Norwegian cuts
Few LH services from Stansted have had 1.) Frequency 2.) Reliability that would entice people to book from there.
As my location suggests I live in Surrey, with LHR / LGW being closest but fly from Luton, Stansted and Gatwick on flights I take with LHR avoided at all costs. 20 years ago there was a stigma attached to flying from Stansted as "BA don't fly from there" being the usual refrain. These days I rarely hear that and know few from where I live who haven't flown from Stansted.
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I would suggest most people who live in Austin would not have a clue where Gatwick or Stansted is. Are they in Englandland'?
Last edited by compton3bravo; 21st Jan 2019 at 16:05. Reason: Word missing
We had the same crazy debate on the Thomas Cook thread some weeks ago (from the same poster, IIRC) that the solution to long-haul viability problems is to move services to Stansted. I agree with the poster earlier who suggested Primera's popularity was due to being so ****ing cheap. Thomas Cook clearly hasn't found long-haul at STN to be the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as they have pulled it completely. Quite why anyone thinks Norwegian at STN would be any better (or less bad) than Norwegian at LGW or anywhere else is deluded. The competitive situation will not change and the legacy carriers will maintain cheap fares from London to Austin, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Seattle, Denver etc from whichever airport they fly, so Norwegian's yields and loads will be constrained by overall demand and market pricing set by others.
Put another way, Norwegian is the only carrier on Austin, Denver, Chicago, LAX, Seattle (and probably others) at Gatwick. The data published on-line recently by one of these analysis companies showed all of those routes were losing money (if the data is correct). With the size and scale of the Gatwick catchment plus the level of onward feed available with easyJet and Norwegian's own network, those routes aren't working. It debunks the concept that a route with no competition at that airport will do well enough to be sustainable. On that basis, with limited feed and a catchment area which certainly isn't any bigger than Gatwick's, Stansted will probably do worse.
Can we park this lunacy of moving all failing services to Stansted where the streets are paved with gold? Yes, Emirates have (by the looks of it) found something that works at STN and best of fortunes to them. However, they also make several other things work - e.g. routes from Newcastle and Birmingham to Dubai - where neither can sustain hub-aligned services to New York, even seasonally. It's great that they do. But it is an outlier in the long-haul market and their apparent success at STN is no sign that other long-haul ventures can work, just as they haven't at Newcastle or Birmingham.
Put another way, Norwegian is the only carrier on Austin, Denver, Chicago, LAX, Seattle (and probably others) at Gatwick. The data published on-line recently by one of these analysis companies showed all of those routes were losing money (if the data is correct). With the size and scale of the Gatwick catchment plus the level of onward feed available with easyJet and Norwegian's own network, those routes aren't working. It debunks the concept that a route with no competition at that airport will do well enough to be sustainable. On that basis, with limited feed and a catchment area which certainly isn't any bigger than Gatwick's, Stansted will probably do worse.
Can we park this lunacy of moving all failing services to Stansted where the streets are paved with gold? Yes, Emirates have (by the looks of it) found something that works at STN and best of fortunes to them. However, they also make several other things work - e.g. routes from Newcastle and Birmingham to Dubai - where neither can sustain hub-aligned services to New York, even seasonally. It's great that they do. But it is an outlier in the long-haul market and their apparent success at STN is no sign that other long-haul ventures can work, just as they haven't at Newcastle or Birmingham.
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Fliterider- the Thomas Cook debate was had before but as pointed out at the time their withdrawal wasn’t as simplistic as not enough market at STN.
Something your argument regarding Norwegian also misses is that had history taken a different course STN probably would have been their long haul base for London. Norwegian were well established at STN with a number of routes to Norway (this was before they extended across Scandinavia and onto the rest of Europe). LGW fell out of BAA’s hands and the new more nimble/bullish operator poached a number of airlines - Norwegian, Air Berlin (except Düsseldorf) and Air Asia moved across, possibly others. So had STN been more competitive, this debate could be redundant.
Its also fair to note that for Air Asia its foray into LGW turned out not to be the pot of gold compared to STN conventional wisdom and argument suggests it should have been.
Something your argument regarding Norwegian also misses is that had history taken a different course STN probably would have been their long haul base for London. Norwegian were well established at STN with a number of routes to Norway (this was before they extended across Scandinavia and onto the rest of Europe). LGW fell out of BAA’s hands and the new more nimble/bullish operator poached a number of airlines - Norwegian, Air Berlin (except Düsseldorf) and Air Asia moved across, possibly others. So had STN been more competitive, this debate could be redundant.
Its also fair to note that for Air Asia its foray into LGW turned out not to be the pot of gold compared to STN conventional wisdom and argument suggests it should have been.
You can keep on with "what if's" and "what might have been" until the cows come home. What if Laker hadn't been allowed to fly from Gatwick and was forced to fly from Stansted in 1977 as originally there? What if Virgin hadn't started at Gatwick but had stuck with Highland Express' base at STN? What if Norwegian short-haul hadn't been able to access Gatwick? None of it is relevant. The fact is that the shape of the market today is determined by the fact that all of those things did happen. Speculating on alternatives is a pretty futile pastime.
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Yes I did say the same about Thomas Cook and I stand by what I said. If Norwegian opened key US routes from Stansted, as well as Gatwick, they would have South and North London, the Cambridge corridor and Essex covered, now to me that’s a very large catchment area. Gatwick and Heathrow are saturated and Stansted is an untapped market, so no fighting with other carriers. If you put a business head on, Up front on Emirates is doing very well, so why not up front on Norwegian ? Where again there in no competition. I’m not suggesting closing Gatwick, I’m suggesting running along side.
Two things. If you seriously expect an airline losing money to decide that the solution to its problems is to launch more routes (Primera springs to mind) then it is either doing so to generate more cash or its management team should be locked up with the key thrown away. STN at this point in the airline's evolution is a flight of fancy, nothing more and nothing less. Second thing is that, as I've said, there are several very clear examples to suggest why Emirates' performance cannot be taken as a given for other routes by other operators. Ask anyone at BHX and NCL.
Quite the contrary, I'm trying to inject some rational thinking into a debate which keeps getting irrationally sidetracked. The solution to the troubles of an airline which is losing money isn't to go and start a load of new routes from an airport at which you currently don't operate or have any commercial structure to support. There is nothing pro or anti Stansted in that statement. I'd be saying exactly the same if someone was suggesting Norwegian should set up shop at Birmingham, Toulouse, Charleroi or countless others I could list. It's a crazy notion, just as it was a crazy notion in the Thomas Cook discussion.
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Flightrider…
Viability of STN?
Here are a couple of your observations,selective possibly...but...
"Thomas Cook clearly hasn`t found long-haul at STN to be the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as they have pulled it completely".
Regarding Emirates..."But it is an outlier in the long-haul market and their apparent success at STN is no sign that other long-haul ventures can work,just as they haven`t at Newcastle or Birmingham.
Viability of STN?
Here are a couple of your observations,selective possibly...but...
"Thomas Cook clearly hasn`t found long-haul at STN to be the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as they have pulled it completely".
Regarding Emirates..."But it is an outlier in the long-haul market and their apparent success at STN is no sign that other long-haul ventures can work,just as they haven`t at Newcastle or Birmingham.
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I'd suggest that Thomas Cook pulling the long haul flights is more of an indication of them putting their priority of MAN long haul than anything else.
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Maybe I’m a little more knowledgeable on this subject than you think, Having worked very hard and studied the in-depth data gathered over almost two year, providing key advice on the new Stansted base for a particular predominantly northern based airline, Let just say we could have added more metal into MAN, LBA, etc, however seeing and predicting the positive future growth at Stansted, we seen no reason why it would not work, not only did it work, we have more than doubled our predicted grown at Stansted in half the time, it is on track to be our joint largest base in the very near future.
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Easing past the original & 2nd largest base in terms of pax this Summer it will be an exciting & remarkable achievement to become the joint largest base alongside the other comparable MAG airport in the future then.
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Maybe I’m a little more knowledgeable on this subject than you think, Having worked very hard and studied the in-depth data gathered over almost two year, providing key advice on the new Stansted base for a particular predominantly northern based airline, Let just say we could have added more metal into MAN, LBA, etc, however seeing and predicting the positive future growth at Stansted, we seen no reason why it would not work, not only did it work, we have more than doubled our predicted grown at Stansted in half the time, it is on track to be our joint largest base in the very near future.
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Perhaps view the video on the Stansted Media page of the fly/round fly/thru animation of the Stansted Transformation Project (STP) currently getting underway.
Southside bobby, can you give me a straight answer to the following questions:
1/ Do you agree that it is a less than sensible strategy for an airline facing reportedly serious levels of financial stress to suddenly launch a series of new routes from an airport it does not currently serve.
2/ Do you agree that Emirates are, on the face of it, able to make LH services work at airports (BHX and NCL being examples) from where other long-haul services have been withdrawn?
If the answer to both of the above questions is yes, then I can't really see why the debate is still ongoing. And I'm honestly not sure what Jet2's undisputed success at STN has to do with long-haul. Jet2 has been incredibly successful at LBA, but I wouldn't be advocating Leeds as a viable long-haul base just because of it.
1/ Do you agree that it is a less than sensible strategy for an airline facing reportedly serious levels of financial stress to suddenly launch a series of new routes from an airport it does not currently serve.
2/ Do you agree that Emirates are, on the face of it, able to make LH services work at airports (BHX and NCL being examples) from where other long-haul services have been withdrawn?
If the answer to both of the above questions is yes, then I can't really see why the debate is still ongoing. And I'm honestly not sure what Jet2's undisputed success at STN has to do with long-haul. Jet2 has been incredibly successful at LBA, but I wouldn't be advocating Leeds as a viable long-haul base just because of it.
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The original poster in my view raised very legitimate & common sense opinions regarding STN`s location & ability to provide an excellent base for long-haul which would provide coverage for North London & the whole of the East of England/Cambridge Corridor & beyond & would compliment LGW way to the South.
Of course the Jet2 reference was from the same poster presenting some of his credentials as you correctly know.
It will be more than interesting over the proverbial whether MAG will be rewarded (after all they have £3b in it...STN that is) or your good self with just a view only.
I highlighted earlier too your questioning more generally in my view of STN`s viability as you sought to obfuscate that in reply.
Of course the Jet2 reference was from the same poster presenting some of his credentials as you correctly know.
It will be more than interesting over the proverbial whether MAG will be rewarded (after all they have £3b in it...STN that is) or your good self with just a view only.
I highlighted earlier too your questioning more generally in my view of STN`s viability as you sought to obfuscate that in reply.
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