Could these routes be profitable?
 

Evening i was thinking what routes might be profitable out of Manchester(MAN), using relativly small aircraft at first:

Manchester-Birmingham

Manchester-Cardiff

Manchester-Newcastle

Manchester-Luton(already served BA?)

maybe all economy pax?


So what do you guys think,

your thought please, ps any other routes which are currently not serverd at MAN which could be exploted please state,

Cheers,

BMI701EGCC

I think if an airline was to introduce Manchester-Newcastle, it would be Eastern Airways, can't see any other airline doing it.

I've heard Gill Airways were considering introducing the route just before they went down.

thats true, it was planned for 4 x daily

MAN-NCL was operated for a time by Air Kilroe (Eastern Airways).
MAN-BHX - not a hope! Much quicker to drive there with the new toll road.
MAN-LTN - nobody does it as far as I know. BA do MAN-LHR & MAN-LGW, Jet2 do MAN-LGW and Eastern do MAN-STN. EZY did LPL-LTN for a while but they pulled it a few years ago. I would guess that if they couldn't make it pay then anybody else would struggle. MAN-LCY could be worth a look, depending on the timings it could prove a viable route.
MAN-CWL - Air Wales do CWL-LPL. Didn't Southwest do PLY-CWL-MAN for a while?
MAN is already pretty well served for GLA, LON, DUB, etc. Most other UK destinations are either too close to merit an airlink or too small to justify a point to point service, even with a small aircraft. If Virgin and Railtrack can sort out the West Coast Mainline then flying from MAN to LON may prove to be even less viable for travellers to the city.

Already a MAN - London City route on VLM

MAN to Luton not tried recently but cant see it being very popular as dont think Stansted is.

MAN - Cardiff was tried by Air Wales a few years ago but not well marketed - could workl

MAN- Newcastle again could easily work (BMI, Eastern, FlyBe or Easyjet?)

MAN - Birmingham - no chance!

Other routes I could see working from Manchester

Twice daily Exeter (Flybe?)
Bournemouth (Eastern?) - but maybe too close to Southampton
Swansea (Air Wales) - 4hr drive
Newquay (direct- maybe bmibaby next summer)
Prestwick (Ryanair/Jet2)
Southend? Brighton??

As has been said Air Wales did a morning and evening rotation from CWL to MAN. It was in 2001.

A British Airways franchise (I think it was Euromanx) also did a twice a weekday MAN rotation from CWL, using J 41s I believe, but it came off at the end of summer 1997. I think it may have only been running a couple of years or so prior to that and succeeded another operator who tried the route earlier in the 90s. That may have been Business Air or Kilroe but I can't be sure.

Air Southwest have never operated PLH-CWL-MAN. Since their inception they have routed their north-bound flights from Devon and Cornwall via BRS and currently operate a 3 rotations a day BRS-MAN service with DH-8-300s (with two of these daily rotations extended from/to PLH). The route seems to be doing very well in terms of pax numbers.

Reading your posts i would think that the following routes would be feesable with a regional prop, jet even:

MAN-CWL
MAN-NCL


i wondered if the following routes would also be desirable:

Manchester - Norwich/Exeter
Manchester - Oxford/Cmebridge
Manchester - London city(compete with VLM £80 "lowest" fair)


your comments would be much appriciated


cheers,
BMI701EGCC

I agree with all that has been said above....Didn't Suckling do a MAN-NWI a few years ago? Of course I might just be imagining it ....but the early 80's seems to ring a bell with me...

MAN-PIK wont work, too close to GLA that is already served from MAN with BA and BMI.

If I remember right (no gurantee there!) MAN-NCL was one of Gill Air's first scheduled routes back in 1987.

Around the same time Air Kilroe did a Teesside 'schedule' although it was actually a very regular ICI charter.

Business Air used to do OK on the DND-MAN sector of the ABZ-DND-MAN flights with the Bandit and Saab.

Eastern do MAN-NWI

Assuming Machester-Luton would primarily be a business route. It would not work, simply that the time taken to get to Manchester airport, check in, fly to Luton, get a taxi to Parkway, get a train to London, would take too long compared to Mr Virgin Branson and his west coast train line?

BMI make it work from Heathrow, so what do I know, but I do know that Luton-Liverpool by easyJet was doing well with passengers numbers, but yeilds and profit were higher using the aircraft to go to Spain, so easyJet pulled it!

http://static.zsl.org/images/width15...04-web-305.jpg

Think Ryanair PIK route would work even though BMI/BA fly in to GLA. Works from Stansted even though Easyjet and Flyglobespan do GLA, and competion from other London airports. Think it would actually do quite well as would be only loco route to West Scotland and would do a lot better than Jet2's EDI.

Very unlikely Ryanair would do it though as they generally dont like MAN's charges - although DUB does pretty well from MAN.

I'm sure flybe will look at MAN - EXT soon. The LBA & LPL - EXT services commence on the 16th June. LBA - EXT seems to be doing very well. Flight seems to be sold out from LBA on 16th & 17th June already.