DUO ceased trading
 

Just heard Duo have ceased trading. Info on their website duo.com

Maybe moving away from BA was a mistake after all. No wonder duo were planning a massive expansion, they were in the sh1te financially. Maybe another new start up will be announced to replace them, or will MOL take a look ?

Good luck to all those staff out of a job this morning.

If it's any help, Ryanair, easyJet and most of the UK charter airlines are still recruiting in various areas.

Alternative Routes
 

Just taking a quick look at alternatives for pax already booked / thinking of booking with them. According to BHX, there are no immediate plans for anyone to step in and replace them on these routes, but obviously its early days.

For virtually all routes, the option of KLM via AMS, AF via CDG etc is available. Other options below, viability depends on final destination:

From BHX:

NCE - TOM from CVT
LYS - TOM to MRS + TGV? AF to CDG & TGV (direct) or AF to LYS?
GVA - Swiss connect via ZRH, BSL or take train from ZRH - direct c. 2 1/2 hours.
CGN - BA or LH to DUS. Frequent ICE & local services to Cologne (45 mins). Or FRA; 45 mins to Cologne by ICE. Both direct from airport. FRA station adjacent to terminal; DUS by monorail - add 15 mins for transfer.
STR - BA or LH to FRA. ICE 70 mins (direct)
CPH - SAS
GOt - City Airlines
ARN, OSL, VIE - take connecting flight or go via LON.

From EDI:
FR from PIK only real alternatives involving direct flights, but large distances at both ends:
OSL - PIK to TRF
MXP - PIK to BGY

The most likely thing I can see as happening over at BHX, is either for the existing operators like Lufthansa, Air France or Swiss to fill in the void on the routes that duo were operating, or for other carriers to expand their operations at BHX or EMA.

Perhaps MyTravelLite will go back to their original business plan of providing a no-frills alternative to Birmingham, as opposed to Stansted and launch some business routes - (although it seems all attempts at this have failed!)

EasyJet have already stated their intention to launch CGN, they serve GVA - whose to say they wont add a Berlin flight - especially as Berlin is a big up & coming base at U2.

Also, Ryanair have said they will grow their operations from EMA - why not add Bergamo, Torp & Skavsta.

Another one bites the dust
 

Shame

Saw it on BBC news website that the stopped trading at 0001 BST

What about the crews and staff have they been laid off?


mM

>>From EDI:

FR from PIK only real alternatives involving direct flights, but large distances at both ends:<<

The story of our lives on Scotland's east coast... :* :*

daft name anyway. duo money? they do now!

Perhaps if the people on the east of Scotland supported the flights that were available it may have been a different story. If rumours are correct a lot of their flights from EDI had less than a 20% load factor.

They were a good airline to fly with - shame they didn't get the support.

Its such a shame that DUO has ceased trading. I was looking forward to using them this summer. Ironically i was about to book a rtn to LYS for June last night. Thank god i never booked the ticket.

I hope someone fills their void, and i would really like to see a low cost alternative to those routes. They were a great choice!!!


Good luck to those who have lost their jobs :>
Bet they well angry.

Bye


Martin

Such a shame :{ As has already been said. Wit hthis one loss EDI has virtually lost all its Euro routes! BHX not fairing much better.
Regarding lack of passengers, it was the same from EDI and BHX, I blame a lack of advertising and public awareness from the beginning.
For your information, their busiest route was EDI-OSL!

Any chance of them returning?

Good. The lo-co worm has turned. Hopefully one of the biggies will be next.

The lo-co worm has turned eh? Ummm, right.

I hardly think DUO qualified as a low cost airline did it?

Sorry to anyone who lost a job through this failure - must be miserable as sin.

Cheers,

WWW

dontdoit,

you say you hope one of the the big loco's will be next. can you say just how many more people you hope to see lose their jobs. maybe it would be great if EASYJET went bust . that would put a couple of thousand out of work. I cant think of any better news for aviation all those people looking for work.
i dont want to see you lose your job whoever you work for.

grow up

Thanks for your support, we appreciate it

Still in stunned shock at the moment. Can't see why the administrators have been called in as we were initially told that we could operate for 2 years on the initial funding. Our pax figures only narrowly missed the projected target figures so why only 6 month operation and not 24?

Especially after the help from our friends at Scottish Board of Commerce which wasn't factored into this forecast.

It was a very innovative idea with a lot of promise, sadly let down by poor advertising. Let this be a lesson to all the other airlines that listen to these high paid agencies. If it doesn't seem right then it probably isn't right. Don't believe everything these consultants say!

I would just say on the matter you brought up - advertising.

Being not far south of Brum I was amazed that I never saw a single advert for DUO. No the TV, nor the radio, nor the billboards, nor the buses. Nothing, nadda, nilch.

I used to think Go spent far too much money on plastering themselves all over London. I guess now I see why.

Good luck to all those hit by this, stress, worry, misery, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

WWW

There was an advert in a farmer's field on the edge of the M42.
A duck was the only thing you could make out whilst driving at speed and if you didn't realise that duo had a duck on their billboards, you would not have known who the advert related to.

(Who came up with the duck anyway)

Meanwhile, the two in the fields that relate to Thomsonfly inside 2 DME Rwy 33 tend to get noticed:ouch:

For some reason, and it may be cost, as far back as I can remember, airlines operating smaller aircraft have always been reluctant to advertise, preferring some other promotional technique such as personal appraoches to travel agents.

In the late 90's Brymon were happily and profitably operating their BHX-LGW shuttle. They had to use a larger aircraft (DHC6 - SD3-30) but never advertised. Passenger numbers failed to grow thus route was closed down months later. Remember Community Express? No adverts and soon no business.
My last airline took over a route to Aberdeen from BMA. No advertising and after a month I distinctly heard a travel agent in the departure terminal building say that there were no longer any flights from that airport to Aberdeen. The enquiring passengers would have to travel about 50 miles to get a flight and we were doing 3 rotations a day!

P.P.

Such a terrible shame as their product was wonderful.

However, the advertising I saw was always very vague. Nothing to do with airlines, more like a center parcs sort of advert.

Of course, they only offered bookings through airkiosk system to start with, which meant not even travel agents could book as far as I know!

Fatal mistake IMHO.

Flybe have plastered the buses in the Bristol area with details of their flights out of BRS.

They also conducted a high profile local television and local newspaper advertising campaign in this area.

In fact it seems every Bristol bus is either advertising Flybe or easyJet - a bit of an exaggeration but these airlines are certainly using this medium heavily.