Cant say I'd be suprised, if it is true. The extra fuel costs that airlines suffer with the MARGO and other restrictions have to tip the balance when airlines get close to the break even. One just has to look at the various ADSB tracking web sites to see just how unbelievably low some of the Glasgow inbounds are. The worst I have seen was 6,000' about 40 miles out. I guess others have considered pulling off the Glasgow London routes. Heathrow charges are going up and passenger taxes are just one more nail in the coffin.
bb |
bmi to stop flights to lhr from gla summer 2011 waiting for axe to fall again.:ugh: All hell will freeze over before bmi axe this route. Every man and their dog knows how lucrative the London to Glasgow route is and you seriously need to question the intelligence of anyone who would believe this, what is a blatant lie, for just a second. The day bmi bin LHR-GLA is the day the airline ceases to exist. |
'The day bmi bin LHR-GLA is the day the airline ceases to exist'.
Shouldn't be to long then ,ive heard the same from a manager at LHR |
Every man and their dog knows how lucrative the London to Glasgow route Many of the weekend BD rotations are in the ERJs as well. It's worth remembering that LHR-MME was well known to be a goner and they were still taking bookings. I was booked in April of the year it was axed and the Indian call centre continued to reassure me it would operate. I wouldn't read anything into bmibaby's commencment of STN-BHD though. |
GLA-LHR
To be honest I would find it hard to believe that BD would chop LHR-GLA. Maybe they will cut all LHR-GLA/BHD/EDI right back to 4 per day with one aircraft each and charge a packet. They have just announced BHD-STN with WW, maybe GLA/EDI - STN will follow. |
I reckon it's a troll at large.
Nothing on the private forum, or anywhere else I've looked. Just been on the flybmi.com website and tried dates in May and August 2011. GLA LHR still selling the BD 1,3, 7, 9 and 11. Returns are 4, 6,8, 12 and 16 IIRC. |
Was. Traffic has collapsed. BA no longer nightstop two aircraft for GLA-LHR, BD are down from 8 to 6 rotations. Even FR have PIK-STN down to one a day now. Many of the weekend BD rotations are in the ERJs as well. 70 flights a day between the two cities and British Airways increasing flights on LCY-GLA hardly suggests the route struggling for traffic. Like I said, you seriously need to question the intelligence of someone who thinks for a second bmi would axe this route. Definitely a troll who posted this utter nonsense and I cant even believe some are entertaining this idea. |
70 flights a day between the two cities and British Airways increasing flights on LCY-GLA hardly suggests the route struggling for traffic When I was growing up BA was flying 14 B757s a day with BD on 8 B737s each weekday to LHR from GLA. It's now 9 BA and 6 BD, on a good day. The coming of easyJet coupled with electrification of the West Coast mainline AND the domestic passenger duty have all hurt the numbers. Also BA are keen to move runway capacity at LHR to more lucrative long haul and punted point to point traffic to LCY. Domestically BMI have scaled back BHD, GLA, EDI and dropped MME and LBA completely. They have also closed the cabin crew base at DUB recently and scaled back frequency. AMS and BRU were dropped, AMS completely, BRU surrendered to STAR partner SN. This is a retreat from the old British Midland into new routes that LH think can be sustained. Hence the focus is moving away from the routes that Diamond Service built, onto medium haul ex BMED and flying for STAR partners like LX (LHR-GVA) and LH (poss MAN and BHX to Germany ) Take away the need to connect GLA into STAR at LHR and I think the temptation would be to leave it to the locos and BA. If they announce GLA-FRA then I think that might be a clue. |
If Ryanair are struggling on Scotland - London that's a clue. There was a post by anna_lyst(sic) a while back with the actual numbers showing the collapse in recent years. On my last few trips to GLA, the old domestic pier seems like a ghost town. Ryanair cutting back proves nothing we didn't already know. They are in the weakest position of all airlines flying London to Glasgow in that they serve PIK while all other airlines fly to Glasgow International. I doubt there is much business traffic on STN-PIK, as most will be using STN-GLA on easyJet so the very low end of the leisure traffic on this route is left to Ryanair to pick-up. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ryanair axe their London to Glasgow route but bmi; not going to happen! The old domestic pier being dead doesn't really prove anything when you consider flights to all destinations can depart from any gate now at Glasgow International. My last flight from Glasgow International, incidentally to London Stansted, departed from gate 33, which is located on what is commonly referred to as the "International pier". Take away the need to connect GLA into STAR at LHR and I think the temptation would be to leave it to the locos and BA. If they announce GLA-FRA then I think that might be a clue. |
If there is any truth in this, then there are going to be some very red faces on this thread methinks!! If bmi/ww were to switch to STN then they would be up against EZY only with 4/5 flights a day not BA with 9, not to mention that it is EZY that is seeing volume growth. It may be worth remembering that the passenger handling fee's at LHR is probably more than what EZY charge for a ticket to STN!!
Who knows, lets face it few saw WW on BHD-STN coming? As for interlining how much would bmi get from the likes of SAS/Swiss for the GLA-LHR sector? and bmi have nothing going West out of London unlike BA |
a route with 70 flights per day is not a route struggling for business. EDI-LCY is perhaps the honourable exception. You seem very sure to dismiss this. A clear and ongoing cutback on capacity has been apparent on bmi's whole BD coded short haul network. It's not as if they're adding capcity and frequency into this apparent goldmine. I agree with you, it seems an unlikely withdrawal on the face of it given the connections. SAS can connect through GLA-CPH on BMR and Air Canada are no strangers to GLA. It may be that LH would prefer LH to feed somewhere more German. We shall see. You dismissed my Ryanair point. Odd that they have seen a TEN daily Glasgow PIK-London service collapse to a single daily rotation with the threat of the axe yet you exepct GLA-LHR on BMI to be a good moneymaker. I would bet that the dedicated A319 would more being redeployed on a route that DIDN'T have 70 flights a day. I recall when they had two B737s on the route. One did BD1 / 2 / 5 / 6 / 9 / 10 / 13 / 14 BD16 / 3 / 4 / 7 / 8 / 11 / 12 / 15. God I'm getting old. Mind you, it used to cost three times as much in real terms. |
bmi's last ex-B|Med A/C to be repainted, G-MEDF, was ferried to EMA on 9th Jan for repaint into the full bmi livery & to have it's new interiors.
All of the fleet will now wear the current bmi livery (obv except the 757) & the following A/C already have the new brown interiors: G-MEDG G-MEDH G-MEDJ With the rest to follow in due course. |
Well i would be surprised if the route got the chop, this means no STAR flights to a STAR europe hub (except CPH) . If if does get the chop then surely a GLA-FRA, or GLA-ZRH must commence?
|
Mind you, the nearest LH hub is not FRA, but BRU which is better located for connections to Europe and the US than further away FRA, not to mention MUC or ZRH.
Already today, BRU seems to be the preferred connecting point within the LH group for all flights from the British regional airports to Europe and the US/Canada, so I wouldn't be surprised if BD/SN start a GLA-BRU flight on E-jet, if indeed LHR-GLA get axed. |
LON - GLA market
Hi,
Apologies - this is slightly off-topic, but hopefully of interest (Skipness - thanks for remembering!). Here is a chart of the London - Glasgow market since 2001 (from CAA data). It proves nor disproves the claim about bmi and LHR-GLA, but it does show the extent to which passenger numbers have fallen - they are now at the lowest level since 2001. I have highlighted the peak years on each route. LCY-GLA is the only route currently at its peak. The figures also suggest that Ryanair have been hit hardest on their STN-PIK route. Passenger numbers on LHR-GLA are down by about a third since 2004. We don't have the full 2010 figures yet, but they were down even further in the first part of the year, before showing modest increases for the last couple of months. Never say never... especially where bmi are concerned! http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/7177/longla.jpg |
I can see the argument that yields on Scotland-LHR are certainly not what they used to be 10-20 years ago (when it cost hundreds of pounds for seat) due to the effects of the locos competing for the point to point traffic. As a result you could maybe create an argument for canning services if you just look at that element. However, these flights are important for LHR feed and what I can't really see is BD (and by extension LH and the rest of STAR) completly abandoning the whole W of Scoland market in terms of connections.
I would imagine a fair few STAR airlines at LHR (with maybe 1 or 2 in particular i.e AC?) get decent feeds from BD at GLA. It's all very well saying that alternative LH services to feed pax through FRA could be brought in, but how possible is that before FRA's new runway opens? ERJs to BRU - not much capacity. GLA management are almost certainly after these services anyway but don't seem to have been succesful in chatting up BD thus far! Whilst on the subject of BD at GLA, why do regional persist with their GLA and EDI-LBA services when pax numbers appear to have dropped off over the last few years with loads looking about 30-40%? Presumably a few people are paying through the nose to get to LBA? I would've thought sending the GLA ERJ to somewhere like BRU or FRA twice daily may have attracted more pax (at still reasonably high fares). Re GLA-LHR, whilst there are some questions re the OP given their posting status, at the end of the day this is a rumour forum so even if they are misinformed I don't think it's necessarily fair to accuse them of making things up. |
While the GLA pull-out is still a rumour only, do you anticipate changes in the pipeline to say BHD and EDI services?? Belfast has really no other option to connect at a hub, EI has only a BA codeshare to LHR, and Continental to EWR I guess. Other than that its pretty much low cost at both BHD and BFS.
EDI / GLA and many of the other mainland airports will still have a Star or Oneworld presence, should bmi decide to pull. |
BRU seems to be the preferred connecting point within the LH group for all flights from the British regional airports to Europe and the US/Canada On another point, I hope LH will not shift BHX-FRA and MAN-FRA to BMI unless they work on their flight experience. Have heard in various media that BMI's interior is a bit poor, as well as non-perfect in-flight service - LH customers are pretty demanding. Such a shift could be good news though for BE esp if they can put a E175 on the FRA routes. If both are jets, then I'd find it hard to pay extra to use British Midland instead of British European. I noticed though that LH has changed their age-old BHX flight numbers from 49xx to 9xx, which is probably a hint at a change. DUS would still be LH (Eurowings), that would then be the only German jet at BHX. |
Wouldn;t overanalyse LH flight number changes too much:
MAN had numbers in the 070s, then we had the split of the 1600s and 5500/5600s then the 4800s and 4900s to the current arrangements of the 900s for FRA, 2500s for MUC and 3400x for the others. All they are probably doing is tailoring a group of flight numbers for UK to FRA, UK to MUC and UK to regional German cities |
Well the Dub-Lhr seems to be holding up well.
|
On another point, I hope LH will not shift BHX-FRA and MAN-FRA to BMI unless they work on their flight experience. Have heard in various media that BMI's interior is a bit poor, as well as non-perfect in-flight service - LH customers are pretty demanding. |
LH style interiors are planned to be fitted to all bmi's shorthaul main line aircraft this year. |
Airline BMI reviews UK domestic flights at Heathrow - Telegraph
Wednesday is the announcement day it seems. |
If indeed bmi announces the closure of their GLA-LHR route Wednesday, quite some people here will have red faces!
I don't know what the outcome will be, but the route is officially lossmaking, contrary to what many seemed to believe, so it certainly isn't as improbable as some here have made it sound. LH could very well have decided to let BD make better use of it's valuable LHR slots than to fly domestic lossmaking routes, while at the same time link GLA to their group's network in a different and most likely also more profitable way, e.g. via BRU or FRA for instance. As such, if indeed GLA-LHR gets axed, I have a feeling GLA-FRA or GLA-BRU will start, something which might very well be beneficial to the bottom line for the LH group as a whole, while any domestic market share could easily be rolled over to a GLA-STN flight on bmi baby. |
Random flyer seen eating hat?
Interesting article in the Torygraph that
I think the Conservatives were plain wrong on R3 at LHR, the jobs and investment during construction would have been a useful boost to the construction industry if timed to follow the end of the heavy build phase of the Olympic sites. I don't buy the green argument on LHR what is green about holding inbound as a routine most days? this just does not happen else where in Europe, back at min clean at 8000 feet is very un green. I would have built a full length runway but restricted the type of aircraft to nothing bigger than a A321/737-800 and made it domestic & European only. That way you would keep the noise down remove the holding but still have a full length runway when either of the others are out of service for any reason. Interesting that the paper speculates that bmibaby might "step in on the GLA STN route" |
Why would loyal BD flyers decide to fly on bmibaby to Stansted, when Easy already flies that route offering, no doubt, a better schedule on more comfortable aircraft?
|
CPH
What leads you to think any announcement will be Wednesday?
Have to agree with you re STN & Easy If you need to go to LHR then you would switch to BA or stay with bmi out of EDI If STN is better then you'll already be using Easy My bet is a reduction in frequency from Summer timetable with a full pull out at the end of the Summer this would allow 3 months of consultation with based crews plus 3 months notice re GLA Virgin seem to do OK ex LHR with little or no feeder traffic I reckon LH must be concerned at EK hub building with traffic from GLA MAN NCL BHX that would once have gone via LHR |
Herr Wolfgang is in Scotland on Wednesday.
|
base closure ?
I cant see the GLA LHR route closing. . . if anything it could be the closure of the GLA crew base, just as bmi did with DUB. DUB has reduced to 4 rotations and no night stop a/c and has really turned the fortunes of the base around.
The plan to reduce the domestics to 5 rotations is still on the table however LH have said that if a base can keep profits up with 6 flights then they will keep their 6 ie BHD LHR. |
How profitable - or otherwise - is abz-lhr, given that it is a route in part operated with the Regional Jet?
|
Strange how in the telegraph article, bmi states its too expensive to operate a regional jet into LHR, but then downgrades MAN to the very same type of jet?
Obviously no intenetion of keeping that route then.....not that we need them :rolleyes: |
They have to operate the smaller aircraft, because they can't fill the Airbus... and would make even more of a loss if they even tried to, compared with operating the Embraer which they still can't fill... but the slots are the most valuable, they would operate "ghost flights" like allegedly BA did just to secure the slots.
|
I still wouldnt be surprised to see BD MAN-LHR pulled.
MAN has so many star connections already, and Im sure those who really really need to use LHR will have BA as an option. Thing is though, and Im talking more MAN here, what will the carriers at LHR who used the BD MAN connections now do to keep their custom? There is already a strong inclanation that Air Canada will be re-linking MAN-YYZ from May, TP on the LIS route from June, but I wonder if QR will increase for the far east connections or maybe spanair to connect up the spanish dots? What would be even better, is if bmi 'codeshared' on the WW routes, and that way star would have connections to a few destinations from MAN including MPL/PMI/LIS/BOD/PRG and so on, and there is always the rumoured WW MAN-SXF route to bolster the German Connections. I know it will never happen, but just a thought? |
Is Wolfgang still coming to Scotland tomorrow - Any advances on what he's going to announce? It would seem odd if he was coming purely to announce route closure(s), rather setting himself up for a rough ride and bad publicity, so I wonder if positive announcements are planned to go with the negative ones?
|
Meeting at the Scottish Parliament apparently !
|
Willie Walsh went to the Scottish Parliament before announcing that BA were closing their GLA base .........:ooh:
|
What time is Wolfgang due in Scotland?
best of luck to everyone is GLA. |
LHR-GLA not bookable from mid December at the minute.... |
Heard about LHR-BSL and MAN-BSL will be announced today.
|
bmi will take over the Swiss flights.
MAN-BSL 5 weekly and LHR-BSL 19 weekly op. by bmi A319. On the other side Swiss will cancel BSL-LCY. |
All times are GMT. The time now is 15:40. |
Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.