ISLE OF MAN

[Haven't a clue]

61 on board yesterday when I came home from LCY. They were even restricting hand baggage.

Let's see where this goes. Capacity will drop post March. Prices will then rise. I used to pay £300+ 8/10 years ago for a London return pre FlyBe. They taught me to think cheap. Now I regard £150 as expensive. If BA flight times work for me will I (and others) be willing to up our spend?

[Manxman11]

Actually a good number of business day trippers use the LGW service - to get into the City there is a train roughly every 15 mins that goes to London Bridge, and the trains to Victoria take car of those having business in Mayfair, the West End or Kensington/Chelsea.

In our office alone the ending of the LGW route will add a fair number of sectors to the LCY route.

If BA market the route in the right way and look to provide decent through ticketing options there is no reason why they can't pick up a lot of the business traffic that used LGW to transfer onto services into Europe on Easyjet.

I suspect the morning and evening rotations will be fine but the afternoon one has hardly ever been busy in all the years I have flown up and down to LCY going back to when Jersey European operated the route.

[M-JCS]

I agree being able to through-ticket on BA to LCY and onward is brilliant, and I make as much use of it as I possibly can (as well as for getting into the City itself). But for a forthcoming trip (post Flybe-LGW) to the Continent booking over LCY I am forced to travel from LCY to LHR for my onward flight. That one I'm not so thrilled about. Thus, my suspicion that MAN might actually benefit from loss of the LGW route.

[Manxman11]

I agree MAN may benefit but whichever airport its still a pain to connect as you miss the early bank of flights to Europe. MAN needs to sort out its dire security queues as well. The other issue which may affect using LCY for connections is the reliability of the aircraft and making those connections if it goes tech (which can be often!).

As I said before I do think they need to find a way to fill the aircraft for the afternoon rotation - losses on that could tip the viability of the route to the negative. Perhaps focus it at leisure travel for those who don't fancy Easyjet?

[manx crab]

Manxman11 I agree with you that not all business traffic finds LCY convenient, for me LGW is much better for access to where I need to go and it does not suffer to the same extent the weather/reliability problems of LCY either.

I doubt they will get much leisure traffic either to LCY unless they halve the fares, people have got used to £60 returns now.

The services next summer to the south of England from IOM will be the worst we have had for many years, nice to see open skies working so well

[M-JCS]

Manxman11, too right about connections, and precisely the fear I have as regards numbers. I thought the mid-day flight might have been better used to some other destination, such as Glasgow perhaps, but that's obviously been taken on by Citywing now. Dilution of numbers because of the mid-day flight might cause the LCY route to collapse once again. I hope not, but we shall see.

[few@two]

So what exactly is wrong for business travellers using easyJets service??

[M-JCS]

Apart from their flights at the wrong time of the day going to the wrong destination without possibility of through-ticketing for onward flights? Nothing.
It is, however, dangerous to assume easyJet will continue operations to IOM, especially when their fleet is being upgraded to bigger aircraft which may in fact be too big for Ronaldsway. easyJet have cut and run on many occasions when they determined there was more money to be made elsewhere, and with 80-85,000 people in the Isle of Man, there is clearly limited earnings potential.

[davidjohnson6]

Once Flybe pull off the London-IoM route and are replaced by Easyjet+BA it seems that there will be no flights to/from London between Saturday late morning and Sunday late afternoon.

Is my interpretation of schedules correct or will there be some alternate form of transport available ? I don't consider Birmingham as a London airport...

[M-JCS]

dj6, your interpretation is correct. There will be a considerable shrinking of capacity. The only other possibilities (such as they are) would be connecting flights to/from London over MAN, or possibly DUB, though DUB is not exactly sterling over the weekend either.

[Haven't a clue]

I have been doing LCY/LHR connections over the past 18 months or so since BA started ops to LCY. Anyone solo using a cab between the two can afford to use Netjets. DLR/tube/HEX takes at least an hour and a half, slightly longer to T5. That's not far off the LGW/LHR coach timing. It's also probably less than transiting MAN. It's a pain with big bags, and I have been known to get off the DLR at Bank and get a cab to Paddington.

However you are at the mercy of the RMT (who I see are on strike on Tuesday). But the MAN/LHR shuttle is the first to be cancelled if there is any pressure on LHR (low viz ops, in particular).

If all else fails take the boat and then the train. Done that a few times too.

[ConstantFlyer]

Dublin is also a useful transit point for IOM-originating passengers, especially now that some days there are two flights. Dublin has expanded a lot over recent years, and as well as the useful pre-flight immigration for US flights, there are flights to big hubs by Turkish, Emirates and Etihad, and a lot of loco destinations. I've done several transits through DUB and it's more pleasant than trogging across London.

[wallp]

davidjohnson6 your analysis of the IOM/LON route especially at weekends makes Flybe's decision to exit the IOM-LTN route somewhat surprising given that they offered flights on both Saturday & Sunday afternoons which could've picked up the slack at these times whilst offering additional off peak capacity during the week.

Perhaps someone else can be persuaded to offer a similar service?

[PAXboy]

My guess is that the costs for a carrier of intermittent and low revenue services will cause accountants to blench.

Originally, a company might sustain narrow margins on a route, in order to still carry pax and hope to carry them to other destinations. That is, your service would be so good - your customers would love you.

Nowadays, it is often case (not always) that each service must stand by itself and that means the 'death of a thousand cuts' as we saw with so many other carriers and companies in other fields.

Or, perhaps the deal with Ezy was to hand over all their routes to IoM? We shall never know but, I for one, am irritated to now have to go all the way to LGW.

[Manxman11]

Dublin is indeed a useful transit point and one I've used a few times going to the US. Only problem is some of the fares are eyewateringly expensive for the 20 min hop and Aer Lingus can be unrelaible as well - in the last ten or so sectors with them to/from Dublin I can't recall the flight ever being on time.

To avoid the LCY/LHR trek for long haul I now use Swiss from LCY to Zurich and onwards from there to any point East or for transatlantic I use Dublin as above. I only use LHR as a last resort of if its the only sensible way to my destination. I realise this might not suit everyone if they are avid Avios collectors!

This is going to be an interesting year for services to/from the IOM - is it too much to ask for someone in government to have some sort of aviation strategy other than the current open skies disaster?

[cornishsimon]

Is it beyond the realms of possibility that when BA have added to the LGW airbus fleet that they might add service to LGW if the LCY service does well in addition to the LCY services ?


cs

[Skipness One Echo]

Is it beyond the realms of possibility that when BA have added to the LGW airbus fleet that they might add service to LGW if the LCY service does well in addition to the LCY services ?

BA short haul seems predicated around burning AVIOS points on leisure. They have moved away from many business and city routes with multiple frequencies in favour of second hand A320s with tight seating flying to sun destinations.
British Regional inherited the Manx monopoly on the move to LGW from LHR, thrice daily on a 146 on LGW-IOM. There was a conscious decision to sell this to flybe, it wasn't wanted. Nowadays LHR/LGW/LCY all have their own focus, I can't see a once daily A319 to IOM making sense as that would be almost wholly leisure. If BA CityFlyer ever got into LGW then perhaps but that's not going to happen anytime soon. All that would serve to do is undermine the weakest off peak LCY service or if they did do twice daily from LGW, swamp the market with capacity and drive down yields, again damaging LCY.

[vectisman]

'Skipness,' slightly off topic but BA still serve 15 cities from Gatwick with multi day departures (Summer 2014). Others less frequently. I agree though there is a definite shift to more sun routes, but that is where money is to be made.
As for the tighter seating on Gatwick based aircraft BA are due to increase seating density on all airbus aircraft in next couple of years. (Heathrow and Gatwick)




Thanks V.

[Hansol]

I don't think the air services to the Island can be discussed in isolation from the general business strategy being adopted by the government.
The island has given up its finance sector under pressure from international and UK domestic legislation, and as these institutions shrink the link to their traditional markets in the City of London are becoming less important.
Over time the IOM is becoming a NW provincial town, with a small population and a shrinking economy, separated by 40miles of sea from the rest of the UK.
If Tax rates start to rise and converge with those in the UK, we will slip (i would suggest) into a gradual decline as the last advantage is lost.

It is a pretty place though!

[j41cac]

The bubble may have burst. Hansol you may be right but I hope you are wrong ; )