Any new routes for Cork anytime soon?
 

Any more news on new routes etc??
We have had FR to LPL, EZY to LGW and JET2 to BRS.

Heard here before that Malev were looking at doing a daily to BUD aka Ceczh airlines to PRG???

Is there gonna be charter airlines to USA for the summer.....

No other details to hand but negotiations are still continuing for some more new routes.

Hopefully, we should get to know more soon.

For a start a good save would be to hang on to the Thomsonfly service from Coventry even if the result would be a less than daily flight as it is now.

Aer Arann talking of upping it's services by 25 per cent. Does this suggest a new aircraft or is it a case of comin' out fightin'!?

Don't think Thomsonfly will be keeping the service CVT-CORK for the summer as Shannon is staying, and the airports are too close together.

IanJ.

Are Jet2 about to start BRS? Or is that a typo for BFS?
Really think we need more that Aer Arann's occasional flight on this route. Especially as Air Wales can maintain a daily service to PLH which has a tiny catchment area in comparison to BRS. Don't think easy will do ith though as Ryanair would be sure to react.

Sorry Devonair, it was a typo on my behalf, should be BFS :)

There isn't exactly the "occsional Aer Arann flight on this route"
They operate weekdays only x2 daily to BHD. One in the morning and another in the evening. Handy for business people etc.

Hardly an occasional flight :)

I couldn't honestly see how this route coud cope with anymore increase in frequency. Definately if RE had a weekend flight it would capture more of the leisure market

I was actually referring to the occasional ORK - BRS service. I am aware the ORK - BHD service is twice daily weekdays. It would be nice to have more options from BRS (or EXT) to Ireland other than DUB and BFS/BHD.

Possibly Bristol - Shannon.

Devonair

Welcome. Good to have another poster from the southwest.

There has been quite a lot of discussion regarding the BRS-ORK route in this forum during the past few months.

Aer Arann initially operated a BRS-ORK rotation each day except Saturdays then, at the beginning of summer 2004, reduced it to Tu, Th and Sun only. CAA stats showed loadings to be very good (and they remain so on the reduced weekly schedule) but of course we don't know the yields. However, fares were/are never 'low cost' so we must assume they made a good contribution to route costs.

I contacted Bristol Airport when the reduced schedules were announced and was informed that the airport would be looking to obtain another carrier if the original schedule was not reinstated. It hasn't been for the winter and, thus far, there has been no news of any replacement/rival carrier.

Some of us amateurs wonder whether Air Southwest might be interested, but they might have to start the route from BRS given that Air Wales already operates to ORK from PLH, as you have said.

The last thread that discussed BRS-ORK is at this link. There are other threads and a BRS-ORK-Aer Arann search on this forum's search box should find them if you are interested.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...+ork+aer+arann

I hope Aer Arann will reinstate the daily service for the summer. I never really new why they cut it back. I used to live and work in Ireland and have spoken to them about their UK services at great length. It seems they saw greater potential on Breton and French routes from Waterford and Galway. They are a Galway Airline (their MD is from there) so may be they feel there services are always under threat in Cork from budget airlines. At least with GWY (despite being only 90 KM from SNN) they know because of the runway length they have a loyal captive audience. I know that their GWY-WAT-LRT has done tremendously well for them with loads of over 90%. It will be interesting to see what happens. Maybe WOW would consider BRS-EXT-ORK?

Yes, looks like a a deal has been struck to keep TOM on CVT-SNN. Would love to know the story there! Cannot see Cork pax driving to SNN for the short flight to the CVT as the drive up would be longer than the flight!

TOM would clearly being doing a lot better on their CVT-ORK if the timings had been better thought out. Guess they all ready know everything about the aviation business! Ah, well, I am sure FR and BEE will be very interested in how TOM do on CVT-SNN!

Hi Lads, how did/know that TOM have "struck a deal" to keep the SNN to CVT route and Cork is going to be dropped??

Any time lines on this??

Are SNN paying TOM €1.50 for every passenger they land aka their deal with FR? :)

eoinok

agree with your comments re BHD - if RE were to add a Sat or Sun rotation or preferably both, this would see off any challenge from Jet2 - can't help feeling the Jet2 won't last from BFS - wrong timings and wrong aircraft type for what is a fairly thin route!

Really can't see them making a satisfactory yield unless they push up the fares which will make them uncompetitive against RE.

ALLMCC - so lets get this straight, you want to remove healthy competition thus removing competitive pricing thus the fare paying public pay more for air travel.........you, I presume would prefer to see a monopoly on such routes?


"Really can't see them making a satisfactory yield unless they push up the fares which will make them uncompetitive against RE." - but do RE utilise their a/c like Jet2, it seems that Jet2 / Channex have the edge on most operators with regard to a/c generating turnover / utilisation.



edited

Going back to the original topic of new airlines/routes from Cork, I have spotted on the London City Airport website (www.londoncityairport.com) a "Need to fly to/from Cork?" this could suggest that an airline is looking into launching a service to/from LCY to ORK.

I wonder if it will be another brave Jetmagic. They failed to gain enough pax on their rotations, perhaps if only a single rotation once a day may work.

circseam

You misunderstand me - I am all for healthy competition on routes which warrant it. I'm simply saying that IMHO Belfast - ORK isn't one of them.

What would happen if RE backed off the route - a monopoly situation would then exist whereby Jet2 will be able to charge whatever they want.

I accept what you say about aircraft utilisation, but surely there must be more lucrative routes which would better occupy an idle 737.

David:

Why on earth would a single rotation to LCY work?

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, the prime users of LCY are business passengers (this is reflected in the destinations served from LCY, the aircraft types, and the landing fees).

Consider a business passenger from Cork going to London (or vice versa) for a meeting:
Option (a): I can fly over in the morning and back home in the evening, or if my meeting is starting/finishing at another time there's enough frequency of flights to let me work around that.
Option (b): I have to plan my meeting time around the flight schedule, and I have to stay overnight because there's only one daily service.
Even if your meeting is in the City or Canary Wharf, I submit you're more likely to go for option (a).

Sure, not all business passengers are on same-day trips, but an airline needs *at least* a well-timed morning and evening rotation to be competitive for the short-haul business market.

Whether there is sufficient business traffic to enable a reasonable ORK-LCY service given the competition to the other London airports remains to be seen (presumably what LCY are about with their survey) but a once-daily would be doomed to failure from the start.

Indeed, good point, i was just seeing the point that having two/three rotations like Jetmagic did, wouldnt work. So i now doubt that even one rotation would, if what you say applies.

They wouldnt be able to compete with Ryanair mainly, who fly to STN. And i bet more than one rotation a day.

Along with this, i read in Airliner World (January 2005), Ryanair will be commencing new route from Liverpool to Cork from March '05.

ALLMCC - "this would see off any challenge from Jet2 - can't help feeling the Jet2 won't last from BFS"

Sentence seems to imply that you would like to see RE increase frequencies to force JET2 to drop the route, that then implies that their would be ONE carrier thus my point of one carrier / higher prices - I think your post is misleading rather than my understanding of it.

"I accept what you say about aircraft utilisation, but surely there must be more lucrative routes which would better occupy an idle 737." - I'm afraid I do not have the inside information to answer your question but I presume Jet2 do carry out market research as to wether they can operate the route at a profit or perhaps this route fits in with when a/c are not being utilised. What route would you like to see 737 operate to ? What would be your business case for said route? And I presume you would prefer the route be flown from BHD rather than BFS??? (or is that a leading question too far, lol)

What about RE doing LCY???

TTT has previously mentioned that there is "talks of RE upping services by 25%" etc etc.

How about an extra aircraft doing a LCY twice daily rotation, one in the morning and one in the evening? I could see any need for more that this for the afore mentioned business meeting etc?
From what I can remember, this was one of the more sucessfull routes for JetMagic?

Always couldn't figure out why RE had this thing for Luton airport?
After the collapse of EuroCeltic this was a big who ha made about we need this route back for the business community in the Waterford region etc.
Why not fly into LCY altogether when you have the A/C that can fly in there??

Landing charges have been mentioned but they cant be that higher than LTN???

JetMagic were very dissappointed with the take up on the ORK - LCY route (which initailly surprised me). They also said that a lot of heavy weight corporates in the Cork area only booked EI into LHR even though LCY was available. Having spoken to Aer Arann in the past I do not feel they are interested in the route either unfortunately (this obviously may change). I think you might see RE look at routes to Brittany and France out of ORK. I know the JM service to Nantes was one of their best performers along with BHD. I think the UK service Cork needs at the moment is NCL. As we know from Dublin when Ryanair began a NCL service, Durham Tees Valley felt the impact. I can only see the new bmibaby service lasting until someone starts NCL.

LCY landing charges
 

Eoinok:

I looked at this a couple of months ago for a different project. LTN and LCY have (very roughly) comparable off-peak charges, but at peak times... well, let's say that the approach isn't the only aspect of LCY that's steep. ;) See LCY charges (PDF file) for details. Off-peak landing fee: GBP145. Peak: GBP685 :eek: And since "Peak" relates to any aircraft on the ground at LCY between 0715-0930 or 1700-2000, it's pretty hard to avoid for a good business schedule.

Add to that a PLS of GBP14.25 per departing pax and an ATR42 with say 40 pax each way will cost you about GBP16 per (arriving or departing) pax just in LCY charges. LTN meanwhile was about GBP6 per departing pax, plus GBP2/tonne landing fee and GBP100 navigation services, so the same ATR42 (17 tonnes MTOW) would come out at about GBP4.60/pax if my maths is right. (I take the ATR42 for comparison as the ATR72 isn't approved for LCY).

Now we could make a reasonable case that an extra GBP11 of one-way yield is achievable into LCY compared to LTN... but I'm not sure about the volume. I'd guess that a fair proportion of RE's LTN pax are either leisure passengers looking for the lowest fare, or else are doing a DIY connection on to an EZY flight out of LTN, and LCY wouldn't suit either of those groups. I suspect a switch to LCY would lose more revenue than it would gain.

Add to that the peak-time slot shortage at LCY, and the need for crew training for the steep approach, and this might go some way to explaining why it's less attractive to RE.

C.

Cheers Cyrano!!

When you add up all the costs that way that you have just done, it does make sense!!.

I agree alright that most of the passengers to LTN might be leisure pasengers as you suggest and flying onwards with FR, EZY or wizz etc.

So any LCY out of Cork wont be seen for a long time.....

What we need is some TA traffic :cool:

Lets not forget that Luton has the UK’s second biggest catchment area after Heathrow. City Airport might be fine if you are going to the City but anywhere else it isn't so good.

'As we know from Dublin when Ryanair began a NCL service, Durham Tees Valley felt the impact. I can only see the new bmibaby service lasting until someone starts NCL.'

I don't believe passengers to Dublin from Durham Tees Valley have gone down at all since Ryanair started flying from Newcastle. For instance in June 2004 there was an 12% increase in passengers from DTV to Dublin over June 2003, 8% increase in July 2004, over 2003 and -1% in August, but NCL had 7% less passengers in Aug over Aug 2003 (Although I do admit that I think in Summer 2002, there was an extra flight to Dublin on a Friday and Sunday that has not operated since)

And if people wish to travel from Cork to Newcastle they can use the new bmibaby services to Durham Tees Valley and then travel onto Newcastle. ;)

eoinok said "Always couldn't figure out why RE had this thing for Luton airport?"

Obviously no idea of the huge Irish catchment in north London and Luton!

Airlines like to fly to airports that fill thier planes and give good yields. Until RYR virtually abandoned Luton for Stansted in the early 1990's, Luton was the focal point for all low cost travel between Ireland and London. Virgin employed 2xB727's in addition to RYR's muliple BAC 1-11 rotations to Dublin, Cork, Knock, Shannon and thier ATR's flying into what were then rather rural regional airports. Britannia had 2 return flight per day to Belfast.

Planes were full of Irish travellers then, just like today!

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?i...to_nr=2&size=L

http://whipsnade.co.uk/picturelibrar...r_120_wide.jpg

Some ppruner's have the amazing ability of twisting threads to have a side swipe. This time I refer to eoinok who it seems from previous posts has incredible inside information which he generously brings to this forum. However, it always appears on occassion to be at the expense of RE. In this instance how could you possibly question REs business model on their LTN operations. My understanding is that they are the best performing routes for them both in terms of volumn and yield. Comparing an LCY model to a LTN model is the proverbial chalk and cheese. I can't imagine either that the route is low-cost. I would suspect it is appealing to the pax who prefers direct access and is prepared to pay for it. Currently both routes are also protected because of infrasturce deficits at both WAT and GWY. I also understand that both routes are capacity constrained requiring additional frequency. Why knock it? Well done RE.......lets now get back to the thread you started....ok eoin!

Got to admire RE for having a go at using ATR kit to compete UK-IRL but hey how does it stack up GWY-LTN with ATR when Ryanair come barging in with their 737-800 on SNN-LTN at EURO 1 each way. Tough as hell out there for RE.

Waterford - Luton is a winner with the help of all that EURO 22 million in subsidies on the Irish PSO routes. But stand alone IRL-UK services with ATR's and it must be tough as hell. Got to admire RE for having a go though. Must be one of the last small true regional prop operators now in Europe.

Must be frightening for them looking down the barrel of a 737 fuselage at Ryanair, BMIBaby and JET2 coming to get them!

Neidin.

Would agree with some of your points niedin. However, my main point on both WAT and GWY is that the product is direct access. No need to drive to and from CRK for WAT pax which is about an hour and no need to drive to SNN or EIKN for GWY pax, which in both instances is a two hour drive. Low cost competition has always been a factor for RE on LTN ops, just because a loco war is about to start in my view will only marginally impact on both. And as it has been capacity constrained this will equal out. My point again.....there is a sufficient volumn of pax who wish to purchase direct access and are preapred to pay over and above to sustain and grow these two routes. Finally, how long will the locos continue to over supply seats....not too long I feel!

runwayedge, I think we may have clashed before on an RE issue before when I suggested in Cork they should be moved off to the side to make room for TA traffic and more rotation etc? :confused:

My comment on that I could not get why RE did LTN instead of LCY was posed as a question, this is a discussion forum after all, and not as a swipe at RE.
It has since been answered by Cyrano by way of an excellent break down of landing fee's and crew retraining feee's etc and by nedin who plumped in with the PSO subsidies. I didn't realise this route, WAT - LTN, fell in under this scheme?? I remember seeing before a break down that was published in the national papers here of the subsidies that RE get. One year it worked out at something like €463 (or was in punts?, cant remember) per passenger they carried on the DUB - GWY or was in Donegal (CFN) route. Similar sort of figure but a bit less on all the other routes.

Back to the point of the thread anyway..............

Sorry for confusing issues. The Waterford -Luton run does not get direct PSO money but does get marketing moeny from Irish Govt. The route does benefit on the overall cross subsidy of the PSO money across all ops.