Glasgow-4

[CandyBender]

I wonder if Air Transat are similar in pricing to Westjet on GLA-Canada routes - I was recently booking a trip to Canada for late July '22 & was all set to hit "Pay Now" for GLA-YYZ in Premium Y on the 737Max when an ad popped up on the Westjet site promoting 787 Business Class. Turns out J from LGW was nearly £90 cheaper one way than Y+ from GLA - plus I get higher Flying Blue XP & Miles due to the greater length/higher class of travel. Supply & demand I guess....

[CabinCrewe]

plus the added hassle of an indirect route both ways and added flight time.
Not sure I rate WJ ex LGW J service vs hassle value.

[YVRscot]

WestJet J class ex Gatwick

Originally Posted by CabinCrewe

plus the added hassle of an indirect route both ways and added flight time.
Not sure I rate WJ ex LGW J service vs hassle value.

Having flown WestJet business class in their Dreamliners quite recently I can vouch that the experience is a cut above Premium on Air Transat. The price situation seems to be Transat holding up the prices on the (only) direct flight to/from GLA whereas WJ are deeply discounting their fares to/from LGW in competition with Transat. Now whither I'd want the hassle and extra journey time of changing at Gatwick compared to a 6.5hr non-stop flight - that has to be a personal choice. I think the prices on GLA - Canada routes will drop dramatically when there is some competition from WestJet in the summer months plus Air Canada from EDI and MAN.

[VickersVicount]

TS YYZ 4x week for S22 (originally listed as just 2x week) and up to 5/wk next summer.

[YVRscot]

Originally Posted by VickersVicount

TS YYZ 4x week for S22 (originally listed as just 2x week) and up to 5/wk next summer.

It wasn't all that long ago that they had daily flights (in summer) ex YYZ plus weekly A330s direct from Vancouver and Calgary. Even one season of flights non-stop from Montreal.
Has the VFF traffic dropped so dramatically? Or have they just found better yields elsewhere?

[YVRscot]

Flights from Halifax, Nova Scotia resumed

Non-stop flights from Halifax, Nova Scotia resumed yesterday May 3rd by Canadian airline WestJet. For the first time this year these flights will be accompanied by non-stop flights from Toronto using 737Max aircraft.

[VickersVicount]

wonder if YYZ will cannibalise YHZ or if there is/was enough capacity for both with the loss of the ACr 767.

[CabinCrewe]

So are Transavia and Vueling ORY both gone from end of summer 22 - never to be seen again? Feast or famine.

[Albert Hall]

Both the Vueling and Transavia on many of the UK-Orly routes were a disaster in the making. Neither would work, nor both together. Vueling would be far better serving a smaller number of routes well rather than a wide range of routes badly. And Transavia was simply a response to Vueling’s policy so equally doomed to fail.

[nef]

Originally Posted by Albert Hall

Both the Vueling and Transavia on many of the UK-Orly routes were a disaster in the making. Neither would work, nor both together. Vueling would be far better serving a smaller number of routes well rather than a wide range of routes badly. And Transavia was simply a response to Vueling’s policy so equally doomed to fail.

Transavia were awarded slots for 2 weekly ORY-GLA back in December 2019 after Aigle Azur went bust - This was pre COVID and nearly 2 years before VY came onto the route:

https://www.cohor.org/en/ory-0512201...ol-allocation/

This would surely indicate they were at least considering the route potentially as early as S20 (if COVID had not got in the way!), so I'm not really sure we can wholly can say that Transavia starting was a response to VY.

I understand that VY NCL-ORY appears to be ending in July, but GLA appears to be bookable through to the end of S22 - ​​Has their been some kind of announcement that this route is ceasing? The route is certainly not bookable for winter, but the flights for S22 were not put on sale till pretty late in the day.

Wrt to Transavia, afaik this was always intended to be seasonal. No flights are bookable for S23, but this also appears to be the case for their EDI-ORY route which has operated for a number of years.

Whilst I agree its maybe questionable having both VY and Transavia operating GLA-ORY, I don't particularly see why one or other operating a seasonal 2 weekly service is unsustainable tbh. It's been suggested that ORY serves a somewhat different catchment to the south of Paris.

[Rusty Irish]

GLA. Where routes go to die. The worst run airport in the British Isles.

[nivsy]

Originally Posted by Rusty Irish

GLA. Where routes go to die. The worst run airport in the British Isles.

Probably not that far from the truth I'm afraid to say. Paris..they all want to try it and it never really works ..except EZY?

[jdcg]

Could it be that Vueling and Transavia have no real traction within the UK, particularly outside of London, and so unattractive to Glaswegians etc? And i doubt there would be that many French people wanting to do a city break to Glasgow, magnificent though that city is.

[ATNotts]

Originally Posted by jdcg

Could it be that Vueling and Transavia have no real traction within the UK, particularly outside of London, and so unattractive to Glaswegians etc? And i doubt there would be that many French people wanting to do a city break to Glasgow, magnificent though that city is.

There is an inherent problem with UK tourism, brought about by an over concentration of promotion on London in England and now Edinburgh in Scotland. I have visited Glasgow a number of times and found it to be an interesting city with plenty to keep tourists occupied for 2 or 3 days. Same can be said for cities in England such as Birmingham and Leeds but to your average inbound tourist the UK is London and Edinburgh so far as staying more than a day is concerned.

[nef]

Originally Posted by jdcg

Could it be that Vueling and Transavia have no real traction within the UK, particularly outside of London, and so unattractive to Glaswegians etc? And i doubt there would be that many French people wanting to do a city break to Glasgow, magnificent though that city is.

Except over the last decade or so Glasgow has consistently been the 5th or 6th most visited city in the UK by foreign visitors and has also for a large part of that time been the 3rd most visited city by those with a "holiday" visit purpose. This is from ONS data available here:

https://www.visitbritain.org/sites/d...09_-_2019.xlsx

And that's before we consider Glasgow as the best air access point for large parts of the incredibly popular W Highlands and Islands. Most of the direct public transport links (both surface and air) to the W Highlands and and Islands operate from Glasgow rather than Edinburgh.

So whilst of course London and Edinburgh have considerably more demand, I think you're probably underestimating that to Glasgow.

Interestingly, pre COVID I saw figures that LH services to GLA were carrying 60% inbound, so I don't particularly see why flights from France should be wildly different.

I'm not sure about these two airlines having no UK traction - surely most people use price comparison sites, so the flights should still come up on a search?

I do generally agree with ATNotts comments and share some of the reservations that others have mentioned about GLA's current owners/management.

To come back to VY and Transavia, no-one has yet pointed to the announcement or other evidence that the flights in question are definitely been discontinued, so I'd be grateful if someone could link to it for me.

[CabinCrewe]

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/japea...139547136-Ixq6

[SWBKCB]

Interestingly, pre COVID I saw figures that LH services to GLA were carrying 60% inbound, so I don't particularly see why flights from France should be wildly different.

Are there large numbers of French students or a significant French diaspora in Glasgow?

[nef]

Originally Posted by CabinCrewe

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/japea...139547136-Ixq6

Thanks for posting the link.

[Skipness One Foxtrot]

Glasgow as a city really has been sliding backwards. The once bussling Buchanan Galleries is looking to be closed and access to the airport is choked via the M8. I find the airport really easy to use, security usually top notch and a plethora of airbridge served stands and space to sit. But from being the UK's 4th / 5th busiest airport in the 90s, the relative decline is obvious now. It's back to core outbound sun routes, Loganair and a truncated UK domestic network with some loyal oldies like KLM and Icelandair. Lufthansa, who knows? So sad.
The growth of Edinburgh really has smacked Glasgow into the shade, it's now like Manchester, inbound attractions just don't sell it.

[chaps1954]

Strange Manchester has the 3rd biggest inbound tourist market behind London and Edinburgh