Going off The Delhi route shop, there are 54000 O+D passengers on the route. The Manchester Evening News quotes airport bosses thus:
"They estimate that of the four million people from within it who fly from London, 100,000 go to Hong Kong, as well as 60,000 to Beijing, 113,000 to Bangkok, 50,000 to Delhi and 70,000 to Mumbai.".
Got that wrong then!
Frank, just to back up Ringwayman's point, at a presentation I attended about 2 years ago, Mumbai and Delhi were 6th and 7th in a list of underserved or unserved long haul destinations from MAN. In fact, they were a few positions above Jeddah which now has a 4 x weekly service. I'd be surprised if that situation has changed dramatically since then.
Hong Kong - on course for that
Beijing - to be announced Friday per hints in the FT
Bangkok - would probably need a low-cost long-haul operator as Thai isn't really in a fit position with appropriate aircraft to launch such a route
But combined 120,000 for Mumbai-Delhi? 328 passengers per day. Seems a very good starting point for a service knowing that launching a route normally stimulates more demand.
Two questions have to be asked:
(1) of the 50,000 to Delhi and 70,000 to Bombay how much of this is NOT low yield VFR traffic?
(2) can this traffic be tempted away from EK, EY, QR, TK, etc.?
If there's serious money to be made on the route(s), do you not think that at least one carrier would be doing non-stop/direct flights by now, especially where bi-lateral restrictions have been liberalised or scrapped? Ringway certainly does not have a rwy capacity problem!
It's the reticence of airlines to even THINK of not having to serve London to meet the UK market that hinders regional UK growth. It appears that having a non-stop CX service at MAN has not held back any operator offering connecting service there from either MAN or LHR.
The trouble with rwy capacity restrictions at Heathrow is that routes are lost to the entire UK. If unable to access LHR carriers use AMS, CDG, FRA instead
in order to access comparable levels of high yield traffic. Maybe an inconvenient truth, but it is the reality.
Looking at the footprint of the land needed for R3 will IAG now move their headquarters from Waterside to a site in Spain, Madrid?
Or Dublin?
That's a novel concept.
It's nonsense, of course - the T3 footprint will be replaced by the final bunch of T2 satellites to complete the "toast-rack" configuration.
Unless you're suggesting that all Heathrow's operators are going to switch to A380s, terminal capacity south of the Bath Road will be more than enough to handle all the traffic that a 2-runway airport would generate.
Not nonsense. As you state, "the T3 footprint will be replaced by the final bunch of T2 satellites to complete the "toast-rack" configuration." So the current occupants have to go somewhere, and that is the sixth terminal which will have an airside section accross the A4, and doubtless other infrastructure will be needed over there. Not tomorrow, but within a reasonable timescale. Without a third rwy, some of LHR's movements will involve some increasingly larger aircraft over time, obviously.
This thread seems to be more about Manchester than Heathrow lately.
Indeed it does!
I understand what your saying prophead - to a point, but what we are looking at is solution to LHR overcrowding. MAN can provide a part solution to this, as can Birmingham too, as in the case of the above mentioned now cancelled AI. That could have easily flown from MAN, freeing up that pair of slots at LHR, and MAN handling the hundreds of pax per day that would use it, and also giving people of the north a chance to use a northern airport rather than treck to LHR / AMS / FRA or CDG. Same could be said of other routes, each one that flew from MAN/BHX would ease LHR just a little. LHR is full, MAN/BHX are not, there is demand from north of Watford, but we add to the weight placed on LHR by forcing folk through it. It just makes no sense, to me anyway.
Two points:
(1) this would only relieve LHR up to a point, it could also generate entirely new journeys just as the no frills have done with their new routes;
(2) flights to/from BHX/MAN need sufficient premium business pax to make a profit, low yield VFR doesn't cut the mustard and the "ME4" already have that business stitched up despite being the long way round in most cases;
(3) BHX/MAN are not hubs for longhaul, they are at the end of spokes, so they need to have carriers linking them to their respective hubs. That's what BA does at LHR (though not to/from BHX).