LEEDS

[SASfox]

So 2 of the 3 new routes from TUI this summer have now been scrapped!

[LBIA]

Here's one less for you. Just cancelled is the TUI Varna Bulgaria flight. Gone from the TUI website and also from the LBIA website.

Hi

Guess what. Thomsonfly have replaced the weekly Bulgaria-Varna wednesday flight with a brand new Ibiza wednesday flight operated by the based summer 2006 aircraft. The new Ibiza Flight are now on sale on the thomsonfly website.

Operates as follows

Flight TOM6123 15:05 Depart Leeds Bradford, 18:35 Arrive Ibiza

Flight TOM6124 19:35 Depart Ibiza, 21:10 Arrive Leeds Bradford

[Leodis]

Originally Posted by POL1W

Here's one less for you. Just cancelled is the TUI Varna Bulgaria flight. Gone from the TUI website and also from the LBIA website.

Are you having a laugh. It takes LBIA at Least a month to catch up with whats going on, so I don't think the Varna is cancelled.

[Leodis]

Hmmm I stand corrected!

Looks like Thomsonfly are getting a little annoyed at the success of Jet2 at Leeds maybe. I feel this has possibly been the plan all along, to flood and dilute the Leeds market making the Jet2 service less viable? Send the Varna and Dalaman passengers to Manchester or the new baby at Donny to ensure that there services are full. Just blame the Leeds passenger loads as per usual.

Thomsonfly up to the same old tricks yet again. I'm flying with the other lot from LEEDS this year thank god.

[RobT100]

Originally Posted by Leodis

Hmmm I stand corrected!
Looks like Thomsonfly are getting a little annoyed at the success of Jet2 at Leeds maybe. I feel this has possibly been the plan all along, to flood and dilute the Leeds market making the Jet2 service less viable? Send the Varna and Dalaman passengers to Manchester or the new baby at Donny to ensure that there services are full. Just blame the Leeds passenger loads as per usual.
Thomsonfly up to the same old tricks yet again. I'm flying with the other lot from LEEDS this year thank god.

I have said it before and I'll say it again "Im pig sick of Thomsons at LBA". What is their problem ? I agree with Leodis, they could be playing sinister tricks on the customers. A big marketing campaign arrived to tell us (in may) last year that good old Thomsons were stepping up their presence at the airport by 34% and how they love to "offer local people the chance to travel to areas which are becoming increasingly popular holidays destinations.”
What a joke.
What about the pax that have already booked ? - I knew one who had booked Gran Canaria in feb - who has now been told he has to find his way to DSA, charmin, eh
Pax should be aware of what may happen and be advised to maybe choose their flights with care.

[Leodis]

Originally Posted by RobT100

I have said it before and I'll say it again "Im pig sick of Thomsons at LBA". What is their problem ? I agree with Leodis, they could be playing sinister tricks on the customers. A big marketing campaign arrived to tell us (in may) last year that good old Thomsons were stepping up their presence at the airport by 34% and how they love to "offer local people the chance to travel to areas which are becoming increasingly popular holidays destinations.”
What a joke.
What about the pax that have already booked ? - I knew one who had booked Gran Canaria in feb - who has now been told he has to find his way to DSA, charmin, eh
Pax should be aware of what may happen and be advised to maybe choose their flights with care.

Totally agree RobT100, but no doubt someone will soon say its all a rubbish.

Thomsonfly wouldn't do that...... or would they???? I think so.

[PTH needs tarmac]

We all know it's been happening for years and not always because the LBA flight is selling poorly, rather it can be the MAN, or now DSA, flights that was underbooked but as those are the larger bases, then flights get amalagamated to there rather than LBA. Thousands must have been affected by this trick over the years. That two out of three of the proudly announced new destinations for Summer 2006 have already been scrapped is pretty poor. What was the third one?

Inkjet, I agree JER has declined as a destination with the rise of the LCCs flying to Med resort areas. However, the "nearly deads" still like Jersey, but are not yet so soft in the head that they can't tell the difference between the price from LBA with bmi and that from DSA with Thomsonfly.

PTH

[Flightrider]

I can't talk for LBA-DLM or anything else, but the LBA-Varna flight was 6% sold for the full season at the end of December. That accounts for 14 passengers per flight on a 235-seater. On that basis, I think it is a little wide of the mark to indulge in conspiracy theories that the route was pulled to support other flights ex MAN or DSA; very few passengers had booked on it anyway. Can we therefore get over this particular discussional speedbump and move on?

[RobT100]

Originally Posted by Flightrider

I can't talk for LBA-DLM or anything else, but the LBA-Varna flight was 6% sold for the full season at the end of December. That accounts for 14 passengers per flight on a 235-seater. On that basis, I think it is a little wide of the mark to indulge in conspiracy theories that the route was pulled to support other flights ex MAN or DSA; very few passengers had booked on it anyway. Can we therefore get over this particular discussional speedbump and move on?

Ok flightrider, Varna was only 6% sold, do u have figures on how many of the other destinations were sold at the end of dec for comparison ? I dont know many who have hols booked by end of dec in this day and age - or maybe Im from another planet

Paphos is the other destination, how long before that 'goes west' as well ?

[Flightrider]

Significantly better - you would normally expect to be between 25% and 40% sold by that time.

And by the way, the Varna flight has been replaced with another LBA-Ibiza on Wednesday slot 2.

[POL1W]

TUI Cancellations LBA

Just to add some interesting figures regarding the TUI LPA flight from LBA which has been cancelled from JAN for the remainder of the winter, and pax told to make their way to DSA.
In DEC 2237 pax used the LBA/LPA flight. that's 95% sold on a weekly 757.
In DEC 2193 pax used the DSA/LPA flight, thats 77% sold on a twice weekly 737-800.
And they cancelled the LBA flight?
Does that make sense?
Figures from CAA website.

[Leodis]

To throw a spanner into the works isn't it the Thomson Bodrum flight that is cancelled not the Dalaman?

Other than that Thomson are up to the same old dirty tricks, with the same old excuses.

[14 loop]

Not discounting stories of Thomson & LPA etc.....

.....I think Flightrider has made a clear point, the Varna wasn't selling well (it would be interesting to see a comparison with Balkan Holidays' relative prices / sales etc) so they've **rightly** canned the flight and replaced it with something else (IBZ) that should sell better.

**rightly** = if it was your business wouldn't you look to alter your product range to improve sales???

As Flightrider says lets move on!! Now....discussions about ORK & JER moving to a loco operator sounds far more interesting.

14 loop

[Leodis]

14 Loop. Fair point, doesn't say a lot for the airlines route development team though does it?

I really feel the time has come for BMI to look at low cost services from LBA. Services to JER, CDG and ORK would probably all operate better on the low cost model. If the airline fails to realise this, they are going to continue to loose their ever reducing passenger loads to MAN and DSA.

[LBA]

Originally Posted by Leodis

To throw a spanner into the works isn't it the Thomson Bodrum flight that is cancelled not the Dalaman?
Other than that Thomson are up to the same old dirty tricks, with the same old excuses.

Both the Dalaman and the Bodrum flights have been canned!

[HOODED]

Not really canned just booked from LBA and then transferred to MAN or DSA to fill their flights. The usual TUI ploy from LBA in action again, only difference is there are now 2 places to fill flights using LBA booked pax not just 1. Wonder why I stopped using BY years ago after having my flight cancelled and offered one from MAN 2 years running. Still maybe they've done me a favour I now book Jet2 and sort my own accomm and car. Works out cheaper too.

[Nostrils]

Leeds - Gatwick ?

You know it's terribly frustrating.....

I live three miles from Gatwick, my family live two miles from Leeds/Bradford, yet I have to suffer the pain of a long drive to Heathrow. I suppose I could get the train to Heathrow... Oh no, wait, I can't do that, there's no direct service.

Bah!

Is there any prospect of getting a service operating between Leeds and Gatwick before the end of 2006?

[RobT100]

Originally Posted by Flightrider

Significantly better - you would normally expect to be between 25% and 40% sold by that time.
And by the way, the Varna flight has been replaced with another LBA-Ibiza on Wednesday slot 2.

"Significantly better" - I take it you dont have the figures for the other flights then flightrider ?? Educated guess, huh?
So tell me another one, what are the bookings like for IBZ and PMI to warrant 2 extra flights ?
Someones kidding us here and No I will not move on from this, I think customers should know not to deal with Thomson from LBA.

[Flightrider]

You asked a question and got a straight answer. I have the figures for the whole lot and the Varna stood out because it was so low. Posting the full set of figures here is a different matter and it is unreasonable to post non-publicly available data into a forum such as this, hence why the answer you got was a more general one.

When you have some more idea of how the industry works, perhaps you will cease to look for conspiracy theories around every corner. They have tried to put on a new route; all indications were that it was not going to work. Would you rather that they persevered with it and lost a fortune in doing so? Comedian.

[ManchesterMan]

Nostrils

Get your family to hop on a train to Manchester and
get the Jet2 flight to Gatwick.

With any luck they might be able to get a straight
through train to the airport.

Its only half an hour by train methinks.....

Problem solved!

MM