London I used to fly with on the 757, often with another as back up, in the 1980s now all go by train. Using the 07.30 departure, even with the inevitable hold over Brookmans Park, I could be in central London by 09.00. There were no security queues and hassles and there was always a seat, whereas the train used to leave at 07.00 and get me into Euston at 09.35. Trains were generally hourly and were often crammed with standing passengers especially on a Friday.
The number of direct flights has impacted on the need for LHR flights but far more telling, which must be a concern to HAL, is the number of pax willing to travel the wrong way to AMS, FRA or CDG to travel west, never mind those going east, to avoid what I described in a previous post. I suspect the vast majority of passengers between the two points are now connectees from whom the income for the sector is a smaller amount than the advertised prices.
Reading your posts over a few years you seem to have a down on leisure travellers in so far as their profitability is concerned. The gospel according to Skipness seems to be that a route cannot be profitable if the sharp end is not full. Whilst many airlines still make their profit from the front end, the fact is the reduction of dedicated freighters to almost zero in most legacy fleets means that the hold vies with the premium fare seats as the greatest profit provider. Fares in other classes are then balanced on the required revenue. I belong to a generation that is demographically a bulge in population. We have more spending power than previous generations at our age and are fitter than our parents at the same age. Travelling around the world, the number of leisure travellers I see is now far greater than when I travelled on business in years gone by and they are now spread across the cabins and are older than in the past.
There is a crazy situation at LHR where airlines wanting to keep slots are actually discounting seats to a massive degree and are sending flights out with marginal if not loss making load factors. Last Autumn Aer Lingus and Jet Blue wanted €1750 to take my wife and I from SNN to IAH and back on a through ticket. Using Aer Lingus and BA I paid €1350 for the same date. The 777 outbound was two thirds full in economy, half full in World Traveller Plus, three quarters full in Club. I didn't see into First. On the return the 747 was half empty throughout and I know the inbound First was almost empty as the cabin suffered a birdstrike on a window on finals which penetrated through to the inner perspex and no one on board noticed.
So we already have a nonsense situation of over capacity at Heathrow, especially on the Atlantic (check the daily departures to JFK on BA/AA alone) a situation that the HAL proposal can only extend.
Last edited by philbky; 3rd Apr 2015 at 17:43.