It would be good to have a year round service, but it appears from purely my own experiences that the CO / AA / US services are aimed at the outbound Scottish tourist market, meaning that winter services would be impossible to maintain (with the exception of CO, of course, who have the market to themselves in winter). EK has a much bigger market, such as VFR traffic to Pakistan / India, the Far East and to a lesser extent Australia. DXB is a good connecting point as many people like the Duty Free option there.

I also know of people who use EK to South Africa from Scotland, so they do have worldwide market. Not sure about inbound traffic though, which is presumably what the Scottish Executive has in mind with its subsidies.

kpik03, think PIK needs some better First / Business Class facilities to attract more regular non low cost services, but other than that, it would be fantastic to build up more routes a la BWIA there.

Whilst EK certainly seem to have found a market, I'm not sure I agree that the size of that market exceeds that for travel to/from the US. Undoubtedly outbound pax play a big part, but I think in summer a very significant proportion of pax on flights between the US and Scotland are inbound. Obviously there are less in winter, but I suspect more direct flights would themselves serve to attract more inbound business.

Even with the launch of the EDI-EWR flight, the CAA stats appear to show that GLA-EWR is still experiencing loads of 85-95% for the winter so far. I accept of course that this does not automatically equate to profitability, but it nevertheless looks promising, and I feel there is room for another US airline to operate at least 5x weekly from GLA to it's US hub. Prior to 9/11 AC used to operate 5x weekly GLA-YYZ in addition to CO's daily EWR service, so two winter transatlantic services have operated before and I personally believe they could operate again. BAA have apparently been trying to get AA or US to go year-round, undoubtedly with the help of some sweeteners from the Scottish Exec!:)

GLA still has 1 weekly flight to YYZ and Vancouver in the winter. I think AA to ORD year round will happen with in the next 2 years.

Does anyone else remember when PPRuNE stood for Professional Pilots Rumour Network and not P!ss Poor Rumour Network? Some of the posts on here are shocking!

AA would love to operate the KORD service all year round, but the profits on a winter service would nowhere near match what they can get by utilising the a/c on a KORD to Caribbean service for the winter months, that's a far more lucrative market for them.

The KBOS service is still rumoured to be in negotiation with the BAA to start this year, although I would not expect anything now until next year.

The biggest problem we will have this year once again is space to park the aircraft, even when the Q stands open, it's going to be chaos as they are only for parking a/c, so there will be no boarrding or disembarking of pax, meaning a/c will need to be towed.

I reckon that come 6am during the summer period, the airport will be full with 2 maybe 3 a/c holding in the air and maybe another couple on the ground waiting for stands.

Just been looking on the bwee website to check details of the new POS-BGI-PIK & POS-BGI-BFS routes. Impressed to see that they have scheduled a turnaround of just 45 mins at BFS and a mere 35 mins at PIK!

I noticed that the flights will route via MAN on the inbound leg, where I am guessing the aircraft will be cleaned, catered whilst the PIK and BFS pax are still on board!

There is a way that Virgin can operate into GLA without either rebasing an aircraft, or doing an empty sector to position the aircraft- it's called a W-pattern. For example, the aircraft could fly LHR-JFK-GLA-JFK-LHR. Crews, on the other hand, can be posotioned relatively cheaply- indeed, there are a good number of Virgin crews living in the Glasgow area and currently positioning to LHR.
However, I think this is unlikely- the transatlantic market out of GLA unfortunately seems too small to support a 747 load; in this case the US operators, having opted for smaller aircraft, have an advantage. I also wonder about the load a 747 could carry out of GLA- it is not exactly short-field ops, but it is shorter than MAN or LHR...

Carlton,

We have several fully laden 742's in and out of EGPF during the summer months doing the KSFB. No problems getting off of 23, only issue would the terrain when departing 05. However 05 operations aren't exactly a regular occurrence and I've no dout a 744 could manage it without too many problems.

It would be great to see Virgin operate out of GLA, and if as you say there are crews living in and around the area, it might make sense to try it with a couple of flights a week

A BA 744 diverted with a full load on route from LHR to LAX, so the 744 has NO problems going to GLA.

Thanks Benedictus and EK-etc, it would be nice to see more 747s at GLA, when I have seen them there I have had no idea where they are going, so I have even less idea about how close to MTOW they are...
I too would be thrilled to see Virgin operate some Glasgow services.

For the record, a fully loaded i.e MTOW 744 cannot take-off from GLA. A flight to LAX from LHR ( minus the distance and fuel burned already travelling for an hour up to GLA in the diverted case mentioned) is still not at MTOW and therefore could struggle with any distances further than east coast / central US and would require ideal weather conditions on take off. I would imagine these factors would make regular operations less than reliable.
Field length for MTOW Boeing 744 > 3000m
Glasgow runway length Main Runway 05/23 is 2658m

So how do 747s take off for SFB 2days a week ever summer then?

Here are pics of 742s and 744s at GLA and shots of 747s next to more 747s at GLA.

http://www.airliners.net/search/phot...ne_version=6.0

Simple -they are not at MTOW
Just because they have the maximum passengers on board is nowhere near MTOW. Bearing in mind these flights carry little if any cargo and minimum allowed fuel.
And even then they look as if they use every available inch of runway. They would never make it with a full cargo load as well.

So what about Air Canada who used to use a 747 on the daily flights to Toronto? AC now the 762 on the GLA-YYZ route with a total of 3 flights a day between GLA and YYZ (diffrent airlines)

Theres no mystery to it.
The relatively short hop to Toronto from GLA ( sometimes done in 6 hours) would take off at nowhere near MTOW. The fuel which comprises as significant proportion of the weight at takeoff would be relatively small on this particular route.
Again this particular route carried relatively little cargo ( aimed mainly at leisure travellers in the summer)
Very rarely did the AC 742 from GLA cross the Atlantic full either.
747's can easily operate from GLA but their performance is strictly limited hence the reason 747's at GLA are much less common than other types.
Im sure even an A380 in theory could operate from GLA if it was empty ! I can see Virgin jumping at the profits they would get from that.

A full 747 is one that has a full passenger load, a full cargo load AND a full fuel load. 747s going to Florida or Canada will not have all 3 of these

Thanks for that GW and Graham.

you an aircraft loadmaster now Graham? :hmm:

EK-LHR

AC don't have any more 747s. The 340s are largely being directed to South America, Australia and Asia. The 767s make sense for GLA given AC's current concentration on expanding the 767 and 340 fleets given distance involved etc.

Caledonian, naw, but unless it's one of those 747SR a/c then I would doubt they would have a full fuel load from Scotland to Florida