Gatwick-3
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What will happen to the slots being given up by EI? Will they be sold by EI(if there is a value) or will they be returned and distributed by ACL? I think EI operated 4/5 times a day so a fair number of slots suddenly available.
I think Aegean also held slots for a service to Athens this summer, but this seems to have been taken off sale as well. It was on sale, but is no more. Same with Air Algerie.
So there does seem to be a bit of churn going on. Will be interesting to see what comes of all of this.
I think Aegean also held slots for a service to Athens this summer, but this seems to have been taken off sale as well. It was on sale, but is no more. Same with Air Algerie.
So there does seem to be a bit of churn going on. Will be interesting to see what comes of all of this.
What will happen to the slots being given up by EI? Will they be sold by EI(if there is a value) or will they be returned and distributed by ACL? I think EI operated 4/5 times a day so a fair number of slots suddenly available.
I think Aegean also held slots for a service to Athens this summer, but this seems to have been taken off sale as well. It was on sale, but is no more. Same with Air Algerie.
So there does seem to be a bit of churn going on. Will be interesting to see what comes of all of this.
I think Aegean also held slots for a service to Athens this summer, but this seems to have been taken off sale as well. It was on sale, but is no more. Same with Air Algerie.
So there does seem to be a bit of churn going on. Will be interesting to see what comes of all of this.
Air Algérie had recently announced changes to their proposed Algiers to London Gatwick route.
Service was supposed to start on the 06 January 2024. This has now been pushed back to the start of the IATA summer season with service to commence on 31 March 2024.
Flights are now scheduled to be daily by a Boeing 738.
Tentative schedule for service to commence on the 31 March 2024.
AH2058 ALG 15.10 LGW 16.40 Daily B738
AH2059 LGW 17.50 ALG 21.40 Daily B738
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They've been here at Gatwick for many years and at one stage even had a base in the mid-late 2000s at LGW. FR will undoubtedly step in and add additional capacity to compensate. I reckon BA would only look at starting LGW-DUB if there is sufficient feeder traffic/demand, which, given EI's departure, sadly suggests otherwise. I also can't see EZY launching this route, given FR's dominance in DUB. However, like 2023, I am optimistic that LGW will see further new carriers this year, its just questions of when and who, rather than if.
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I remember when easyJet dipped their toe into the ROI market from Gatwick in the early 2000's with flights to Shannon, Cork and Knock. Ryanair were absolutely ferocious in their response and drove them off the routes so I think easyJet will stay well clear of the Dublin > London market.
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EI leaving LGW (again) ... what will happen to LGW slots
Aer Lingus leaving AGAIN? How many times is that now? Was pleased they came back in 2008 with the A320 after leaving when the 146s were retired. I've never been on a quiet DUB-LGW, and unlike long haul passengers who will make the journey to LHR, this will surely cost traffic and market share on their core Dublin-London offering. Or has the move of NOC to LHR meant they no longer feel it necessary?
The interesting question -as already mentioned before- is: What will happen to EI's LGW slots?
Getting up to five daily, commonly timed slot pairs at popular times when most passengers actually want to fly at LGW these days is an absolute rarity. Therefore, I do believe these slots have great value. So far, EI appears to be tight-lipped re what they're planning to do with those slots - giving / selling them to BA or another IAG airline with a presence at LGW like VY for ecample, selling them to a non-IAG airline like FR for example or returning them to the LGW slot pool for reallocation by ACL. Also, as each of the up to five daily LGW slot pairs EI currently uses has a 40 min turnaround between each arrival and departure, these slots will be best suited to a short-haul operator using aircraft based at the other end of the route (not at LGW) if all slots are to be used on their entirety - i.e., as a package to be used by one operator (the only option if EI wants to realise the value of these slots by selling them at a profit) rather than being disaggregated and randomly redistributed among different operators. In my opinion, this will make them awkward for BA's LGW EF short-haul subsidiary as they would need to overnight an aircraft at the other end of the route to make best use of them, something they firmly ruled out doing as this was identfied as a major source of the losses BA has historically incurred on short-haul at LGW. While this still doesn't rule out BA mainline potentially doing a DUB-LGW feeder in a W pattern as they currently do on GLA-LGW, like GLA-LGW, this would probably be a single daily flight only.
The following scenarios are the most likely in my opinion re future usage of EI's LGW slots:
1 Selling them to FR. As FR already effectively duplicates most of EI's current timings on LGW-DUB and tgey already run a high-frequency service on this route with up to twice EI's frequency, they'd probably only at another sngle daily frequency to their current LGW-DUB schedule, making it up to nine per day (instead of up to eight), with the remaining three to four daily slot pairs being used to boost frequencies on LGW-ORK and LGW-SNN from the current single daily round-trip to double or triple daily and perhaps reintroducing LGW-NOC (probably as a summer seasonal service, with this slot pair being used to fly in and back out of LGW from one of FR's numerous Continental bases in a W pattern in winter).
2. Selling them to a short-haul member / affiliate of one of the three big global airline alliances, such as Skyteam for example, either FSC or LCC.
2 1. If FSC, this could be a once in a life time opportunity for an airline like KL or AF to tap the LGW catchment area for connecting traffic transferring at their AMS or CDG hub to / from their globe-spanning long-haul route network, neatly complementing their long- and well-established presence in the LHR catchment area, where - because of even greater runway capacity constraints than at LGW - short of LHR actually being able to build a third runway - it will be impossible for them to further increase flight frequencies to / from their own global hub airports. Either KL or AF would be a great addition for LGW in my opinion as it would open up a multitude of new global, one-stop connections for LGW, which unlike those already provided from LGW by the likes of EK, QR and (from 22 June) SQ will not only offer additional eastward-facing connections but westward-facing ones as well. Personally, I would favour KL over AF as AMS despite its recent issues is a more user-friendly hub than CDG although I'm conscious that adding up to five new daily LGW-AMS feeder flights will probably be more difficult to achieve than for AF to add this many flights at CDG because of previous Dutch government policy to cap flights at AMS despite tgis being a six-runway facility. M
2 2. If LCC, staying with the example of the Skyteam alliance, the French arm of HV, most likely on the shape of an up to five times daily ORY-LGW service usibg ORY-based aircraft as there will be sufficient capacity for HV to do so at the ORY end as well given AF's decision to discontinue its French domestic shuttle services to / from ORY for very similar reasons as those stated by EI for discontinuing LGW-DUB (a collapse in business traffic) and to transfer its ORY slots to HV. If HV were to use AF's ORY slots and EI's LGW slots to launch LGW-ORY, their frequency could be an exact match of EI's current LGW-DUB frequency: five daily from Monday to Friday, two daily on Saturdays and four daily on Sundays, and they could probably continue to use South Terminal's pier 1, making LGW's operational planning easier than if KL or AF decided to take EI's LGW slots themselves as they'd probably pefer to be in the North Terminal.
Are you telling us or asking us?
If you already know the route in question why not mention it in your very brief comment.
I take it that you are referring to China Southern Airlines from Guangzhou CAN to London Gatwick.
Another route to look out for from China in the coming weeks is a possible announcement of a resumption of Air China from Beijing to London Gatwick, apparently going daily.
On a negative note, China Eastern Airlines are believed to be reducing service to London Gatwick from Shanghai. Air China on the other hand are proposing an expansion with a daily service from Shanghai to London Gatwick.
For summer 2024 London Gatwick will see three Chinese carriers serving the airport from possibly four Chinese airports.
Air China...Beijing, Shanghai
China Eastern Airlines...Shanghai
China Southern Airlines...Guangzhou, Zhengzhou
Hopefully the next Chinese destination to London Gatwick will be Hong Kong with a resumption of service by Cathay Pacific Airways.
If you already know the route in question why not mention it in your very brief comment.
I take it that you are referring to China Southern Airlines from Guangzhou CAN to London Gatwick.
Another route to look out for from China in the coming weeks is a possible announcement of a resumption of Air China from Beijing to London Gatwick, apparently going daily.
On a negative note, China Eastern Airlines are believed to be reducing service to London Gatwick from Shanghai. Air China on the other hand are proposing an expansion with a daily service from Shanghai to London Gatwick.
For summer 2024 London Gatwick will see three Chinese carriers serving the airport from possibly four Chinese airports.
Air China...Beijing, Shanghai
China Eastern Airlines...Shanghai
China Southern Airlines...Guangzhou, Zhengzhou
Hopefully the next Chinese destination to London Gatwick will be Hong Kong with a resumption of service by Cathay Pacific Airways.
Another route to look out for from China in the coming weeks is a possible announcement of a resumption of Air China from Beijing to London Gatwick, apparently going daily.
On a negative note, China Eastern Airlines are believed to be reducing service to London Gatwick from Shanghai. Air China on the other hand are proposing an expansion with a daily service from Shanghai to London Gatwick.
Hopefully the next Chinese destination to London Gatwick will be Hong Kong with a resumption of service by Cathay Pacific Airways.
On a negative note, China Eastern Airlines are believed to be reducing service to London Gatwick from Shanghai. Air China on the other hand are proposing an expansion with a daily service from Shanghai to London Gatwick.
Hopefully the next Chinese destination to London Gatwick will be Hong Kong with a resumption of service by Cathay Pacific Airways.
Cathay won't be back at LGW before they're able to crew and fly 5 x daily B77Ws out of LHR, that's not this year IMHO.
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Gatwick longhaul routes
Cathay pacific are going to be launching flights to hongkong in October. Massively in their plans this year.
Avianca are going to be launching Bogotá at some point. Sri Lankan and Azul are also on the cards.
from an African point of view air Tanzania, air Zimbabwe are also likely to launch.
From my point of view nearly every carrier could launch Gatwick at anytime.
singapore launching flights is so massive for the airport could very much see a domino affect here
Avianca are going to be launching Bogotá at some point. Sri Lankan and Azul are also on the cards.
from an African point of view air Tanzania, air Zimbabwe are also likely to launch.
From my point of view nearly every carrier could launch Gatwick at anytime.
singapore launching flights is so massive for the airport could very much see a domino affect here
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Cathay pacific are going to be launching flights to hongkong in October. Massively in their plans this year.
Avianca are going to be launching Bogotá at some point. Sri Lankan and Azul are also on the cards.
from an African point of view air Tanzania, air Zimbabwe are also likely to launch.
From my point of view nearly every carrier could launch Gatwick at anytime.
singapore launching flights is so massive for the airport could very much see a domino affect here
Avianca are going to be launching Bogotá at some point. Sri Lankan and Azul are also on the cards.
from an African point of view air Tanzania, air Zimbabwe are also likely to launch.
From my point of view nearly every carrier could launch Gatwick at anytime.
singapore launching flights is so massive for the airport could very much see a domino affect here
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Cathay pacific
One they are hiring staff for London massive sign imo.
two I used to work at the airport and know people who tell me they are going to announce soon.
be very suprised if they didn’t announce before June
two I used to work at the airport and know people who tell me they are going to announce soon.
be very suprised if they didn’t announce before June
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CX returning to LGW
Presumably the a/c will be as was before (A359)?
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Cathay pacific
Yes it will be a350-900 I believe at five weekly, starting October 28. I think we will see a lot of new routes and increases from Chinese carriers this year.
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Admittedly, the London LHR/LGW search option has been in place on the CX website for quite a while now, with the existing options to HKG from LGW usually involving a hop to AMS (BA) or Madrid (Iberia), so unsure if that search option is a sign of them coming back, as it has been a search option for a while (certainly since the route was suspended in February 2020).
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I wonder if they'll end up flying at similar times as they did before? IIRC, CX354 would leave Gatwick in the early afternoon (circa 12:30pm) and CX343 would arrive 6:30-6:40 ish. Hopefully they will use the South Terminal again.