Flybe v3?
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Very much respect your posts on here but I'm afraid that's a leap of logic, even if a plausible one. We've scaled back the beregional messaging to simply reflect more accurately its true current nature - an assessment of demand and opportunities for a possible future airline. And Ecojet is still very much happening - according to the CAA site they have an ongoing CAMO application.
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I remember a gentleman called Stelios who said to me "You know everyone thinks I am mad and shouldn't do this"
Would willingly do so following a study and that's the point.Here we have someone openly saying they are doing just that and ,,,,"experts",,,, are righting them off already.
I remember a gentleman called Stelios who said to me "You know everyone thinks I am mad and shouldn't do this"
I remember a gentleman called Stelios who said to me "You know everyone thinks I am mad and shouldn't do this"
I can only give a historical perspective on this but in 2019 CFR, BES, GRQ and RNS generated 122,000 pax from SEN. I was involved in setting up the CFR route and had knowledge of the GRQ and RNS deals so know that those routes were financially viable at that time.
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Could the aeroplane shown be misleading? You are of course quite right there is no point trying to follow the trodden path littered with failures, it has to be something different.
iF you want niche look at Skybus and similar examples, I still believe there may be a place for under 20 seat aeroplanes to operate economically and profitably. In a few years they may be electric too!
For example and it is an unproven one, to drive from NQY to BRS takes hours, CWL even longer so why not look at a small aeroplane operating those sorts of distance without trying to be at easyJet prices. This is an example not a suggested money spinner.
No harm at all in evaluating the possibilities which seems to be what is happening here. I don't see the reason for mass negativity of someone investigating the market.
I nor anyone else can say what may or may not work without investigating first.
iF you want niche look at Skybus and similar examples, I still believe there may be a place for under 20 seat aeroplanes to operate economically and profitably. In a few years they may be electric too!
For example and it is an unproven one, to drive from NQY to BRS takes hours, CWL even longer so why not look at a small aeroplane operating those sorts of distance without trying to be at easyJet prices. This is an example not a suggested money spinner.
No harm at all in evaluating the possibilities which seems to be what is happening here. I don't see the reason for mass negativity of someone investigating the market.
I nor anyone else can say what may or may not work without investigating first.
I can understand the scepticism on here, but take a step back for a moment. FlyBe 1.0 failed with a fleet which had reduced to around 70 aircraft from over 80; the company operated from multiple bases and seemingly tried to be all things to all customers. That was too much to sustain, but the failure doesn't mean that everything the company did was a financial calamity. The standout for me is the vacant Manchester to Southampton route. It is unlikely to support six return flights daily with Q400's / E195's again ... but two or three daily pitched with sensible pricing really ought to be a winner. I know that folks will reply that the business market isn't what it was pre-covid and that's true, but the overland journey by train is hopelessly unreliable and eyewateringly expensive. The road journey is a slog. So this is a route which appeals to VFR traffic and those joining / leaving cruise ships, amongst others. A case can be made for Manchester to Exeter too ... not at the previous 4 x daily, but certainly at least once daily. And Southend ... those Stobart ATR72's ran up too many EU261 liabilities due to over-ambitious scheduling; underlying demand looked healthy on the Manchester route at least. Manchester to London rail services are in the news again just today for being terrible, and we all know that HS2 isn't riding to the rescue. Capacity is needed, and slots won't be allocated at LHR / LCY. Any new operator won't be looking to occupy a 70-strong fleet. Opportunities are there for a small, well-managed operation focused on corridors where the rail alternative is in long-term disarray.
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Could Virgin Connect be revived? Not necessarily suggesting Virgin ownership, but a strong partnership providing connections to LHR/MAN long haul routes using E175/A220-100 sized aircraft. Win-win.
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and where are these LHR slots coming from? And the funding to make marginal routes pay for E175s/A221. BMI couldn’t do it. Flybe couldn’t do. Virgin Little Red couldn’t do it. It isn’t going to happen.
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I can understand the scepticism on here, but take a step back for a moment. FlyBe 1.0 failed with a fleet which had reduced to around 70 aircraft from over 80; the company operated from multiple bases and seemingly tried to be all things to all customers. That was too much to sustain, but the failure doesn't mean that everything the company did was a financial calamity. The standout for me is the vacant Manchester to Southampton route. It is unlikely to support six return flights daily with Q400's / E195's again ... but two or three daily pitched with sensible pricing really ought to be a winner. I know that folks will reply that the business market isn't what it was pre-covid and that's true, but the overland journey by train is hopelessly unreliable and eyewateringly expensive. The road journey is a slog. So this is a route which appeals to VFR traffic and those joining / leaving cruise ships, amongst others. A case can be made for Manchester to Exeter too ... not at the previous 4 x daily, but certainly at least once daily. And Southend ... those Stobart ATR72's ran up too many EU261 liabilities due to over-ambitious scheduling; underlying demand looked healthy on the Manchester route at least. Manchester to London rail services are in the news again just today for being terrible, and we all know that HS2 isn't riding to the rescue. Capacity is needed, and slots won't be allocated at LHR / LCY. Any new operator won't be looking to occupy a 70-strong fleet. Opportunities are there for a small, well-managed operation focused on corridors where the rail alternative is in long-term disarray.
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Routes like MAN-SOU/EXT/ABZ/BES/RNS could definitely work with well timed connections on to MCO/JFK/LAS/BGI or wherever Virgin will serve by the time this launches.
Once again, not suggesting an operation structured AROUND Virgin just a comprehensive codeshare agreement, give Virgin the feed they sorely need which would also give this startup a boost !
LM have applied for 3x daily in the past 12 months but remains to be seen whether they will revisit these plans
Virgin has had (and still has!) the opportunity to take MAN feeds from the likes of ABZ, INV, IOM and NQY from Loganair but it has never happened. Quite they’d hitch their cart to this particular donkey for MAN feed which they could already be getting elsewhere is beyond me.
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Virgin has had (and still has!) the opportunity to take MAN feeds from the likes of ABZ, INV, IOM and NQY from Loganair but it has never happened. Quite they’d hitch their cart to this particular donkey for MAN feed which they could already be getting elsewhere is beyond me.
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There's nothing stopping a carrier having multiple codeshares. BMI used to have tens on every flight. The reality remains that feeding other carriers don't really pay the bills. Often the shorter leg gets a minimal fee.
The triumph of hope over expectation. Who used to get an aeroplane from MAN-SOU? Business travellers. Who works from home via Zoom now? Those same guys. The SOU thread pummels Loganair as being two expensive, especially with an easyJet alternative. Any new regional turboprop operator isn't going to be a whole lot cheaper. The guys who paid top dollar to fly now don't need to fly, the rest can't believe how expensive flying on an ATR/Q400 actually is.
Some of the MAN guys are rightly astonished that their domestic connectivity is a pale shadow of days gone by, those glory days ain't coming back, there's not enough business demand to drive frequency. We all just watched Zombie Flybe try this! WHAT DID WE LEARN? And codesharing to long haul is icing on the cake, BUT you need strong core point to point business at a high enough price point. Is that there anymore? Little evidence that I can see. It was the ERJ175 that drove the debts of the original flybe, high costs and not enough high yield business, that model was wrong then and it's even less relevant today.
Some of the MAN guys are rightly astonished that their domestic connectivity is a pale shadow of days gone by, those glory days ain't coming back, there's not enough business demand to drive frequency. We all just watched Zombie Flybe try this! WHAT DID WE LEARN? And codesharing to long haul is icing on the cake, BUT you need strong core point to point business at a high enough price point. Is that there anymore? Little evidence that I can see. It was the ERJ175 that drove the debts of the original flybe, high costs and not enough high yield business, that model was wrong then and it's even less relevant today.
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Overall demand on SEN-MAN wasn’t strong enough. I used it quite a lot. For the first year or so loads were all over the place. Some laughably empty, some nearing full. Numbers were inflated through a reasonable number of connecting pax, either through MAN to other BE domestic/IOM/CI destinations, or through SEN particularly to Antwerp and Rennes as the times matched well in both directions.
In the end months they increased prices significantly which interestingly matched those of Loganair who went on to launch Scottish routes soon after. I had a theory they were trying to get Logan to take the route on. Anyway, during that time my loads were consistently around 20 and I think overall CAA stats mirrored that. SEN-MAN might work on a theoretical 20-seat outfit. It’s not a route that will work on a larger prop or jet, regardless of the state of the trains.
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A lot of domestic routes are being constrained by over-zealous pricing. Look at routes like LTN-EDI/GLA/ABZ, pax numbers at or above 2019 levels. A similar story can be seen for BRS domestic routes where yields aren't being squeezed. Yes, there are are a lot of zoom/teams calls taking place but businesses still want to go and meet people face-to-face. There are definitely opportunities for unserved citypairs and routes that are being milked. As for "Zombie Flybe" the reason for the collapse was a lunatic CEO who had been told by "experts" (a couple of contributors on here spring to mind) who told him there was a fortune to be made out of LHR and AMS slots. There wasn't and a profitable domestic network was sacrificed to maintain the remedy slots due incompetence on the aircraft delivery side.
The triumph of hope over expectation. Who used to get an aeroplane from MAN-SOU? Business travellers. Who works from home via Zoom now? Those same guys. The SOU thread pummels Loganair as being two expensive, especially with an easyJet alternative. Any new regional turboprop operator isn't going to be a whole lot cheaper. The guys who paid top dollar to fly now don't need to fly, the rest can't believe how expensive flying on an ATR/Q400 actually is.
Some of the MAN guys are rightly astonished that their domestic connectivity is a pale shadow of days gone by, those glory days ain't coming back, there's not enough business demand to drive frequency. We all just watched Zombie Flybe try this! WHAT DID WE LEARN? And codesharing to long haul is icing on the cake, BUT you need strong core point to point business at a high enough price point. Is that there anymore? Little evidence that I can see. It was the ERJ175 that drove the debts of the original flybe, high costs and not enough high yield business, that model was wrong then and it's even less relevant today.
Some of the MAN guys are rightly astonished that their domestic connectivity is a pale shadow of days gone by, those glory days ain't coming back, there's not enough business demand to drive frequency. We all just watched Zombie Flybe try this! WHAT DID WE LEARN? And codesharing to long haul is icing on the cake, BUT you need strong core point to point business at a high enough price point. Is that there anymore? Little evidence that I can see. It was the ERJ175 that drove the debts of the original flybe, high costs and not enough high yield business, that model was wrong then and it's even less relevant today.
Another "much loved" carrier occupied the SOU-MAN route for a while, but they consolidated advertised frequencies from twice to once a day at different times, frequently cancelled flights and suspended services altogether for weeks at a time. All whilst charging fares one could fly MAN-JFK for. Customers who booked them in the early stages soon gave up on them. Reliability tends to be rather important, especially at an premium price point.