Hadn't realised Kerry was 3 per week. That means that Kerry's loading on Alicante was just 55% in August! (July was a little better at 64%).

If someone isn't doing their homework they might pull that route for next year which would be a shame for Kerry since they carried similar numbers to LDY but on three flights instead of two. The lesson is surely that Kerry can only support two flights per week not that the route is unworkable. Also the flights arrived in pretty late, particularly on a Monday when it arrives after midnight, not a great time for renting a car or trying to get to Benidorm or Torrevieja.

It reminds me a bit of the messing that has gone on on some of Derry's routes with the consequence that loads fall and then the previously successful route gets pulled because someone draws the wrong conclusion by simply looking at the bottom line and not trying to work out what the problem was.

I was jealous of Kerry at the time getting a third flight but I sure am glad now that LDY didn't because I would rather being sitting on a load factor of 88% (for August) with the prospect of it running again next year rather than having enjoyed an extra flight this summer with the prospect of no flight next summer.

Knock's Alicante loading for August looks like 91%.

I used to think Ryanair had the Midas touch but I'm now convinced their crystal ball is no better than my own. In fact worse: LDY-AGP is rather obvious according to my crystal ball.

You also have to remember Amelia that Kerry has a daily Hahn flight and a three a week Weeze flight.

Considering that the ROI's economy is much further down the toilet than NI's, and further more it's actually now cheaper to holiday in the North, one wonders if RYR might look at the much mooted European city routes out of LDY (City of Culture after all).

Either Kerry are giving RYR an amazing deal or MOL has shares in the place!! all joking aside, with ORK and SNN basically on its doorstep, Kerry is doing well to compete at all. One would think LDY was in a more competitive position, but like your crystal ball, I'm probably wrong too!

As an aside, it made me chuckle to see the Amelia Earhart lounge is now open in CODA! You getting royalties for that?!

Spanish August figures
 

Hi AE,

Sorry, I don't think the load factor figures above (for Kerry) are correct. You can also find the numbers of movements on the AENA site.

For August:
ALC-NOC 4,490 pax, 26 flights = 91% flown LF
ALC-KIR 2,719 pax, 16 flights = 90% flown LF
ALC-LDY 2,985 pax, 18 flights = 88% flown LF

For July:
ALC-NOC 4,553 pax, 28 flights = 86% flown LF
ALC-KIR 3,146 pax, 18 flights = 92% flown LF
ALC-LDY 2,869 pax, 18 flights = 84% flown LF

For the period March - August 2010:
ALC-NOC 17,492 pax, 114 flights = 81% flown LF
ALC-LDY 11,745 pax, 82 flights = 76% flown LF
ALC-KIR 15,476 pax, 102 flights = 80% flown LF

Hope this helps :-)

Anna_list,

Have RYR increased frequency on Alicante-Kerry for September and October? I ask because currently they have three flights a week bookable on their website.

This would mean 26 flights in August (same as NOC), assuming they haven't suddenly increased capacity now (which would be odd!)

Cheers for the great data as usual.

Kerry - Alicante frequency
 

(Apologies for the off-topic comment)

Hi cuthere,

Very true - ALC-KIR is 3x weekly in September, but then it goes back to 2x weekly in October. It seems odd because the AENA stats confirm that there were definitely only 16 flights on the route in August. Stranger still, there were 22 flights back in June, so it looks as though ALC-KIR is twice weekly most of the time, but 3x weekly in June and September. Bizarre...

Incidentally, for what it's worth, I agree about the potential for both Reus and Malaga from LDY (twice weekly summer services would seem sensible to start with).

The KIR - ALC route has been increased because the ORK - ALC route finished on 31 August which had 3 (weekly flights). So they put extra flights from KIR.

Thanks for that clarification Jamie2K9.

Anna_list, thanks for the figures.

LDY - ALC started on March 29th, so between that date and the end of August is 22.5 weeks which multuiplied by four (two return flights per week) equals 88 so if 82 flights were flown then the other six must be the volcano.

76% loading isn't great particularly if the average FR loading is 84%, but yields on continental routes are supposedly better than on domestic routes so is the route under threat or not? July and August's loads were OK, so is a shorter season next year a possibility or does the increased overhead of the empty flights at the beginning and end of the season divided over a shorter season outweight the lower loads on a longer season. Or more importantly, at what load factor is the flight still profitable or at least not losing money?

(The statistics from the aena.es website are more user friendly than from the caa.co.uk website, presupposing you can read Spanish)

Kerry - Alicante - (3 weekly June - September - otherwise its 2 weekly)
Knock - Alicante - (3 weekly June - October - otherwise its 2 weekly)
Derry - Alicante - (2 weekly)

Kerry - Faro - (3 weekly July - September - otherwise its 2 weekly)
Knock - Faro - (4 weekly July - August - otherwise its 3 weekly) (2 weekly during March - April)
Derry - Faro - (3 weekly July - August - otherwise its 2 weekly)

Kerry - FAO is good considering that RYR have 3 from Cork, Aer Lingus have 4 and 2 weekly chartered flights.

Kerry - AlC is good considering that RYR have 3 weekly from Cork also and Aer Lingus have 3 weekly.

Knock - FAO has one weekly chartered flight also.

I would of expected that both Faro and Alicante to do better from Derry.

August provisional stats:

Stansted: 10565. 170/flight.

Dublin: 1159. ~9/flight.

Birmingham: 5519. 153/flight.

Liverpool: 6428. 153/flight.

Prestwick: 4670. 130/flight.

Faro: 4586. 164/flight.

Alicante: 2960. 164/flight.

Reus: 1401. 175/flight.

Mallorca: 1766. 177/flight.

LDY-DUB flight time change
 

Just about to book flights for next week when I realised that the 8.10 now doesn't leave to 9.45 from Monday!!!!

How to kill a route

For whatever reason, these strange DUB times are only for the short term. Normal 08.10 service resumes everyday for the winter schedule.:ok:

Phantom passengers
 

I see the caa.co.uk figures differ slightly from the aena.es figures.

CAA quote ALC-LDY as having 2960 pax for August while Aena claims 2985, a difference of 25 pax or about 1%.

Infants?

Answers on a postcard . . . . .

The Stansted flight is timetabled at a different time every single day, that's seven different flight times per week.

Birmingham just as bad with four different times for a four x weekly route.

Glasgow and Liverpool have different times at the weekend but at least weekdays are the same.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

Is this sort of thing expected to increase loads?

Folks, I've got a question for you knowledgable people?

Is there any reason why theres no Derry - Cork flights? It seems like a logical move for the airport. What with the 2nd biggest city in the Republic it basically being the length of Ireland. The bus services connecting the 2 cities are basically non existent because of the ridiculous route they take.

Is there something with the business of it thats stopped this from happening?

With LDY-DUB currently averaging 9 pax/flight (on an ATR42/72), I doubt any airline would see the business opportunity or latent demand for a LDY-ORK route, despite the obvious geographical issues.

Manx2 would be an obvious choice

The best way to get from Derry to Cork is take the Aer Arann flight to Dublin and catch a Ryanair flight onwards to Cork.

Because the Derry economy is in the doghouse, denied a fair share of everything (roads, rail, civil service jobs, inward investment, university places, medical services) which instead are centralised in Belfast way beyond its fair share based on population.

Anyway, Aer Arann advertise LDY-ORK as an indirect route via DUB.

That Aer Arann service has been scrapped. I can only assume this is because it worked out too lengthy with a connection to justify people paying for it.

I've just always thought that some kind of service direct between LDY and ORK that say only ran around the weekend could have been easily marketed in both cities.

The fact that these days the quickest and easiest way of getting from Derry to Cork is still just driving yourself is a bit mad. Pity.

It was scrapped because the Dublin-Cork route was scrapped.