Flybe - 7
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 872
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From: London
London City ops
Interesting choice of routes. It will be fascinating to see how successfully they can compete on Dublin & especially Edinburgh where competition will be fierce. Does Exeter really warrant a thrice daily service, is there that much demand?
What's the reason why they've opted to use the Q400 rather than E175?
What's the reason why they've opted to use the Q400 rather than E175?
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 2,878
Likes: 83
From: UK
Exeter will be a tight one versus the train, in terms of time and cost.
Typical times from Paddington to Exeter with FGW are around 2 to 3 hours, with the fastest that I can see (with one stop at Reading) at 2hrs 2mins.
You need to add the best part of 45mins to that if travelling from The City/Canary Wharf, but it still looks marginal as to whether flying will actually save you any time door to door.
In terms of cost, rail fares can be anything from about £80 (cheapest off-peak return) to £230 (anytime return), and more for First Class, so it's going to be a close-run thing both time and cost-wise.
The trains are always packed though, and flying may "feel" quicker, even if it isn't.
Typical times from Paddington to Exeter with FGW are around 2 to 3 hours, with the fastest that I can see (with one stop at Reading) at 2hrs 2mins.
You need to add the best part of 45mins to that if travelling from The City/Canary Wharf, but it still looks marginal as to whether flying will actually save you any time door to door.
In terms of cost, rail fares can be anything from about £80 (cheapest off-peak return) to £230 (anytime return), and more for First Class, so it's going to be a close-run thing both time and cost-wise.
The trains are always packed though, and flying may "feel" quicker, even if it isn't.
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 872
Likes: 13
From: London
Ah right, thanks for clarifying re E175, I hadn't realised that. Does its range cover the planned ski and Northern Spain routes?
I wonder, will a Q400 put them at a disadvantage especially on the routes where they face competition with carriers who use jet aircraft?
I wish Flybe well with their LCY operation. I love the airport and am all for an expansion of routes & airlines, though can't help feeling it won't be easy for them to gain a real foothold.
I wonder, will a Q400 put them at a disadvantage especially on the routes where they face competition with carriers who use jet aircraft?
I wish Flybe well with their LCY operation. I love the airport and am all for an expansion of routes & airlines, though can't help feeling it won't be easy for them to gain a real foothold.
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 6,173
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From: London (Babylon-on-Thames)
London City to;
Dublin (4 daily)
Belfast City (3 daily)
Exeter (3 daily)
Edinburgh (4 daily)
Inverness (2 daily)
Dublin (4 daily)
Belfast City (3 daily)
Exeter (3 daily)
Edinburgh (4 daily)
Inverness (2 daily)
Dublin must surely be predicated on CityJet folding or walking away as they will have no choice but to defend home turf as if their life depended on it, which actually it may well do.
Belfast has never worked from LCY, good luck with that one, CityJet couldn't fill a Do328 last time.
Edinburgh is a BA goldmine and CityJet walked away blooded, very high proportion of silver and golds none of whom will use flybe.
Inverness is pretty seasonal but due to diluted capacity from LGW might do well in the summer. They're launching in October.
Exeter is an unknown I think.
Are they thinking that all their ex LGW customers are going to look again as I suspect most will have discovered the joys of the orange monster at Gatters or T5 at LHR by now.
This is what happens when management decides "something must be done" = "anything". Sixteen flights a day out of LCY.
Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 1,122
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From: Essex
Interesting..... FlyBE could have picked up the many thousands who used easyjet from SEN on the Edinburgh and Belfast routes if they'd chosen SEN above City. I'm not sure that those pax will want to travel into the smoke for those routes, especially as they will be rather more expensive because of LCY's fees.....
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 441
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From: Rapunzel's tower
Punctuality
Despite their tag name FlyBe is (according to stats) one of the most punctual uk airlines, combining that with one of the most punctual uk airports is surely likely to improve those stats. Hopefully that will lure the passenger numbers required to make these routes sustainable 
Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 2
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From: Dublin
Dublin must surely be predicated on CityJet folding or walking away as they will have no choice but to defend home turf as if their life depended on it, which actually it may well do.
Joined: Nov 1999
Posts: 1,621
Likes: 1
From: Ireland
Originally Posted by Skipness One Echo
Belfast has never worked from LCY, good luck with that one, CityJet couldn't fill a Do328 last time.
Edinburgh is a BA goldmine and CityJet walked away blooded, very high proportion of silver and golds none of whom will use flybe.
Edinburgh is a BA goldmine and CityJet walked away blooded, very high proportion of silver and golds none of whom will use flybe.
) were more or less doomed to failure from the start, due to a lack of peak slots at LCY (harder to imagine now 
). From memory the peak morning flight from BHD left 45-60 minutes later than it should have done, effectively negating the whole LCY time advantage. Add to that CityJet/AF's complete lack of presence in the NI market and you had a recipe for disaster. I'm not saying flybe will have it easy, but they do have a strong market presence around Belfast and given that they will have an 0645 departure from BHD, they do have a materially better chance than CityJet ever did.
Originally Posted by peter__griffin
They won't be competing on the DUB route...
I think flybe will face heavy competition from BA's Embraers on LCY-EDI - the Embraer passenger experience is very pleasant - but IMHO the RJ85 is not that much better than the Q400 from a comfort point of view, and in many cases worse (e.g. if you end up in a middle seat).
Joined: Jun 2011
Posts: 64
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From: Southend-on-Sea
Barling Magna said:- Interesting..... FlyBE could have picked up the many thousands who used easyjet from SEN on the Edinburgh and Belfast routes if they'd chosen SEN above City. I'm not sure that those pax will want to travel into the smoke for those routes, especially as they will be rather more expensive because of LCY's fees.....
I utterly agree with that view and taking the competition at London City into account, I am more than glad that I have not got shares in the 'new' Flybe! It's all far too risky.
I utterly agree with that view and taking the competition at London City into account, I am more than glad that I have not got shares in the 'new' Flybe! It's all far too risky.
Joined: Dec 1999
Posts: 1,238
Likes: 69
From: EGNX
For those interested, the Aviation Analytics website has a free to use Route Economics Calculator that features FlyBe as well as other leading European airlines. You can quickly set up their new routes from LCY, SEN, BHX , choose an aircraft type (DH4 or E75) and view the estimated break even load factor against a given fare and vica versa.
Looks like sector costs of around £4000 (assuming airport charges of £5 per pax or £10 per departing pax)
That's a break-even fare of £78 o/w including ancillary revenues at 65% break-even which would need 51 passengers per sector on average.
Not sure how this compares to CityJet (the calculator only has Flybe of the two) but my guess would be a significantly higher sector cost for the ARJ meaning many more passengers to break-even at the same fare (even if the total average seat costs are slightly lower).
Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 28
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From: Staines
With regards to the extract in the official announcement that reads 'Regional core services within the UK and from/to Ireland will be supplemented with off-peak leisure flights to selected Ski, Regional French and Northern Spanish destinations'.
I presume they plan to serve these destinations using the aircraft down time that are allocated to the core UK/Ireland routes. Are these destinations capable of being reached by a Dash 8? (with the exception of the Regional French airports) It made me wonder if they were planning to deploy the Embraer's, from memory, the official statement didn't mention the Dash 8 specifically?
I presume they plan to serve these destinations using the aircraft down time that are allocated to the core UK/Ireland routes. Are these destinations capable of being reached by a Dash 8? (with the exception of the Regional French airports) It made me wonder if they were planning to deploy the Embraer's, from memory, the official statement didn't mention the Dash 8 specifically?