Summer 2009 Thomsonfly/First Choice flights decline
 

Just looked at the new Thomson/TUI (now including First Choice Airways) summer 2009 timetable at the thomsonfly.com website and there is a large number of flights axed from East Midlands compared with this summer...

This is obviously because of the TUI/Thomson and First Choice merger but also because of a likely recession next year...

The new integrated company and new airline for summer 2009 will see compared to this summer reduced flights to Alicante, Arrecife (Lanzarote), Faro, Ibiza, Mahon and Palma...

All other combined First Choice and Thomson routes in summer 2008 will have the same frequancy in summer 2009...

The weekly flight to Puerto Plata (Dominican Republic) has been scrapped for summer 2009.

Does anyone know when Thomas Cook are releasing their summer 2009 schedule?

:sad::sad::sad:

G BHEN
I've spoken to the Kernal (The Commander). He was delivering the aircraft to Lasham for C Check. One of the requirements for C Check is a undercarriage test so he took off, kept gear down, circled over the airport at 4000ft then continued to Lasham. He confirmed he did not land back at EMA and there was no emergency. A normal routine (delivery) flight.
The aircraft is due out of check tommorrow and will be positioned back to EMA.

Hope that puts your mind at rest

:\

I didn't think that Thomsonfly's timetable for 2009 looked too bad, it seemed to have more flights landing during the day compared to this year with a 'w' patterns almost every day...

Monday
Corfu, Thessaloniki, Zakynthos, Ibiza, Bodrum, Lanzarote, Palma, Dalaman

Tuesday
Alicante, Palma, Reus, Orlando Sanford, Antalya, Tenerife, Palma

Wednesday
Ibiza, Mahon, Paphos, Cancun, Sharm El Sheikh, Fuerterventura, Las Palmas

Thursday
Lanzarote, Faro, Palma, Dalaman, Heraklion, Malaga, (Puerto Plata - possibly)

Friday
Palma, Mahon, Zakynthos, Corfu, Naples, Ibiza

Saturday
Ibiza, Mahon, Palma, Alicante, Rhodes, Paphos

Sunday
Palma, Larnaca, Heraklion, Sharm El Sheikh, Malaga, Monastir


As far as ive seen at the moment for 2009, Thomas Cook have

Corfu - Monday
Heraklion - Monday
Las Palmas - Monday
Palma - Tuesday
Paphos - Tuesday
Ibiza - Wednesday
Fuerterventura - Wednesday
Faro - Thursday
Kos - Thursday
Tenerife - Friday
Larnaca - Sunday

Anyone know which days NM use the SWM on IOM-EMA-IOM and which days the D28? Thanks.

Thomas Cook
 

The 2009 brochure shows a total of 57 weekly flights, 35 by TCX (ie 2 a/c), quite a few BD (school hols only), and several others.
However, I wouldn't believe it too much because 4 or 5 of the 'others' are FCA flights, which don't even tie in with when the EMA TOM flights are. So I think this is just a copy of this year's schedule (haven't checked), and by the time the Issue 3 brochures appear near Christmas then the number of flights will be closer to First Choice/Thomson's paltry 44 (which probably gives fewer passengers than Thomson alone carried when they operated one 767 and one 757 a few years ago).
Reminds me when Thomson took over Horizon Midlands. Thomson used 2 Britannia 732s and Horizon had 2 shiny new Orion 733s. The Thomson advertising following the takeover promised 'the best ever selection of holidays from East Midlands'. In reality I think they operated about 2.5 aircraft.

Hi Guys


Well i have not spoken on here for ages, well since the UKia fiasco..... lets move on......

I do hope everyone is ok, i have a question maybe spotterish ????
I have booked a little summer break to Dalaman, leaving on 26 th June and we have booked with Thomson, not been with TOM / BY for years.

After all this merger business etc, what aircraft will i be on? A 757 ?
And which one a FCA or a TOM one ?

I am so lucky for this flight as normally DALAMAN flights are always evening time, but we have a early morning Dept and a tea time arrival on the return leg.

Any help is really grateful.

Mike

Mike16 - TOM B757 showing as doing Thursday morning departure to Dalaman.

Hi


Thanks for that young man, you are a real treasure !!!!
Well will look forward to it and see how much they have changed.


Mike

March Provisional Pax
 

Passenger traffic increased by 11.4% in March to 459,718 bringing the 12 month total to 5,564,621 up 12.3%

Manx2's IOM service provided 566 pax during the month, which I think equates to a load factor of approximately 62% - not bad for the first month of operation.

Following-on from last month's discussion regarding the effect of FR's BHD route on WW, March shows a similar reduction to February with 1287 fewer pax carried on the BFS route; this despite FR going twice daily.

FR's figures show an increase of 32% to 9,096 and again it appears that Flybe are taking a big hit with their total falling by nearly 4,000 during March, a drop of 18%.

Belfast
 

The BMI Baby loss of pax on BFS looks quite reasonable on the face of
it or compared to flybe's at BHX. However the average pax per flight
appears to be under 80, which I would have thought for March would
be challenging to say the least.

Baby at BHX added almost a 1000 for a load factor approaching mid 70's
and an average of over 100 per flight. No doubt a third of the reason
why flybe have dropped so dramatically but it does appear FR EMA has
affected BE as well.

As far as I know most of the flybe BHX-BHD flights operated during March(7 a day at times) and with increased capacity on some flights (4 x 195 in the week but now 3 in April).

Also interesting are easyjet's domestic figures for Belfast in March but that is for the easy thread.

Pete

March Prov Route Analysis
 

All the East Mids figures now available with FR & easy showing most
load factors between 75 and 90%.

BMI Baby Warsaw was 2880 and if that was three a week then it was
about 110 a flight, which sounds good. Cologne was 1022 pax.

The main concern is probably Sterling although they have improved: -

Copenhagen 2716
Oslo 2040
Stockholm 2038

acarsd shows Copenhagen with 34 flights which is 79 per flight with
about 24 x 735's, some 733's and MD80's. About 55-60% load factor.

The other two had 26 rotations per acarsd giving 78 as the average pax.

Most were on the 733/73G which gives a 53% load factor.

Pete

BHD-BHX and EMA
 

I know I keep banging on but recent changes in passenger numbers on the above two routes are for one reason only which is purely price.

I compared Flybe ex BHX and Ryanair ex EMA for return flights on Thursday 1st of May departing on the first flight returning on Friday the 2nd May on FR last flight and Flybe 6th but not last arrival into BHX.

1/5 BHX-BHD 0700 BHD-BHX 2/5 1935 Total cost £161.98
1/5 EMA-BHD 0625 BHD-EMA 2/5 1905 Total cost £10.00

Who is clearly the winner here? Who if anyone would be making profit on this route?

180x10=£1800 50x162=£8100 this is a crude indicator as both Flybe and Ryanair may increase fares nearer the date of departure of course but an illustration of the yeilds for each airline on this route. Indeed some of Flybes services on the 1st May were full.

Passenger numbers are only usefull when comparing like with like ie: Low Fares with Low Fares which would indicate that WW have a problem at EMA with its Belfast operation now there is competition from Ryanair. How long will the Ryanair 0.01p fares ex BHD last? Maybe until WW are driven off the route?
Daza

Given you have no idea how many seats on those flights each airline has sold so far, and how many they have remaining for sale, the calculated revenue (not yield) figures are rather meaningless. Likewise, the comparison between BHX and EMA (and BHD vs BFS) renders the comarison less meaningful as there will inevitably be some less-price-sensitive business travellers on the route who are prepared to pay for the convenience of BHX vs EMA or BHD vs BFS depending on where they are and where the want to go (and schedule frequency further muddies the waters).

Indeed, the relatively different pricing above COULD be interpretted to indicate FlyBE is doing "very nicely thankyou" (i.e. getting nearer full, hence the higher fare), whilst Ryanair selling seats at £10 this close to departure date COULD indicate them being rather desperate to sell seats on fairly empty aeroplanes on an underperforming route - simplistically, an airline should not be selling seats for £10 r/t only a week before departure, not even Ryanair. Furthermore, with bmibaby EMA-BFS pricing out at £102.88 return on the same two dates, this COULD be interpretted as baby currently having better booked loads than Ryanair for EMA-Belfast travel for those dates.

Taking fares or even loads on specific dates in isolation is never really indicative of the overall market as there's always a chance the chosen dates do not conform to the average in terms of loads and/or booking patterns. However, looking at those prices in isolation and making a [huge and probably incorrect] assumption that these are typical of all flights in the market, my initial interpretation would be Flybe doing best, Baby a little less so, and Ryanair doing rather badly.

A

Bhd-ema/bhx
 

FR's route selection has often been based not only on their revenue earnings potential, but also on their perceived likelyhood of having a negative impact on their competitors; I suspect BHD-EMA falls into the latter category - certainly in the short term at least.

Assuming FR are precluded by contractual agreements from operating a BHD-BHX service, and given that this is one of Flybe's most profitable routes, then perhaps FR decided the next best thing was to start the route in question. It also has the bonus of taking a bigger slice out of WW's cake at EMA.

Flybe may well continue to "do very nicely thank you", and I agree taking selective prices is by no means a scientific approach to assessing the situation, but for the sake of argument, if the fare of £161.98 previously selected did in fact reflect the average price, and if Flybe's passenger numbers were to fall by the same amount over a 12 month period as they did in March, then this would equate to a loss of potential revenue of around £3.5 million on seat sales alone, not to mention on-board sales etc. Not an insignificant sum!

As far as WW are concerned it would come as no surprise if their BFS service were to be reduced to a twice daily operation at the end of the Summer schedule, catering more for the bussiness traveler.

There are a lot of if's but's and maybe's here; as outsiders all we can do is sit back and see how things develop!

Passengers and Fares
 

EastMids and Balair,
You have enlarged upon what I was trying to say. Purely quoting passenger numbers is in NO WAY reflective of an airlines revenue on a route. I was merely trying to illustrate a point by comparing random dates. Indeed I assumed that the Ryanair aircraft was full and that the Flybe Aircraft had several empty seats and still the difference in revenue was stark.
It is interesting to comapare fluctuations in passenger numbers but it is not indicative of a routes revenue performance.
Daza

IOM Flights.
 

As Far As I Understand They Use a SWM On All Services Saw EC-GPS Operating a Flight This Week.

Baby Pull Gdansk Flights.
 

Have heard baby have pulled the Gdansk flight not sure when from. The NCE flights has been moved into the Gdansk time slot, as the evening flight to NCE was not selling very well. And i understand baby are doing an extra AGP flight on a thursday nite. Cheers.

Rumour IL76 Aid Flight.
 

Have also heard there mite be an aid flight to Rangoon useing an IL76. Last night an Omni Dc10 Came threw only the ground around 3-4hours.

Aid Flight To Rangoon.
 

Have heard the IL76 Aid flight should be tomorrow tuesday 13th of May. Have no times yet.