TLV route rumours (EZY/BMI)

[frb98mf]

Hi folks

Wonder if anyone can corroborate a couple of rumours I heard recently:

- EasyJet thinking of dropping the TLV route (heard from El Al ground staff). Not sure why they would, seeing as the flight is usually chock-a-block. The El Al guys were speculating that there are issues with Ben Gurion Airport, which is not geared up at all for quick turnarounds and low-cost airlines, the flight length which means the plane only covers 2 sectors a day but (I guess) needs two crews as it's a 14-hour return all-in, and possibly pressure from certain countries EZY fly to (or want to fly to) who are not friends of Israel.

- BMI (and hence Lufthansa) considering allowing a new franchisee to take a couple of LHR slots and reopen their route to TLV, maybe some other dropped routes too.

On this latter one, as a frequent biz flier on LON-TLV, I'd like to see a LON-Sde Dov (Tel Aviv's equivalent of LCY) routing. SDV has a 1750m runway at sea level, and pretty stable weather conditions most of the year (20-30 degrees, not much wind). At a push, you could surely get something as big as a 737 or 320 in (they do it in similar places on the Greek Islands).

Anyone travelling to Tel Aviv or Herzlia for business would much rather land there than Nutbug, surely pay a good premium to do so (just the saving on a return cab journey is $50). It has customs facilities though are not really used any more (intended for Cyprus flights).

So if that second rumour re BMI is true, I wonder is it worth nudging them towards running a smaller flight into SDV, maybe doing an OpenSkies-style prem econ and biz only cabin, differentiating their biz product from El Al and BA and not bothering to compete with Ezy for leisure customers?

Any thoughts welcome...

MAF

[MUFC_fan]

EasyJet thinking of dropping the TLV route (heard from El Al ground staff). Not sure why they would, seeing as the flight is usually chock-a-block. The El Al guys were speculating that there are issues with Ben Gurion Airport, which is not geared up at all for quick turnarounds and low-cost airlines, the flight length which means the plane only covers 2 sectors a day but (I guess) needs two crews as it's a 14-hour return all-in, and possibly pressure from certain countries EZY fly to (or want to fly to) who are not friends of Israel.

1. I would be very surprised if easyJet dropped TLV - the fares that they charge and considering they have similar sector length routes to Egypt would probably make little difference. Also, I know for a fact Thomson Airways operate flights to Egypt where cabin crew do the full return flight while air crew are swapped. I would guess that accommodating two people wouldn't be too difficult. Or could easyJet take pilots out with them and then use them on the return leg?

- BMI (and hence Lufthansa) considering allowing a new franchisee to take a couple of LHR slots and reopen their route to TLV, maybe some other dropped routes too.

I wouldn't say easyJet have ever taken any notice of competing carriers other than Ryanair.

[pabely]

Last thing I heard about this EZY route, it's doing very nice thankyou, even with El Al on the same route. But if El Al ground staff have issues perhaps they are the ones suffering,.... but why do they still have 767 & 757 running?...... I think plenty of punters for both.

[Mister Geezer]

If bmi have any slots yet to sell then I suspect they would be keen to pass these on to a fellow Star member, as was the case with Swiss. However I can't really see another Star member starting LHR-TLV, since it would not make any sense!

There is a significant demand for UK-Israel travel but easyJet and Jet2 arre now in on the act as well as the flag carriers too. bmi dropped TLV due to it obviously not being a route that performed as well as the others in the network. That in itself could say something.

[atmosphere]

I am cabin crew for easyJet, and I frequently operate the TLV route.

I have NEVER had an issue with the turnaround, and manage to depart on time from both LTN and TLV.

I was talking to one of the commercial guys on the flight home the other day, and he confirmed that easyJet are looking at putting in a LGW-TLV and I think the GVA-TLV is on sale for winter 2010 or will be announced very soon.

TLV is an expansion area for easyJet and they do very well from it.

Rumour at easyJet amongst the crew is that Beirut and Moscow are on the cards along with Amman, I think it is now in easyJets mind to knock BMI off the radar.

[airhumberside]

EZY have applied for Cairo. However my understanding of the CAA documents is that if EZY get traffic rights, either BA and/or bmi will loose some of the current traffic rights, since only 14 weekly flights are allowed by UK carriers

[ben_keghead]

I think the route to TLV is doing VERY nicely in terms of passenger numbers. Only 1 crew (1x Captain, 1x First Officer, 4xCabin Crew) are used on LTN-TLV-LTN, and I would be surprised to see the route dropped in the near future

[Powerjet1]

CAA stats show some 17,200 pax carried on the LTN-TLV route in June, (Easy/EL AL combined), both 6 x wkly I think.

[A319-100]

According to the airdb.com El Al are cancelling Tel Aviv to london and some other european cities

[MUFC_fan]

There is no way on Gods-given earth that EL AL are cancelling LHR or JFK.

Unless they are going out of business it isn't going to happen.

[A319-100]

Just the messenger

More info about El Al Israel Airlines

Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Barcelona, El Prat De Llobregat (BCN)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Berlin, All s (BER)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Chicago, FSS (CHI)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Dallas, Ft Worth Intl (DFW)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Frankfurt, International (Rhein-Main) (FRA)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Geneva, Geneve-cointrin (GVA)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Hong Kong, International (HKG)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Johannesburg, International (JNB)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Las Vegas, Mc Carran Intl (LAS)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Los Angeles, International (LAX)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to St Petersburg, Pulkovo (LED)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to London, All s (LON)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Madrid, Barajas (MAD)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Miami, International (MIA)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Milan, All s (MIL)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Moscow, All s (MOW)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Marseille, Provence (MRS)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Munich, Franz Josef Strauss (MUC)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to New York City, All s (NYC)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Pittsburgh, International (PIT)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Prague, Ruzyne (PRG)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Rome, All s (ROM)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Sao Paulo, All s (SAO)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to San Francisco, International (SFO)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to San Juan, Luis Munoz Marin Intl (SJU)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Sofia (SOF)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to St Louis, Lambert-St Louis Intl (STL)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Tampa, International (TPA)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Vienna, Schwechat International (VIE)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Washington, All s (WAS)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Warsaw, Frederic Chopin (WAW)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Toronto, Lester B. Pearson International (YYZ)
Cancelled:Tel Aviv Yafo, Ben Gurion Intl (TLV) to Zurich (ZRH)

[Capetonian]

The above distorts reality.

They are reducing frequencies on some of the above routes, therefore some flights are cancelled, but they will still maintain operations. The only route I could see which will be suspended is TLV SFO, but I didn't check them all.

[pabely]

They already lease 3 Air Finland 757's, see other threads.

[A4]

easy has some wet leased 757's this summer which are painted in full eJ colours. Not aware of any plans to make them permanent. It wouldn't make sense when the airline is on the verge of becoming an all Airbus fleet - why introduce a whole bunch of complexities for maitenance, crewing, training etc.

Now if they were to get some A330's that would be interesting.......

A4

[airhumberside]

Be very careful about using theairdb without checking other sources to confirm. It comes up with a lot of connections and other errors. It can also be very useful at times (bit like wikipedia)

[clareview]

Where has scratching the sky been all summer? Dozens of posts on the web plus articles in the press about Air Finland, Astreus and Titan 757's being leased in by Easyjet for the season (would all this stuff not be better on the Easyjet category rather than the Tel Aviv post?

[frb98mf]

Thanks!

Views much appreciated. I was also very surprised at the rumour of EZY stopping, as it seemed they were doing so well.

Re BMI, I'm wondering if there's a general move afoot by Lufty to maintain BMI as a brand by allowing franchisees to operate some of the routes, while getting a lot of cost off their balance sheet.

On the ElAl issue, they are also running pretty good loads, the Israeli economy is good and a lot of Israeli businesses and the government agencies only fly with them where possible, and their figures are heading in the right direction. Seems an odd time to slash and burn, though they always reduce their flights after the Jewish festival season which is in Sept this year, as tourism drops off a fair bit until Passover comes around again in April.