from small acorns ......
 

The first new passenger service since the takeover .... from the Air Moldova website




28 March 2013


Starting with April 29th Air Moldova airline will operate scheduled flights Chisinau-London-Chisinau to the airport London Stansted. Flights to London will be operated on comfortable aircraft Embraer-190, twice a week, every Monday and Friday, according to the following schedule:


Departure from Chisinau (local time)Arrival to London (local time)Departure from London (local time)Arrival to Chisinau (local time)17:5018:5019:3000:30+1
Therefore, the flight schedule is suitable for business trips (Monday-Friday) and for the weekend trips (Friday-Monday).
One way tickets start from 159 EUR with all taxes included.
Air Moldova operates direct flights to 20 cities across Europe, offering two classes of service - Business and Economy.

Waiting for the "should of gone to Luton"' from LGS & the Lutonites:E

nt639 - just beat me to it, well said!

Guys get real,
Should have gone to SEN

The Luton gang still have a route to Bacau in Romania which, if it weren't for the lousy roads, would be only about 2 hrs drive from Chisinau.

Are higher airport charges the reason why the airline is switching away from Gatwick, or is there some other cause ?

The new owners of Stansted have probably offered them a better deal perhaps? It's the first time in many years that an airline has moved from Gatwick to Stansted, there's been a lot of cases being the other way round recently. Hopefully this is the start of many.

Wouldn't be too surprised even to see Blue Air back in Stansted in a few years time. I would have thought it's purely lower costs keeping them in Luton. I can't see them being keen on Wizzair in direct competition on the LTN-OTP route twice daily. If Blue Air can settle a better deal with MAG, I'd say it's more than likely to happen. We will have to wait and see.

For years Tarom used to serve MAN-OTP, it has been gone a while admittedly but you can't help feeling the market it served is probably still there? Since (if I remember correctly) there's no other Bucharest service from anywhere outside London then surely Blue Air should be a strong contender for an MAG "group" deal to coax them into serving both STN and MAN. There are probably a few others on the fringes of Europe a la Air Moldova who have monopoly routes into London who might be pursuaded similarly (perhaps Belavia?)

My hunch is that the Air Moldova move from LGW is slot related. Their current service at LGW is a late evening affair and the STN times are far more sociable!

Air Moldova used to fly to Stansted when they first went to London then they transferred to Gatwick, I assume that they are coming back because of the fees at Gatwick. Adria also left Gatwick for Luton before quitting the UK altogether. the Tarom service goes back to the day when the government dictated which airport an airline would serve in London and Eastern Europe was allocated Stansted. Tarom stayed after everyone else went back to Heathrow if I recall correctly.

If its all about fees them maybe Flybe can be persuaded to move as they have taken GAL to court and lost on the Gatwick pricing policy.

As the route continues onto DUB from end of the month I don't see a major changes. Expect that there is some sort of discount operating from DUB late at night. Blue Air, Air Baltic and S7 all have late flights from DUB so there has to be some sort of positive reasons for the poor timing for passengers.

Moldova as a country has one of the lowest per capita GDPs in all Europe - usually indicates passengers originating in Chisinau will be price sensitive. While I went to Moldova as a tourist and enjoyed it, I do not expect there will be much inbound tourism.
An E190 has rather fewer seats compared to an A319 or B737 - making Gatwick's airport fees much more painful per passenger compared to Easyjet or Ryanair.

FRatSTN - don't hold your hopes up too much about airlines willingly switching from Gatwick to Stansted - I suspect this is simply a case of an airline being squeezed out of Gatwick by economic factors and needing to find a new airport in London

I don't agree. Remember there is a new owner and they are going to be making some changes, attracting more airlines is one of them! BAA never made a real effort at Stansted since the economic downturn, MAG will and are doing more so and I think a lot of the carriers that were orginally at Stansted that have gone to Gatwick and Luton (with the exception of Norwgain) could be quite realistically tempted back to Stansted if they get a price and deal that is right.

It only takes a look round Gatwick to see what new ownership has done and there's no reason really why Stansted can't do the same. Yes it may have slightly longer rail times but it has better motorway access and slightly faster links by road to Central London and Stansted has the benefit of being a modern and good quality airport which doesn't suffer from major flight delays and capacity constraints like Heathrow and Gatwick. That along with an owner who can offer competitive deals to airlines will in time attract more carriers in the future.

Work already underway on the terminal - which is badly needed. Bigger airside areas with separate check in areas aimed at premium carriers.

I'd be interested to see a list of airlines that have moved "around the London airport circuit" in recent years. I bet the list isn't that long.

Airlines don't up sticks for no reason. Financially, there are consequences to moving from airport to airport. I dare say its not something done on a whim. Obviously its far easier and cheaper to increase/reduce routes.

Off the top off my head...

El Al - Stansted to Luton - A big Jewish presence in North London. Far better transport links to Luton from that part of London.
Blue Air - Stansted to Luton
Air Berlin - Stansted to Gatwick to Stansted
Aer Lingus Regional - Luton to Southend?
Air Asia X - Stansted to Gatwick to Outside London

easyJet and Ryanair rotate routes on a regular basis.

But not all the airlines/routes that were at Stansted in the past 5 years or so have moved to another London airport. Some have simply been axed all together, some have gone bust or others have closed for other reasons outside Stansted's or any other airports control.

Aegean Airlines - moved from Stansted to Heathrow

Air Arabia Maroc - Stansted, then left London, resumed but from Gatwick

Air Berlin - Still serve one route 3x daily with Dash 8 but heavily reduced in recent years, Gatwick tried out but no longer served

Atlantic Airways (Faroe Islands) - moved from Stansted to Gatwick

Cyprus Airways - Both Stansted and Heathrow, axed Stansted, then resumed, now gone again

EasyJet - Still serve Stansted but lost aircraft post Southend base opening

Norwegian - Gradually pulled out of Stansted for Gatwick, now has base in Gatwick

Sun Country Airlines - moved from Stansted to Gatwick, now left UK

Turkish Airlines - moved from Stansted to Gatwick (also Anadolujet axed)

Transavia - axed Stansted, restarted but from Luton, moved to Gatwick, left UK altogether

WOW Air (Iceland) - moved from Stansted to Gatwick, then took over Iceland Express

Admittedly some of the above is virtually permanently lost from Stansted an virtually impossible to replace but the problem is that BAA never pushed hard enough to replace these services lost. For instance, since the BmiBaby closure (completely outside Stansted's control), Belfast-City has now become unserved, yet there is certainly a strong demand for this route. I think the uncertainty of Stansted's ownership for several years has also pushed carriers away.

Only Air Berlin, Aurigny, Germanwings and Pegasus have stayed at Stansted throughout the entire duration of Stansted's decline since 2007. You then have to ask yourself why these airlines chose not to move?

There are also a countless number of airlines out there who could potentially serve Stansted in the future. Perhaps some traffic that has never been at Stansted could be attracted, for example... Air One, FlyBe, Vueling or even some long haul eg, Emirates, PIA, United Airlines could be possible. MAG have loads of routes to go down!

FRatSTN.....Whilst your unstinting optimism about MAG and STN is laudable, as I mentioned a few months ago it has to be the market that decides the future of STN. Routes that are unsustainable or that do not currently exist cannot suddenly be made to work from STN just because of a change of ownership.

There are many factors that contribute towards the success of any given route. In today's economic climate, many airlines are not in a position to take excessive risks just to see if a route is viable. Indeed, as your favorite orange airline have proved, carriers will simply move aircraft around to achieve the best given return for that asset.

It's not simply the change of ownership, although a new management will make a difference to the appeal of the airport to some airlines depending on what changes they make. The key thing though is that Stansted is now seperately owned from Heathrow and it's ownership is no longer in doubt and is stable for the forseeable future. That itself will encourage more long term commitment from more airlines. So actually, the change of ownership does make a huge difference in a variety of ways.

Aegean Airlines
Air Arabia Maroc
Atlantic Airways
Blue Air
Cyprus Airways
El Al
Norwegian
Turkish Airlines
WOW Air

These are examples of carriers that no longer serve Stansted but still serve London. None of these carriers moved airports because they couldn't get enough bums on seats at Stansted, they left because they could see better potential financially elsewhere. Others have been and gone, some of which moved around a bit before going, but that doesn't mean they won't come back. Stansted's new owners spent £1.5 billion because they clearly believe they can bring more traffic back. It's not simply the case that the market decides the future of Stansted, that could apply to any airport. It's the people within the market that decide and MAG is a big part of the market.

Contradicting yourself there a bit aren't you?

FRatSTN; you provide a very comprehensive description of the various airlines that have come and gone at STN.

You mention some airlines who have not left, such as AirBerlin, GermanWings etc. I'd suggest that the airlines who can fly routes ex STN that are not head to head with FR on routes to primary airports, these will have a sporting chance of success.

STN has potential, but to what extent is FR's scale at STN a deterrent to airlines starting up services?

I'd say it's more of an issue to the airport than to the airlines who use it, hence why MAG will push to diversify Stansted's mix of traffic, although the scale of Ryanair will certainly be a deterrent to some airlines.

The reason why it may not be so off putting to some airlines is as you say, they may not be going head to head with Ryanair. Since Ryanair often flies to smaller secondary airports and small towns and cities (some of which many would probably not even have heard of) which are soley served by Ryanair from the UK market, that will somewhat reduce the competition on the bigger European cities/airports that European carriers that could serve Stansted are likely to originate from.

There is also the same scenario with EasyJet and Gatwick although the difference is that they only account for about 35 or 40% of Gatwick's total, as opposed to Ryanair having 70% of Stansted's. Having said that, EasyJet serve the large European airport/cities of which many routes are flown by either another Gatwick based carrier eg. BA, Monarch and Thomson or a European carrier such as Vueling or Norwegian. In many cases if not the majority, there's direct competition from at least one other airline on EasyJet's Gatwick routes, unlike many of the Ryanair routes from Stansted. Take Barcelona as an example. BA, EasyJet, Monarch, Norwegian and Vueling all serve the route from Gatwick with close to 15 departures a day in the summer months, compared to 2 Ryanair departures from Stansted. I think the sheer volume of traffic on the LGW-BCN route would be more of a deterrent than going in direct competition with Ryanair on the 2x daily STN-BCN route.

Therefore I don't think it would be such a big drawback to any European or long-haul airline wanting to serve Stansted as a destination airport, especially if their home market is not served, or indirectly competes with Ryanair, which is most likely going to account for much of the future growth at Stansted anyway. It would be more of an issue for an airline like FlyBe, Jet2 or Monarch if they were to set up a base at the airport.

I'm sorry, but do you not consider EasyJet setting up in Southend as a risk? As successfull as it might be now, it still comes with it's risks.

I'm sure even if you asked the management of EasyJet personally, they would admit it comes with its risks. It wouldn't work if eveybody played it safe. Running a successfull company is about taking risks, that's why business is business.

EI-BUD, I think you hit the nail with your comment about FR being a deterrent. Norwegian moved away from STN partly to distance themselves from FR (DY isn't such a low sevice airline as FR is), but there were other reasons like different socio-economic profile (10% higher share of A/B at LGW), larger base of potential passengers with UK citizenship (22 million vs. 10 million), and we may also add the differences between the two regarding public transport in to London.

Wizzair
 

With all the talk of new owners and trying to attract new business to the airport, I was wondering on what you guys thought of the possibility of the new owners of Stansted trying to attract a major new customer like Wizzair to the airport and stealing them from Luton as the airlines London hub...

Im sure if some of the Luton Fanboys are frequenting this forum, they will be telling me to shut up and say this has been discussed by me in Luton forum, but was interested in getting a balance opinion.

Being more of an LTN fan myself, I hope they don't leave, but trying to keep the discussion balanced. It does make me wonder if MAG have an airline like Wizzair on their wish list as a potential customer they would like to attract.

With the airline having no aircraft based at Luton and only night stopping a single A320 in the summer months to cover the Spilt and Dubrovnik services, any move for the airline would be painless. While at the same time bringing around 25-30 extra flights a day to the airport and boosting passenger numbers by around 2.5 million a year.

Due to the number of flights a day and Wizzair turning the airport pink and purple between the hours of about 7.30 and 8.30 every morning with around twelve A320's on the ground, I doubt there are any other London airport other than Luton and Stansted that have the capacity to handle this at present.

Wizzair is a very price sensitive airline, and if they could be offered a financial deal, which LTN couldn't, I reckon the airline wouldn't hesitate to move if the price was right, this has been demonstrated in the past by them moving their Warsaw ops to Modlin and similarly in Bucharest and Kiev.

The only thing I can think of, that could possibly deter them is flying head to head with Ryanair on a number of routes... But Ryanair flies head to head with them out of Warsaw and Budapest on numerous routes and Wizzair seems to be holding their own and recently Ryanair announced they were cancelling a number of routes out of Budapest, while Wizz are basing another A320 their from this summer.

Be keen to know all your views...

My view is that I would like it, being more of a STN fan myself, which I'm sure many of you will already know HOWEVER being an analyser of airline and airport routes and timtables, I see it as being a fairly unlikely move.

It goes back to the situation discussed above about Ryanair being a deterrent to some traffic. Perhaps what I should have said in in my earlier post is that any airline that wants a base OR would fly high frequency into Stansted may be put off by the large Ryanair presence. Airlines flying say 2 or 3 routes with up to only a few flights a day may not be so bothered about Ryanair, especailly if where they would serve is not served by Ryanair. (That's why I think Air Berlin, Aurigny, Germanwings and Pegasus have not moved away from Stansted because Ryanair doesn't serve their home markets, only FR's Weeze route competes indirectly with AB Dusseldorf route).

Therefore I think Wizzair would be one of those put off by Ryanair since a lot of the routes they serve, especially to Poland and the Baltic states, are already frequently operated by Ryanair from Stansted. I know Wizzair do compete directly with Ryanair across many airports in Europe, but Stansted is Ryanair's home turf.

However, since the Romanian market is unserved from Stansted and Bulgaria virtually unserved, another option may be to only move routes to those coutries, splitting services between both Luton and Stansted, like they do in Rome for example. For operational reasons however, I would find that move surprising although since they don't have a base at Luton that may make it more feasible but I'm not so sure on that, you'd need to ask somebody with a little more knowlege on operations. I aslo think Wizzair would have to give up the huge influx of traffic between 7:00 and 8:30am as slot usage at Stansted is very high already at those times. Flights would probably have to be spread out more throughout the day or in the quieter afternoon periods which may not be ideal for some passengers.

At most, I think you'd get a split between both airports with Bulgarian and Romanian routes going to Stansted and the others staying at Luton but there would probably have to be a heck of a good deal they virtually cannot turn down for them to even consider that in my view.

Wizz have dipped their toe into Stansted but didn't stay long. Can't see much has changed since then.

So what are passengers reaction to the £2 drop off fee at Stansted? I hear that Luton might be about to charge the same.

Very poor with the locals but for those further afield I have no idea, more importantly would be the reaction of the airlines that the airport is targeting. The idea works at an airport where the (low cost) airlines don't care, airlines like EK will not operate to an airport where there is a £2 charge to drop off.

MAG have this charge at EMA and BOH but not at MAN, what MAG do with this charge at STN will give a big clue about the sort of airport they want to be.

But EK will fly to airports where there is a £1 for 10 mins charge (BHX), £1 for 15 mins charge (NCL) or £1.50 for 10 mins charge (GLA)

I stand corrected !

Manchester and Stansted are two totally different markets !

Just because airline X operates into Manchester does not mean there is a better than even chance that it will be persuaded to operate from a strip of concrete with tumbleweed blowing about the apron !

Whilst your optimism is laudable, trust me, the feeling is not shared by Mancunians "upt North", who think the decision to buy Stansted is
the most ill-conceived decision since...... ( deleted due abundance of swear words)


PS ...however now that we have found bonds with our East Anglian cousins can we have all your long haul freight traffic ... shifting all Fed Ex traffic to MANCHESTER will do nicely for starters !

Just to correct you GLA is free to drop off/pick up.

Just because airline X operates into Manchester does not mean there is a better than even chance that it will be persuaded to operate from a strip of concrete with tumbleweed blowing about the apron !

Exactly the point several of us have being trying to make. Unfortunately STN's No1 fan can't seem to fathom that this is not 2003 with much lower fuel costs, a reasonable economy and low APD. Instead, ten years on, things are very different!

Cue a lengthy missive about how MAG are so different and that the sun always shines in Essex now!:ugh::ugh::}

Live in Surrey

Base of potential passengers being bigger at LGW ?
Base means nothing unless there is a propensity to fly and solely use the airport?

Live in Surrey so supposedly am in LGWs catchment area as are friends and neighbours. Of those who actually fly, they are just as likely to fly from any London airport and include Bournemoth into that calc as well.

I would say LHR is the airport most use despite LGW being a lot closer then LGW just above STN with LTN and BOH coming behind but even BOH does ok.

I must admit not to knowing anybody who flies more than once a year who will soley use one airport.

racedo, well the most important airport for Surrey according to the UK CAA survey for 2011 was LGW with 2.2 million passengers with LHR in second place with 2.0 million. Third is LTN with 0.8 millon and fourth is STN with 134,000. Since BOH had only 690,000 passengers in 2012, I don't think for Surrey it will reach the STN levels. I think it's better to know than just will guessing.

LTN has a direct rail link with Surrey which must help

Unless the UK economy starts to grow reapidly, the cost of aviation fuel decreases hugely and APD is axed, passenger growth at most UK airports will continute to stagnate or decline.

Problem with surveys is that you only get the answers of the people who answer not those who don't or who cannot be bothered to stop.

APD is a cash cow and Govts need cash.

Quote: "Live in Surrey

Base of potential passengers being bigger at LGW ?
Base means nothing unless there is a propensity to fly and solely use the airport?

Live in Surrey so supposedly am in LGWs catchment area as are friends and neighbours. Of those who actually fly, they are just as likely to fly from any London airport and include Bournemoth into that calc as well.

I would say LHR is the airport most use despite LGW being a lot closer then LGW just above STN with LTN and BOH coming behind but even BOH does ok.

I must admit not to knowing anybody who flies more than once a year who will soley use one airport."

All depends on the part of Surrey. For much of Surrey LHR is the nearest and the airport of choice, particularly in the west (straight up the M3 from Camberley), or the north (490 bus from Richmond for instance).

On the other hand, from Croydon, its a short train ride to LGW. Those on the same railway line can also access LTN quite easily. From Woking, SOU is an easy train ride away.

STN is not an easy journey from any part of Surrey.

Much depends on availibility of destination which favours LHR and LGW, as well as price, timings, convenience, etc..

MAG have started their plans to re-colonise STN

Air Moldova (Moldovia's Flag Carrier Airline) have announced that they are moving their entire operation from Gatwick to Stansted on the back of better deals, more flexibility and better slots.

It's only a twice weekly service on Mondays and Fridays but, as Tesco keep telling us, Every Little Helps

Routes News - Stansted secures Air Moldova with "more attractive" offer

I thought Air Moldova moved out of Stansted a while back to Gatwick?

Indeed they did, along with a list of other airlines in recent years so this certainly is good sign. Hopefully the list of airlines moving into Stansted will continue to grow, we shall see.