NEWCASTLE - 8

[EK77WNCL]

INeedTheFull90, you can add BRU to your hubs list and SBWKCB, you can add BRU to your limited hubs list. NCL's hubs can be broken down into categories:

LHR, AMS, CDG, they serve everything, short, medium and long haul, North, South, East and West.

DXB, short, medium and Long haul, predominantly South and East except the near east/Iran/Ethiopia/Uganda etc. you get the gist and EWR which will serve predominantly South and West, except maybe Bermuda?

DUB, transatlantic only

CPH, BRU, limited, very very limited, although connections are available. I may be wrong but I'd assume that BRU could, or should be quite good for African connections.

DUS utterly useless

This is a very crude map but it shows how IST/DXB could coexist, Great Circle Mapper it shows the destinations available and the direction traveled within 1000nm of each. Although it wouldn't bother me so much, some people won't book to travel back on themselves, i.e NCL-DXB-AMM and would as such prefer NCL-IST-AMM, for example.

[ATNotts]

EK77WNCL

CPH, BRU, limited, very very limited, although connections are available. I may be wrong but I'd assume that BRU could, or should be quite good for African connections.

DUS utterly useless

I think that's a bit harsh, particularly on CPH - here you can connect to countless (well you could count them if you had the time / inclination) Scandinavian destinations few of which are served directly from any UK airport.

At DUS Germanwings does offer interline facilities, though I'm not sure if that's just on 4U services, and again good connections are also available at BRU to many European business centres - not so sure about Africa these days, SABENA used to serve ex Belgian colonial destinations but I haven't checked on what SN Brussels offer is.

If you're a small or medium sized regional (non London) airport then these hub links are vital, whether or not you have BA through LHR and if I were NCL management I'd be looking to attract LH to FRA or MUC operating at time that allow good connections to principal business centres. I wouldn't, frankly, be so bothered with the likes of ZRH and MAD at least to start with, and frankly, Istanbul would be way down the list of priorities.

[SWBKCB]

I think the point about CPH is the timings e.g. NCL-CPH lands at 22.00 local, so not much scope for outbound connections unless you night stop.

Brussels Airlines African destinations are as follows, so not too shabby!

Benin - Cotonou
Angola - Luanda
Burkina Faso - Ouagadougou
Burundi - Bujumbura
Cameroon - Douala, Yaoundé
D.R. Congo - Kinshasa
Egypt - Cairo
Gambia - Banjul
Ghana - Accra
Guinea - Conakry
Ivory Coast - Abidjan
Kenya - Nairobi
Liberia - Monrovia
Morocco - Agadir, Casablanca, Marrakech
Rwanda - Kigali
Senegal - Dakar
Sierra Leone - Freetown
South Africa - Cape Town, Johannesburg
Togo - Lomé
Uganda - Entebbe

[EK77WNCL]

I stand somewhat corrected, yeah I know what you mean about CPH, they do offer a lot of connections, especially if you intend to go to Scandinavia/Northern Europe, but for Asia or America or even Europe, due to the necessary night stop (I don't actually know what time CPH's long haul departures leave) and higher cost, they aren't a big player. I'd say confidently that 90-95% of passengers on NCL-CPH are O&D. If the flight continued getting stronger and they throw a morning CRJ our way a couple of days a week, opening up connections then I can see success. Although I'd hope for an OSL service before a 2nd CPH service. Given their history though, I'd say that both are equally unlikely, I'd rather hold on to the service we have at the minute.

I had never quite realised Brussels Airlines' network was so vast! In that case, if all of those destinations are available as connections from NCL, I've underestimated BRU as well! and with 3 daily flights there must be connection opportunities...

I disagree with IST being at the bottom of the list but a FRA hub route (i.e LH) and MUC/MXP p2p (i.e EZY) are definitely above it in my opinion.

[CabinCrewe]

Wheres the NCL CAA stats? Everyone elses in. EK GLA up again, EDI DOH thankfully better than last month. With UA starting, interesting to see GLA was the busiest of the smaller EWR 757 UK regional routes.

[EK77WNCL]

I was going to post them today but not updated yet. I will get them up as soon as I can (unless beaten to it)

Lets see if EK gets anywhere near my December prediction of 19,569 and utimately 2014 prediction of 217,257 - 217,932

[GrahamK]

Bear inb mind, EK was non op on Xmas day so total available seats was 25680

[GrahamK]

December figs:

Brussels 1860
Copenhagen 1574 +36%
Paris CDG 13880 +19%
Dusseldorf 3274 +12%
Cork 1274 -23%
Dublin 15014 +9%
Amsterdam 30796 +2%
Stavanger 1363 -17%
Dubai 18808 +5%

Gatwick 8559 +39%
Heathrow 42240 +10%

4.51m pax for 2014, up 2.2%

[EK77WNCL]

This growth is taking sooooooo loooooooongggggggggg.... This next 500,000 is going to be a struggle I can tell.

Emirates fell short of my prediction in November and December (predicted 37357 at 9.5% growth, actual was 35837 for the 2 months), so for the year EK stands at:

Jan: 18,351 +18
Feb: 16,980 +21
Mar: 18,517 +5
Apr: 20,211 +22 (first month +20,000)
May: 14,382 +13
Jun: 14,693 -7
Jul: 18,726 +9
Aug: 20,831 +12
Sep: 19,675 +3
Oct: 17,534 -1
Nov: 17,761 +5
Dec: 18,808 +5

Total year: 216,469
595 pax per day (594.7), 297 pax per flight (297.35) which gives year end load factors of:
2 class 77W - (297.35/427) = 69.64%
3 class 77W(V1) - (297.35/346) = 85.94%
3 class 77W(V2) - (297.35/352) = 84.47%

So a rough average estimate would be that for 2014 the load factor was around: 77.42% ((85.205+69.64)/2)

I'm pretty impressed with that I must say.

[pallan]

The load factor was 69.64% based on what was sellable (2 class 77W)

[VickersVicount]

69% isnt exactly setting the heather alight. Long way off any frequency upgauge. Consistent rather than impressive id say.

[EK77WNCL]

Yes based on what was on sale 69.64% but not based on what was actually scheduled. NCL still gets a lot of 3 class aircraft operating. Would/could it not make sense for them to sell first from NCL? Any seats they do sell are extra revenue and load factors are pushed up, although F pax probably expect a lounge.

[pallan]

A 2 class 77W is scheduled daily, 3 class a/c may have been operated a lot but this doesn't bring the load factor up as EK sell it as a 428 seater 2-class a/c every day and a load factor of 69.64% is what they in particular will look at; it's still a relatively good figure, just not 77.4.

With regards to selling First Class, I would imagine this would need more crew, better meals with lots of choice (EK's F menu seems to be huge) along with other benefits which and if only say 1 or 2 passengers a day book it then it probably isn't worth it.

[GrahamK]

They would also need the clientele that can actually afford to pay for it as well. Unfortunately NCL and the NE is still pretty much the poorest area in the UK. But, near enough 70% loads year round is not too bad (though not great as VV points out).

Growth will continue though so it's not all doom and gloom.

FWIW, CDG seems to be doing extremely well, as well as AMS. Still plenty of room for growth on CPH, BRU and DUS though.

[EK77WNCL]

Regarding BRU, I think BM must be confident with it to be going 3 daily, they probably get quite a lot of last minute bookings paying the higher last minute fares, probably in their equivalent "business class" too. Just making an educated guess based on BRU's clientele, one lives across the road.

And regarding EK selling F, do they need more crew? I thought it kind of boiled down to "an amount" crew for "an amount" of seats, whether they are filled or not. But I suppose it's for the levels of service in First

[pwalhx]

The ratio of crew/passenger varies between classes and between airlines.

Investigations would suggest for example in First on the A380 Emirates have 4 crew for 14 seats

[Lord Spandex Masher]

But there is a minimum of one cabin crew per fifty seats.

[EK77WNCL]

360/50 = 7.2
427/50 = 8.54

I don't know why but I'm convinced EK have somewhere in the range of 12-13 FA's onboard... I'll have to count next time I'm on but they have more than 8/9. They may well need more crew for First class but when I flew in F (by accident) on NCL-DXB (A332) there were 2/3 spare crew up front not doing much.

[SWBKCB]

the 50:1 ratio is a legal minimum linked to the ability to evacuate the aircraft, not the level of customer service - clearly if you offering more than basic all economy you'll need more.

[EKCH2730]

I stand somewhat corrected, yeah I know what you mean about CPH, they do offer a lot of connections, especially if you intend to go to Scandinavia/Northern Europe, but for Asia or America or even Europe, due to the necessary night stop (I don't actually know what time CPH's long haul departures leave) and higher cost, they aren't a big player. I'd say confidently that 90-95% of passengers on NCL-CPH are O&D.

I can say that you are way off with your O&D numbers for the CPH route - for 2014 the transfer rate at the CPH end was 52% (48% O&D). However the arrival flight at CPH has a lower transfer rate compared to the departure flight due to the late arrival into CPH at 22.00. The late arrival however still makes it possible to transfer to destinations like ARN, OSL, BLL, AAL, PLQ, POZ, GDN.