Yes here at Baby we are struggling on some routes especially out of EMA but the majority of our pax are second home owners or going to visit family and friends while Easy seem to get the more business travel especially on the Scotland routes.
The loads are looking quite good for summer on the sunshine routes as i have said before i think some route changes need to be made for winter and summer 05.
Mike 16
Any more news of you Easy guys getting any of the new a319s at EMA in September/October ? I think if you do you will start some more new routes for winter

Hi James
 

Hope you are o.k, well we are performing very well on all routes, well we have a lot of new recruits coming through at the moment, 10 this month and 19 next month ( cabin crew ).
So we think we are having new routes or the rumour that is very strong, that we will have our airbus by march next year.
I do hope so, it is a lovely aircraft compared to the ex-go aircraft.
There are a lot of new routes poping up everywhere at the moment, mainly from the southern airports, like the Berlin, hungary etc.... so we are hoping here at EMA we get some, so keep fingers crossed.
Bye

Mike, Mike, Mike....
If you're having to count pax then u really should get out more !!!!
Cut throat world, this airline lark.
Nice if we could fill every flight.....we don't and nor does
every other carrier on this god forsaken planet...
EMA is big enough for all 3 of em...
Tot ziens !
LB !

EMA is not big enough for three Low Cost carriers, and the EMA catchment area isn't big enough for six based low cost carriers (FlyBe, Easy, Ryanair, Thomsonfly, MyTravelLite, Baby), (and seven if you include LBA and Jet2.) Lots of blood will be shed this winter. Seven to three?

Proof of that is London - where only two based LCCs have survived - EasyJet and Ryanair, with the others (Debonair, AB, Go, Buzz, FlyBe vanishing from the london scene).

Hi Mike
Yes im very well thank you i have to admit that most of the Easy loads at EMA i've seen have been very good .
As you have said i would expect more new routes for winter personally i think a Copenhagen and Polish route is needed for the area but just my opinion.
I think the best thing for the region would be for Easyjet and Ryanair to concentrate on the city break pax and let us at Baby look after the sunshine routes but of course that is not going to happen.
I heard again just the other day that Bmi were considering reverting the CDG,AMS,BFS and DUB back to mainline from the winter. which i must admit majority of pax seem to be travelling on business except Fri and Mon when you get the stag n hen parties onboard.

I really doubt that bmi will revert bac to mainline on the CDG, AMS, BFS, and DUB routes. I did hear from management that CDG, AMS never made any profit when operated by mainline and AMS is one of baby's best performing routes. BFS is also a very stable route which i really doubt will go bac 2 mainline as its a big VFR market. I'd say the only question mark is the DUB as the loads appear have to gone down loads since FR started. I wouldn't be suprised if baby dropped the route but even then i doubt mainline would take it over.

It is a pretty safe bet that NEMA is going to face a shake out of operations over the next few months. It is a complete waste of money trying to compete with FR on Dublin. FR will use large aircrfat and keep prices permanantly low. Remember that they killed MYT at BHX. Baby will probably suffer the same fate at NEMA.

EZY will not give up at NEMA and they are a much bigger and financially stronger airline than the entire bmi group. While bmi goes on spending vast amounts of money of long haul it will never be able to concentrate its resources on the development of baby.

Baby is also too spread out without any real focus on any one area. EZY and FR have proved that critical mass is vital. Baby does not have it. Its only exclusive airport is Cardiff and the catchment area there is simply not big enough to support large scale airline operations. LGW does not seem to be good. Scheduling PRG within 15 minutes of BA seems absurd. An easy way to create red ink!!!

Flying against Monarch on MAN/AGP also looks ridiculous. Monarch use the A321, baby use the 735. No contest. The A321 will always win in such a contest.

The Loco market is the equivalent to a very hot kitchen. Beware all who enter.

Mike16 "well we are performing very well on all routes"

If your performing well on all routes why are the GLA and BCN routes stopping.

We get the usual press release from EZY saying that it is due to charges at GLA but we all know this is rubbish.

It is just the standard release from EZY when they don't want to give the real reason for cut backs. They gave the same reason for reducing the GLA-AMS service, but they also reduced services from BFS-AMS and to AMS from other airports with not a word about landing charges concerning their withdrawl.

What is the real reason for the route being dropped?

Another aspect to this debate is that I am (reliably) informed that no scheduled carrier that has ever attempted to set up a low cost operation in the USA has ever succeeded at doing so.

This fact bodes ill for BMI Baby venturing into this market. As a pilot I hope they succeed but only time will tell.

Ooh, I Touched a nerve!

Business is business whether it's an Airline or whatever. I ran my own business to fund my ATPL in the 1990s, which I have had for several years and now have 3 jet types on my licence all with more than 1000 (each hours on type).

Guardian Awards say BMI Baby is rated higher than Easy. As voted by Passengers.

The court case maybe all those things you say but you have to win an appeal- in the European Courts.

You do fewer flights from NEMA. The routes you don't do anymore are ones Baby does.

Baby overall loads are very, very good. Check CWL, MAN, etc.

Those loans still have to be paid.

Sorry to upset your world guys but these are facts.

Just to keep the debate going the following are 'points' made in an article (dated 12th May) attributed to Adrian Parkes (Commercial Director, bmi):

"We’re not making money anywhere.....Michael O’Leary is predicting a mother and father of all price wars, so that’s another thing to look forward to.....We’re now the fourth of fifth place airline after being in 2nd or 3rd place. We have a problem with the brand. People know what they’re getting with Virgin and Ryanair, but they don’t know what they’re getting with us.....We’ve seen a massive shift from the front cabin to the back and yields are even more horrific.....We have a perception problem that we are expensive, when we are often as cheap as low cost market and we have to be."

The article can be found at http://www.travelmole.com/news_detai...84fdcc5f3630cf

What it doesn't make too clear is when he says "We’re not making money anywhere" does he mean the company as a whole or does "anywhere" mean geographically.

Hial Flyer,

To answer a few of your questions I'll leap to the defence of my employer :}

If your performing well on all routes why are the GLA and BCN routes stopping.

If you've a finite amount of resources (and eJ do not have infinite resources!) and you think you can make more money doing something else with the aircraft would you not stop the route and put the aircraft on a newer route that is cheaper?

If you've been following anything in the Scottish press you'll find both bmi regionals director and a spokewomen from eJ stating how ludicrous the fees at EDI/GLA and ABZ are.

Certainly this is why eJ shy away from expansion in Scotland. The aircraft at NCL were originally destined for GLA but more money could be made at NCL, hence the change of plan.

The same probably goes on the EMA-GLA route, it may have been successful but not as successful as say the EDI route hence the reason it was pulled.

We get the usual press release from EZY saying that it is due to charges at GLA but we all know this is rubbish.

Do we? Read the above and check out the Scotsman website, even the SNP are complaining about the BAA!

mmeteesside

The loads are doing very well from Teesside. As you mention the only fly in the ointment is the BFS but the rest are well into the 100's on each flight especially the ALC, AGP and PMI which are pretty much full on each sector. NCE has been lower but it's early days and the JER is full each flight.
Rumour is that for this winter, PRG will go daily, 2 x GVA's on sat and sun and a daily CDG with the sunshine spots dropping one service per week. I think they will drop the BFS in favour of ORK. :)

BDWW
As i said it was only a rumour i heard and thats how it shall probaly remain. About some flights reverting back to Bmi mainline it was based more on if the company decided to rethink the market they were aiming at rather than routes that are performing badly.
I have to agree AMS is one of the best performing routes with CDG having its days but Dublin does really seem to have gone down hill even before FR started flights as you said it wouldn't be a great shock if they decided to drop it or make it weekends only.

Whilst Baby's move onto NEMA's sunshine routes may have delivered some results, the change from mainline to so-called "low fare" on the business routes has been not much short of a disaster.

The huge queues, hurd mentality, lack of care, lack of facilities (and I'm talking through check-in, etc at places like AMS, CDG here) have driven a significant number of the more regular business travellers down the road to BHX. Booking last minute, why should anyone pay Baby for the shoddy service and lack of genuine support when the time taken to drive the 36 miles to BHX is roughly equivalent to the length of time a passenger could well end up standing in the lines at checkin and security at NEMA. I've gone from a very regular business traveller through NEMA two years ago (>30 trips) to zero now - its just not worth the hassle, and many other business travellers I know and have travelled with regularly feel and have done the same. I've seen some of the figures - BMI through putting Baby into the market have driven several NEMA routes way down, which in turn resulted in lowered frequencies (remember the days when GLA was 4 times a day and the early morning and evening flights were always full with the curtain well back down the cabin?), which drove yet more people away. Well, they've got what they deserve now - lower yields, lowered frequency and a customer base that is driven by price rather than convenience and service, which in turn means more volitility.

Baby is good for the holiday routes, but if BMI want to bring some stability back into the business routes from NEMA and also obtain a reasonable return from their business at the airport (best for Baby and the rest of the BMI operation) I believe that they need to put Regional into these markets - restoring the old BMI frequencies with a 50 seat ERJ will stands a chance of bringing back what's been blown by Baby.

Andy

Well the bite of Ryanair has just began. bmibaby have cancelled the Barcelona from July and replaced it with an extra Glasgow rotation to fill the gap from Easyjet pulling out.

Rumour has it , that Easyjet is going to bring back the BCN at winter some time, the reason it was cancelled was to give Dortmund the new base in Germany the slot for BCN, so EMA gave it up for them, but EJ know this is a profitable route for us, so they are bringing it back.

Nice to know that the Teesside flights are doing well, hopefully next summer (Summer 2005) we will have 2 based aircraft, so they can beef up the routes, something like this:

PRG daily
CDG daily
AGP daily
ALC 5x weekly
JER 2x weekly
NCE 1x weekly
PMI 3x weekly

If there is a cdg it has to be twice daily at the right time just like the belfast should. Would bmi be happy letting baby do a cdg at Teesside when they do it from Leeds?

baby have reduced their CWL-CDG service from two daily rotations to one. This means that south Wales business people and others can no longer nip over to Paris for the day (or vice versa) from their local airport.