I'm not saying we will see lots of long haul full service carriers. In actual fact, neither is Mr Harrison specifically! I'm just saying let's not rule anything out yet when it's too soon to make judgements about what the future holds.

I was merely stating that, regardless of flight frequency, the management of 2 non LCC's have thought "Yes, Stansted is the right choice for us" since MAG took over. Plus, having signed a deal to ALLOW major growth by EasyJet seems to be a step in the right direction so far.

It's a complex industry, and unless you work in the management for a specific airline or airport, will you know really what's likely to happen, so don't be so convinced it will never work and that Gatwick is only a waiting room essentially for Heathrow.

Gatwick is the 2nd busiest airport in the UK, and one that similarly to Stansted, serves London but is located in a fairly rural area outside of Greater London. How much of the traffic there is so eager to move to Heathrow if only it had the space? Probably very little.

All of Virgin Atlantic, BA, Vietnam Airlines, Icelandair, Air China, Caribbean, TAP and probably Air Malta. These airlines are forced to split London operations between airports at cost due to no more slots at LHR.

I think BA and Virgin would still have a smaller operation at Gatwick even if Heathrow had the space. The more leisure/holiday routes go from Gatwick, and major cities/hubs from Heathrow, ie. Heathrow is places like Singapore, New York, Delhi etc. whilst Gatwick is Orlando, Montego Bay, Male (Maldives). It's a clear split of different markets.

Also, EasyJet? Thomson, Monarch, Thomas Cook, Norwegian etc. ???

To what benefit? It's a clear market split because hub and spoke is prioritised at LHR and beach leisure is left at Gatwick. There's no business reason to keep it there if you get more space at your main base. Why duplicate staff and engineering costs when the market will move to LHR with you? What commercial benefit would there be in duplicating a split operation? None.
It's the market that says this, no one is preventing American Airlines flying STN-JFK and it's not all big bad BAA's fault they don't.

Skipness - I can think of 3 possible arguments

1 - Unless a megahub is designed as a megahub (think of any of the airports opened in Asia over the last 10 years serving 50+ million pax) it will likely have grown by evolution and thus may struggle to put a very large number of movements through one place. An airline that is the dominant carrier for a very large city may end up being forced to split its operation just to retain the market. Examples - BA at LCY or transavia(KLM's subsidiary) at Rotterdam

2 - Heathrow has higher landing fees and other direct and indirect costs of operation (eg delays). O&D leisure passengers may be more price sensitive and not always accept the higher fare arising from the increased costs.

3 - There's a lot of wealthy people living in Sussex, east Surrey and Kent who are quite happy to fly to/from Gatwick to the beach with their families and don't want the cost+time of going to Heathrow. Either BA leaves this market to Easyjet or it operates from Gatwick

Indeed.

The commercial benefit is that routes such as Montego Bay, Male etc. are point-to-point flights taking Brits on long-haul holidays. They do not require hub capacity therefore will never be served at Heathrow.

If BA had the space to increase traffic at Heathrow, they would look for new markets, such as those in South America and other major cities and hubs across the globe to offer direct flights to Heathrow and increase frequency on existing markets to maximise the amount of connecting passengers through its Heathrow hub. They would also need both tourist generating and tourist receiving services like those to major cities and hubs to do this.

They will never waste capacity at their hub by filling up slots with long haul flights to the Caribbean taking Brits on long-haul holidays in the sun for 2 weeks and routes that don't require hub capacity!

That's what Gatwick is for and why the markets are split this way. And as davidjohnson6 points out, the passengers these routes are attracting will not want or need to travel to Heathrow when they don't require the potential extra costs and time or a hub network for their travels.

What's the commercial benefit of becoming too dependent on one base by moving leisure routes into the hub when a bulk of your passengers don't even want or need a hub feed of traffic?

What is STN looking like for next year in terms of operators?

We have just booked to fly out from there next year (much prefer LGW, but STN came in at almost £100 cheaper).

I know it's overrun with FR and EZY at the moment and am kind of hoping all the expansion talk in terms of new airlines comes into fruition next year so I have something more interesting to look at before departure.

Still too far off really to say, but Thomas Cook seem to be basing an A321 all season rather than the A320 with the A321 just the school holidays.

Thomson pretty similar to this year except they will no longer have the late Monday evening Corfu service in the peak season but will fly to Gran Canaria in the afternoon all season instead.

BH Air will fly from July 21st until the end of September.

All other carriers don't have any flights on sale yet but so far this looks only very slightly better than this year.

Quote: "Andrew Harrison - welcome to "London" - although your airport is in rural Essex."

Obviously spending time with the bosses of FR, else talking to the guv'nor at BHX.




Would BA/VS close their LGW operations if it could all be accomodated at LHR? Guess it's a trade off between the expense of having a split operation and the amount of premium business generated at LGW (even for holidays).

This scenario is hypothetical because it envisages a 4-rwy LHR, with adequate slots, operating at maybe 70% capacity, without the delays for take off and landing. Under such circumstances, a business traveller- oriented U2 could become interested in LHR operations. Who can say?

new carrier?
 

Looks like 'little red' are close to a deal with stn.New freighter(6 times a week) coming to swissport.Easyjet contract up for renewal appears to be heading the same direction.Interesting times ahead.

Little Red at STN? Cannot imagine what the idea behind that is. EZY and FR combination have STN well covered. Domestics are the domain of EZY and there is no interlining opportunities for VS ex STN....

Developing that idea, if VS are planning to expand the Little Red brand this may mean a demand for an increasing number of EI airbus aircraft that are not a plenty, or VS intending to take this inhouse themselves and acquire 320s in their own rite?

EI-BUD

Have heard that Jet2 are to run an extra over night royal mail flight into STN as well using a Boeing 737-300QC...

STANSTED - 2
 

Aaa ah the return of sat 1. Where have you been, the prune has been dull without you. Cargo carrier yes, although not sure how long swissport will keep them happy for. As for little red, not so sure about that one, unless Virgin are planning a return to STN, but on a longhaul scale this time. And the future is no longer orange

Quote: "Little Red at STN? Cannot imagine what the idea behind that is. EZY and FR combination have STN well covered. Domestics are the domain of EZY and there is no interlining opportunities for VS ex STN...."

Does sound bizarre! Would expect any expansion of Little Red to be something like GLA-LHR.

Wasn't the point of Little Red to replicate the former BD domestic routes that (a) provided some competition with BA; (b) provided connecting pax to VS (longhaul); and (c) provided connecting pax to other Star Alliance carriers?

This can't be done at STN....maybe Little Red is branching into cargo only ops as well?

Anyone know Ryan Air plans for this winter, will they be parking loads up at STN again, or is their enough work for those planes around Europe now ?

Nigel

Completely untrue :ugh:

As per my post the Ryanair thread it's a little early to tell maybe. Some routes are on sale, but I'm still waiting on SZG for skiing hoping its not been dropped. Other routes to Austria are loaded now but I'm helpfully assured it will follow in due course and to hold tight. No doubt they'll be parking a few but my guess would be not as many as in recent winters.

Thought I read somewhere it would be around 60 parked up for the winter compared to 80 in previous winters.

Thanks Adfly,

Nigel

New Cargo flight.
 

Anyone got a list of the LHR diversions yesterday

There was at least a Kuwait Airways B747-400 and Jet Airways B777-300.

Not sure of the full list.

There were a few BA A319/20's as well.

it was absolute chaos with the diversions , people were wanting to get back to heathrow and were told to make there own way there , and then send the bill to the airlines later , taxis and hotels had a good day

Thanks folks. Only had 2 at BHX but one was the IB A330

Nigel

Stansted is a scaleable and flexible solution to the UK’s aviation capacity needs – able to offer additional capacity and then grow incrementally to two, three or four runways in the future.
Fewer residents are exposed to noise at Stansted than at other major airports in the South East; 258,500 at Heathrow compared to 1,250 at Stansted.
The space for additional runways, terminals, roads and rail connections is more readily available at Stansted than at alternatives.
Stansted is likely to represent the most cost-effective solution for the country. It is estimated an on-airport cost of developing a four-runway hub at Stansted would around £10bn – much less than the cost of an Estuary Airport or expansion at Heathrow.

The only problem Sat1 is nobody wants to fly long haul from Stansted - many airlines over the years have tried and either failed or given up. You can pontificate as much as you like but the fare paying public will fly from WHERE they want to go to and its Heathrow, Heathrow, Heathrow and a bit of leisure traffic from Gatwick.

STANSTED - 2
 

Sat1......have you swallowed a dictionary for breakfast :-) its true STN has tried long haul before, but it's biggest issue is connecting flights. Who wants to pay 5k for a fully flat bed from JFK.......only to have to jump onto an FR or EZY into Europe when they arrive in the UK. BA are trying he A380 into STN next week to make sure it fits. No mention of the 787 though, at least the new multi million pound fire engines would get a run out

Quote:"BA are trying he A380 into STN next week to make sure it fits. No mention of the 787 though, at least the new multi million pound fire engines would get a run out"

Only because STN may be needed in the event of diversions.

Because of its size, the B787 is not an issue.

so when is the A380 due then? I am surprised it has not been well publicised given that it will be a first visit of the type

Plans tend to change - there have been a couple of suggested dates so far but currently its coming from BHX on the 29th & leaving the following morning to SNN

STANSTED - 2
 

Lets just hope for BA sake that swissport don't use the same jet bridge driver that met the qantas Olympic team or it could end up with a hole in it bigger than the Ethiopian Dreamliner :-)

Anyone looked at swissports website today????

http://www.pprune.org/flight-ground-...swissport.html

yes !

easyJet Contract Renewal
 

As most of you are aware the easyJet contract at STN is up for renewal with Menzies. It is believed that Swissport will be bidding for the tender of this contract but they will not be lower their handling fees to in order in outbid Menzies. With the success of the Swissport/easyJet operation at BHX it is believed EZY will be looking to bring this to STN...

As I have said previously on this thread, completely untrue, you may think you know, but you don't.

Really?????

:ugh:

easyJet at BHX??

easyjet
 

SWBKCB

easy have Four movements a day in summer at BHX and double figures on a Saturday in winter, mega stuff :hmm:

Pete

completely untrue, you may think you know, but you don't.
 

what makes you 100% sure that it wont happen?? you seem very confident about this??