Ineedthefull90

I agree with you that if we get more routes to HUB airports it will effect the carriers we already have - but only to a point

Increases competition CAN not always be good for customer choice


But what your also saying now is NCL can't gain routes to places like MAD,FRA and Zurich and Lisbon as these are hub airports and will affect others ncl other carriers.

They may affect them but it also offers the passengers NEW places to travel to not all passengers will be connecting onto other flights some may well be doing business or leisure trips to these cites..

Bucket and spade holidays are only 6 months of the year we need to find new year round places that can work nicely from ncl...

Again people are being patronising :

From which perspective are you coming from with the changing of headwear?
BA = one world , AF/KL = Skyteam , EK stand alone alliance, so are you saying a star alliance member (TK) would not want to jeopardise any of this?

Ineedthefull90
I don`t agree re TK as they have proved ex MAN and BHX they have a lot of onward connecting passengers as no way could they just fill 5 flights a day between those two airports just to IST

Ian

What are NCL's 8 hub destinations?, I count:

LHR, AMS, CDG, DXB as the ones people look for and consider real hubs with many varying choices of destination. DUB only offers transatlantic connections, EWR will be coming online which with Dublin make 4 hubs and two technical hubs, although the wide variety of US destinations will be welcomed. BRU? I think connections are offered but how reliably, same applies for CPH and DUS, I wouldn't really be counting those three, I think they are mostly O&D.

Istanbul would definitely be a good addition, it might steal *some* passengers of EK, but I think both would see growth, TK would likely become the most reliable option to TLV which would serve the large Israeli population, along with near east, much smaller cities than EK (I don't know how TK make them all work!) and again, more options to Asia and possibly a more sensical route to Africa. Plus Istanbul is a big tourist destination in it's own right

Lisbon, again, a tourist destination in it's own right, very nice coastal towns etc for 30+ miles around it and as mentioned, South American and African connections along with destinations like Madeira, they can be cheaper than TOM/LS and combine the two destinations.

ZRH/FRA, I know what you mean, not as much O&D, very similar markets, but until UA, NCL had no major Star Alliance carriers... Bigger offering might be nice (but not necessarily profitable)

MAD, controversial but IAG swapping one NCL-LHR for one NCL-MAD? Connecting to South America and Africa + European destinations?

Vueling, cheap connections, might result in EZY reducing frequency but I think they would hold their own.

Not counting Copenhagen as a hub airport is quite frankly nonsense.

Apart from SAS, one of the founding members of Star Alliance, and up until last September, Lufthansa who still have presence in the form of Germanwings.

Apologies, I forgot about SAS being in Star. Does the Germanwings flight still count as a star alliance flight?

CPH is an EU hub, but the available connections from NCL, are, from what I have seen few and far between.

More star presence, though, should help UA, and in turn UA help the other carriers in the long run.

Hub Flights
 

Currentl/coming soon:
LHR
DUB
AMS
CDG
DUS
CPH
DXB
EWR

Proposed:
IST
BCN
MAD
LIS
SWISS CITY

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bit much? It may be great for the spotter log books and short term for pax as fares fall.

But all will happen is that yields will trash, airlines will make less money and pull out, this means the surviving airlines will increase ticket prices for passengers and may even completely close a route.

TLV is a very price sensitive market as there is a lot of VFR traffic and already well served with NCLs other hub connections.

EZ may keep point to point BCNNCL as it is a longstanding route. Unlike FR whose 'Barcelona' service is about to be axed.

I think the concern is a bit premature - DUB, CPH and DUS are very limited hubs from NCL and the "proposed" hub links are still very much at the speculative stage.

I'd put my money (and it wouldn't be very much...) on IST to be the first, but I think we are behind BRS in the UK.

INeedTheFull90, you can add BRU to your hubs list and SBWKCB, you can add BRU to your limited hubs list. NCL's hubs can be broken down into categories:

LHR, AMS, CDG, they serve everything, short, medium and long haul, North, South, East and West.

DXB, short, medium and Long haul, predominantly South and East except the near east/Iran/Ethiopia/Uganda etc. you get the gist and EWR which will serve predominantly South and West, except maybe Bermuda?

DUB, transatlantic only

CPH, BRU, limited, very very limited, although connections are available. I may be wrong but I'd assume that BRU could, or should be quite good for African connections.

DUS utterly useless

This is a very crude map but it shows how IST/DXB could coexist, Great Circle Mapper it shows the destinations available and the direction traveled within 1000nm of each. Although it wouldn't bother me so much, some people won't book to travel back on themselves, i.e NCL-DXB-AMM and would as such prefer NCL-IST-AMM, for example.

EK77WNCL

I think that's a bit harsh, particularly on CPH - here you can connect to countless (well you could count them if you had the time / inclination) Scandinavian destinations few of which are served directly from any UK airport.

At DUS Germanwings does offer interline facilities, though I'm not sure if that's just on 4U services, and again good connections are also available at BRU to many European business centres - not so sure about Africa these days, SABENA used to serve ex Belgian colonial destinations but I haven't checked on what SN Brussels offer is.

If you're a small or medium sized regional (non London) airport then these hub links are vital, whether or not you have BA through LHR and if I were NCL management I'd be looking to attract LH to FRA or MUC operating at time that allow good connections to principal business centres. I wouldn't, frankly, be so bothered with the likes of ZRH and MAD at least to start with, and frankly, Istanbul would be way down the list of priorities.

I think the point about CPH is the timings e.g. NCL-CPH lands at 22.00 local, so not much scope for outbound connections unless you night stop.

Brussels Airlines African destinations are as follows, so not too shabby!

Benin - Cotonou
Angola - Luanda
Burkina Faso - Ouagadougou
Burundi - Bujumbura
Cameroon - Douala, Yaoundé
D.R. Congo - Kinshasa
Egypt - Cairo
Gambia - Banjul
Ghana - Accra
Guinea - Conakry
Ivory Coast - Abidjan
Kenya - Nairobi
Liberia - Monrovia
Morocco - Agadir, Casablanca, Marrakech
Rwanda - Kigali
Senegal - Dakar
Sierra Leone - Freetown
South Africa - Cape Town, Johannesburg
Togo - Lomé
Uganda - Entebbe

I stand somewhat corrected, yeah I know what you mean about CPH, they do offer a lot of connections, especially if you intend to go to Scandinavia/Northern Europe, but for Asia or America or even Europe, due to the necessary night stop (I don't actually know what time CPH's long haul departures leave) and higher cost, they aren't a big player. I'd say confidently that 90-95% of passengers on NCL-CPH are O&D. If the flight continued getting stronger and they throw a morning CRJ our way a couple of days a week, opening up connections then I can see success. Although I'd hope for an OSL service before a 2nd CPH service. Given their history though, I'd say that both are equally unlikely, I'd rather hold on to the service we have at the minute.

I had never quite realised Brussels Airlines' network was so vast! In that case, if all of those destinations are available as connections from NCL, I've underestimated BRU as well! and with 3 daily flights there must be connection opportunities...

I disagree with IST being at the bottom of the list but a FRA hub route (i.e LH) and MUC/MXP p2p (i.e EZY) are definitely above it in my opinion.

Wheres the NCL CAA stats? Everyone elses in. EK GLA up again, EDI DOH thankfully better than last month. With UA starting, interesting to see GLA was the busiest of the smaller EWR 757 UK regional routes.

I was going to post them today but not updated yet. I will get them up as soon as I can (unless beaten to it)

Lets see if EK gets anywhere near my December prediction of 19,569 and utimately 2014 prediction of 217,257 - 217,932

Bear inb mind, EK was non op on Xmas day so total available seats was 25680

December figs:

Brussels 1860
Copenhagen 1574 +36%
Paris CDG 13880 +19%
Dusseldorf 3274 +12%
Cork 1274 -23%
Dublin 15014 +9%
Amsterdam 30796 +2%
Stavanger 1363 -17%
Dubai 18808 +5%

Gatwick 8559 +39%
Heathrow 42240 +10%

4.51m pax for 2014, up 2.2%

This growth is taking sooooooo loooooooongggggggggg.... This next 500,000 is going to be a struggle I can tell.

Emirates fell short of my prediction in November and December (predicted 37357 at 9.5% growth, actual was 35837 for the 2 months), so for the year EK stands at:

Jan: 18,351 +18
Feb: 16,980 +21
Mar: 18,517 +5
Apr: 20,211 +22 (first month +20,000)
May: 14,382 +13
Jun: 14,693 -7
Jul: 18,726 +9
Aug: 20,831 +12
Sep: 19,675 +3
Oct: 17,534 -1
Nov: 17,761 +5
Dec: 18,808 +5

Total year: 216,469
595 pax per day (594.7), 297 pax per flight (297.35) which gives year end load factors of:
2 class 77W - (297.35/427) = 69.64%
3 class 77W(V1) - (297.35/346) = 85.94%
3 class 77W(V2) - (297.35/352) = 84.47%

So a rough average estimate would be that for 2014 the load factor was around: 77.42% ((85.205+69.64)/2)

I'm pretty impressed with that I must say.

The load factor was 69.64% based on what was sellable (2 class 77W)

69% isnt exactly setting the heather alight. Long way off any frequency upgauge. Consistent rather than impressive id say.