SOUTHEND 5

[Sharklet_321]

Good news about Adria but I must say I am shocked that they have announced this with little more than 10 days before the first flight. They will be lucky to get a 20% load factor in the first month in my opinion.

[tws123]

Flights on sale from 30th March, flights begin on 1st June. Not 10 days time...


I also (perhaps someone can clarify) get the impression from a number of articles that it is year round, not summer season only. They also report it will be a mix of A319 and CRJ900 equipment.


Also a great way to announce your partnership: Roger Clements calling them Adria Airlines. Come on at least get the name right!

[Expressflight]

Maribor was last served from London in 2007/8 I believe when Ryanair operated STN-MBX from June 2007 until March 2008, carrying 33,800 passengers in that period.

The SEN-MBX route might enjoy some winter holiday traffic as there seem to be skiing centres in that area. Perhaps some of the tour companies might offer packages flying direct into MBX. The city of Maribor also looks attractive as a summer destination and was European City of Culture in 2012 and has a big cultural festive in June each year.

Hopefully there is also demand from Slovenians from that area wishing to visit London without the need to fly from Ljubljana some 130km away. Maybe there is also potential for migrant workers in UK and their families using the route. I see that all inbound pax will be offered free standard class rail tickets to London during June and July.

As tws123 says at least this is an established airline which should know the potential of its home market.

[Barling Magna]

Excellent news. Let's hope it's the first of many established European airlines flying into SEN.

[davidjohnson6]

Perhaps also a way for Adria to defend itself from Air Karnten ?
The 2 urban centres in or anywhere near Carinthia are Klagenfurt and Graz. Klagenfurt to Ljubljana airport takes 1 hour by road. From Graz by road it takes 55 mins to Maribor airport or 1h25m to Klagenfurt airport. This would make opening a route SEN-KLU much less appealing for Air Karnten.
Air Karnten are due to start SEN-KLU on 28 May flying 2x weekly. Adria are due to start 01 June flying 3x weekly.

If flights from Maribor do not go on sale until late March, this means Air Karnten and Adria can play some private economic signalling games, before Adria sell any tickets, thus preventing Adria having to refund any customers, let alone actually spend the money to operate a flight. Adria might be going through a rough patch but they retain the ability to squish a startup in their backyard.

[tws123]

That's if the Air Kärnten route actual gets off the ground. Also I can't see too much overlap between the KLU and MBX catchment areas as it is nearly a 2 hour drive between the two airports.


This move will also put SEN in a good position to accept more inbound LON routes from Adria (or others) should they want to if it proves a success.


They made a big song and dance out of the press release. Shows how much it means to Maribor, although I can't translate the videos, Roger Clements was there for the launch which was good to see. http://www.siol.net/novice/slovenija..._v_london.aspx

[davidjohnson6]

Carinthia as a region is a very rural area, with 550,000 people but larger than the biggest of English counties.. Just over the border from Carinthia is the city of Graz with a population (including suburbs) of 600,00 people.
Adria has cut the catchment population for a Southend-Klagenfurt route in half. Even if their plans to be an airline come to fruition, I'd guess Air Karnten are much less likely to operate to Southend now - perhaps Paris-Klagenfurt might be a better bet ?

[Nextprop]

Confirmation of termination of the Dublin route:

Flybe cancels flights from Southend to Dublin (From Echo)

All flights removed from sale for 27th March onwards, not 13th April as suggested.

[insuindi]

only 2 flights at all next week on SEN-DUB - bookings must have been poorly, if they decide to cancel within less than 2 weeks and prefer paying out EC261 compensation to those affected, rather than flying.

[pabely]

Not surprising with the prices they were asking,

Flybe?s Dublin pricing hike angers passengers (From Echo)

I wonder how this leaves their 10 year agreement with SEN they signed last year!

[tws123]

Agreements seem to mean sweet f.a. nowadays. Look at EZY at STN. I think the agreement was in relation to the Stobart franchise anyway(?)

[smallpilot]

Stobart must be regretting ever going near Flymaybe. A perfectly good and growing route under the EIR banner been trashed in 5 months by them. Sadly ts clear they never had intentions of making this work as they want to push pax onto their LCY services.

I dont understand why Stobart couldn't keep it running as part of their Aer Arran / EIR franchise? Pax figures were growing and the US connections via DUB were popular locally. Its been dropped with so little notice that no time to get anyone to even look at taking it on.

Add that to the NQY route lost to STN and half the European routes being dumped. I suspect they have a 'non compete' clause with Flymaybe LCY routes so ones that could work like EDI, BHD etc.

SEN management have been badly let down.

[Sharklet_321]

If they can't make SEN-DUB work, what on earth makes them think they can make all those other secondary points work under this bizarre flybe partnership?

[TartinTon]

smallpilot....facts need straightening out here.....originally SENDUB was operated jointly by Stobarts and Flybe with both operating sectors. Then Stobarts pulled out leaving Flybe alone on the route with very little notice.

SEN management is, ultimately, Stobart management so who's let who down?

[Cyrano]

Originally Posted by TartinTon

smallpilot....facts need straightening out here.....originally SENDUB was operated jointly by Stobarts and Flybe with both operating sectors.

In fairness, SENDUB was originally operated by Aer Arann, which subsequently became Stobart Air. Flybe only came on the scene considerably later.

Originally Posted by insuindi

only 2 flights at all next week on SEN-DUB - bookings must have been poorly, if they decide to cancel within less than 2 weeks and prefer paying out EC261 compensation to those affected, rather than flying.

By a couple of weeks ago, Flybe had closed out all but the highest fare class, which is never a good sign. I wrote on 12 March:

Therefore, the fact that flybe is doing this suggests to me that they suspect they may have to announce the cancellation with less than 2 weeks notice (e.g. announcing next week, with effect from the start of S15).

I would imagine that they were quite successful in minimising the number of EU261-compensation-eligible bookings they took.

[vulcanised]

Stobart Management is beginning to look like a misnomer.

[smallpilot]

Aer Arran ran the route for Aer Lingus from May 2012 to Oct 2014, agreed Arran were Stobart Air but Flybe only came onto this route in Oct/Nov last year. Up until then it seemed to be doing well, as someone else said 2 or even 3 flights a day most days.

Would love to know what were the laod factors/pax numbers from say mid 2013 to Oct 2014 and in what direction were those figures trending?

I still think Flybe have deliberately trashed the route and Stobart either didnt see it or (maybe more likely) were hamstrung due to the agreements they've signed with them.

[insuindi]

"Sadly ts clear they never had intentions of making this work as they want to push pax onto their LCY services. "

Well, LCY-DUB also canx as of end of May...

[Expressflight]

Passenger numbers on DUB-SEN ranged between 5,000 and 7,000 per month depending on the season and the trend seemed to be modestly increasing. Load factors were always a little difficult to determine as a mix of ATR 42s and 72s were used and mid-week flight schedules were sometimes reduced, but it looks like between 60% and 70% in summer and 50% to 60% in winter. These figures are my best guesses and although I have no idea on yields it was generally accepted that a fair number of transatlantic through booked pax were carried.

I was reported on here a couple of months ago that Flybe did not seem to have availability to operate the route ex-DUB after the end of March and I'm surprised that Stobart Air didn't notice this and see the writing on the wall.

I cannot see any reason though why Stobart/Aer Lingus Regional could not continue the route this summer if they wished and one would think that perhaps they would wish. After all it hardly adds to SEN's credentials to lose a prime route such as this. Exactly what Stobart's view is we cannot know of course but time will perhaps tell us.

Edit: If it really is true that LCY-DUB is being pulled in May that may affect Stobart's thinking on DUB-SEN.

[gavinhicks]

The dublin route is a key service from Southend stobart will probably take it on again in the near future it surely is sustainable with an atr even once daily so as to maintain some form of appeal to business passengers