UK - ME3 June 2016
 

UK_airport foreign_airport 2016 2015 total_pax_percent
EDINBURGH ABU DHABI 10,659 6,131 73.85 % inc. looks wrong?
HEATHROW ABU DHABI 67,112 61,409 9.29
MANCHESTER ABU DHABI 29,411 25,936 13.40

BIRMINGHAM DOHA 9,793 0 0
EDINBURGH DOHA 10,193 9,668 5.43
HEATHROW DOHA 79,227 73,122 8.35
MANCHESTER DOHA 22,859 20,806 9.87

BIRMINGHAM DUBAI 39,584 38,567 2.64
GATWICK DUBAI 0.00 65,290 -100
GLASGOW DUBAI 0.00 32,882 -100
HEATHROW DUBAI 171,852 175,005 -1.80
MANCHESTER DUBAI 61,409 60,942 0.77
NEWCASTLE DUBAI 15,314 16,460 -6.96

If I can digress a little bit into the NCL vs EDI question...


I was in Edinburgh yesterday. The city was chock a block with foreigners: both tourists and those working in the service industries. Over half of the punters in the airport itself seemed to be non-local. Compare this to the departure lounge at NCL where you barely hear an accent from outside a 60 mile radius of Woolsington. Despite what people in in organisations like the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative might tell you (I still insist on putting a gap between the words 'Newcastle' and 'Gateshead' - sorry for being a tad off-message), Tyneside and the wider North East is still a tiny player in the UK's business and tourism sectors. When comparing Newcastle to Edinburgh I think we just aren't comparing apples with apples. (Mind, this might not be a bad thing, do we really want Dunstanburgh castle to be awash with tourists? :) )
LBA might be a better comparison. Or even to a certain extent MME and we are in a hell of a lot better situation than them.


A wider question could be as to why this is the case. I am old enough to remember when EDI (the airport, not the city) was only slightly busier than NCL. What happened?

" A wider question could be as to why this is the case. I am old enough to remember when EDI ( the airport not the city ) was only slightly busier than NCL. What happened?"

Answer --Change of ownership at EDI!!

I'm just old enough to remember about 10 years ago when NCL was one of the fastest growing in the UK and I also wonder what happened (obviously, competition happened, in the wrong places)

I am proud of NCL for the balance we have, I just think it's a little frustrating that we're being limited by said competition. If emirates were stupid enough to go into EDI any time soon that would be a huge nail in the coffin I think

I've just gotten off a train from Edinburgh and I noticed the very same thing. I was there for 4 hours, saw 3 groups of Spanish people, 1 of Portugese, countless Americans (almost everyone was!), the same for Chinese, and I went into a pub opposite Waverley, the pub at the front was all Scots, but in the restaurant in the back I was the only brit, 2 groups of Germans made friends because they heard eachother talking

That's a good thing! And it's obviously a very very cosmopolitan city, I just wish the North East was that little bit more on the tourist map. As you say, I'd hate us to be overrun, but we do have a lot to offer (obviously not to first time visitors, we can't compete with London)

And for the record that's a pathetic comment, I want a 2nd daily flight for many reasons, none come close to being due to my ambitions (And - might I add, why dampen them?) it's mainly because it opens up many more connections and offers better flight times for O&D, you don't lose 2 nights as you do now if you use the evening flight.

fl dutchman, nail on the head there! I wish we'd been bought by MAG or GIP, they both run airports very well! Not to say our management don't but there would have been more scope for growth, and existing airline partners under either of those

Why does everybody ignore the obvious - Newcastle is a small, poor, isolated city in a small, poor, isolated region (Sir Alex was right!) - stop looking for excuses.

I too think NCL punches above it's weight, but to expect new ownership to awaken a sleeping giant is just wishfull thinking (and read the BOH, HUY and EMA threads before fluttering yr eyelids at MAG!)

I think Newcastle is doing well considering the limitations of its catchment area. Ryanair will boost the passenger numbers this coming Winter and next Summer to help the airport reach the 5m landmark again.

When EDI was owned by BAA I think there was little in the way of low cost carriers and IT flights at EDI.
Lots of people from its catchment area used to come down to NCL to use the holiday flights etc that were not available then from EDI.
That would be in the days when NCL handled over 5 m pax.
Of course unlike the BAA who seemed not to encourage charters and LCC at that time from EDI the current owners have done a great job in attracting such airlines and operators.
Now there is less need for people to come to NCL as there are so many flights from EDI that were not available previously.
So I believe that is a significant factor in recent years falling passenger nos from NCL.
The people from Scotland used to boost Pax nos from NCL.
Of course EDI has a larger catchment area than NCL and it is a much larger inbound tourism destination.
Despite this NCL still does very well indeed.
Regarding DXB, I don't think the route is ready to go to twice daily anytime soon. We're lucky to have the daily service which has stood up well despite the competition from other carriers at EDI.
I think Emirates has a seat sale on from NCL that should boost passenger nos in the short term.
Of course Ryanair will boost numbers from NCL in the short term but I worry about the long term effect they will have on other carriers. Not to mention the falling pound which could harm outbound tourism severely and therefore the number of people using all airports.

EDI was constrained by it's place in the wider strategy of Scottish Airports which saw long haul and sun flights at GLA with EDI feeding LHR and some European point to point. However Scotland has changed a lot since that strategy was sidelined more so now Edinburgh has a Parliament once again and the city was put firmly on the visitors map and has eclipsed Glasgow to some extent.

Emirates may well remain at one per day. Look at Continental at GLA. Started with a B757, moved quickly to a DC10, then a B767-400. When CO launched EDI, we saw summer 757 service at 11 weekly GLA and 10 EDI making three per day to Scotland then that switched to EDI having 11 vs GLA 10. Once the dust had settled, EDI had three daily B757s to two cities, EWR and ORD whereas GLA is back where they started in 1998 with one daily B757 to Newark. I suspect DXB-NCL will remain and do well for EK but may well stay once daily on a B77W whereas GLA will eventually see the A380 and QR and EY will continue killing each other at EDI. There's a wider picture at play.

Hi all, S1E, I see your point about Edinburgh now being more of a political centre as well as an economic and tourist one. The same could be said though about Cardiff, and they have lost out massively to Bristol in recent times. The drivers of airport traffic are indeed complex. I agree with SWBKCB that we punch above our weight. Be glad that we have a daily link to Dubai which was unthinkable a few years back, and even that we have (well , until tomorrow morning anyway :) ) a link to NYC. Obviously we all want to see growth in our local airport but things could be a lot worse. I wasn't joking when I said that we can quite reasonably compare ourselves to MME. I remember, maybe back in the 80s I don't know, the manager of MME on Look North saying that they wanted to overtake NCL as the North East's primary airport. And at the time it really wasn't as ridiculous as it sounds now.

Not sure if it's true now but the Metro Centre attracted passengers to Ncl from Scandinavia, that's as well as oil related work going the other way.

Statistics.
Airports own figures for July suggest a 5.6% ish increase in total passenger numbers.
Thats 30,112 extra passengers.

Scheduled international up by 37,070
IT down by 592
Domestic down by 5,672
Others

Starting to look better.

Last day for New York today.
wondering if New York was a bad choice for the first link to the USA.
Would it have made any difference if we had a link to a different hub say Boston or Washington or Atlanta even.
Do the others have a better connections or through border control any quicker?

Other than Orlando, New York was the only choice for a flight to the US. Outside of school holiday period, the loads were dire, so no shock to see it not returning.

I have to agree with you Graham, it was use it or lose it this year. I think, maybe a two class....business and economy layout aircraft could maybe work. I noticed that business did quite well occupancy wise but premium had largely a dire takeup.

Well presumably the last UA has now gone, so what lies in store for 2017 onward re North American traffic?, the attention has been on NY but we have lost a lot of connectivity (albeit seasonal) to YYZ, & ORL traffic has been as up & down as the rides at Disney.
I was one of those sceptics that NCL would never get a NYC service & to be fair well done to everyone involved in the two season attempt.
However, though disappointed, I am not at all surprised that it did not succeed, as to many it was only looked upon a another summer holiday destination.
Even then it lacked edge in marketing with endless opportunity for endpoint sale. Las Vegas being a prime example, can't remember seeing seeing any strap line such as "Fly UA direct to Vegas from NCL" with the as ever, omission of the words "non stop".
Taking this from the other side then it was not supported in sufficient no.'s by the business community & hence lower yields, & to be honest there is not much that could be done to address this when choice of routes to US involving a single stop, whether it be in Europe or the US is vast.
Also timings & choice of aircraft limited, old 757's I assume are losing appeal to many.
Finally you have the issue that the service was only ever seasonal, not daily and loyalty programs of the competition.
On another tack there has been much attention to EDI & it's US connections & the undisputed number of US tourists taking in it's attractions. How many came via NCL ? If as I suspect not many then is this also down to UA marketing.
Perhaps this is simply a culture thing, I grow tired in speaking to US citizens who see themselves as having "done Europe" by visiting 5 or 6 capital cities, & with UK then a departure out of London as an adventure & a trip further afield to Bath or perhaps even York as akin to a major expedition, & who typically have no recollection of points in between.
Perhaps NCL should adopt the well worn RYR marketing campaign & adopt name "Edinburgh South"!;) whats a 100 miles or so ?...unfortunately quite a lot !

Jamesair - it was a 2 class aircraft. United have Economy Plus which is not a seperate cabin, just seats at the front of Economy Class with extra legroom.

Totally agree with some of the points skyman made there.
Mainly seasonal route but needs business support and as you said loyalty schemes.
Hard to get people to transfer over for a few months.

Maybe if we had a different airline say Delta as they are part of the KLM/AF codeshare group could a seasonal service had worked with them as the business pax fly direct

Again it would be interesting to see how many of the monthly passengers then went onwards to somewhere else it's a shame that these figures we never find out

I guess you'd have to ask is which NE companies need to send people to/from New York on a regular basis? I'd guess not many companies and not many people

Lots of valid sensible points regarding NY. In the end just cheaper alternatives were available and people didnt mind the NCL-LHR-NY or NCL-AMS-NY options. IMO EWR direct is only viable from Newcastle in the winter season as a charter its just a shame Jet2 dont do a more regular winter service because i think they would do really well on it just as the 5 shopping trips prove.

Personally I don't think that "5 shopping trips" prove much at all.
What conclusions can be drawn ?..possibly that at the right price you can pack pax into "3-3" with 29 inch seat pitch & poor if any IFE. But then this is what they & other airlines have been doing for years on the TFS run & NYC probably + 2 hours flying time out & a bit less back.
Now there is only a certain limited specialist market for these pax & I expect they are particularly price sensitive so very high LF's would have been sought. But then again were these not actually flights, but "all -in mini breaks", which having regards to the UA offering render them irrelevant in any event.
Whilst on with UA pricing then a recent example of a colleague who was is the North East & had need of a one way flight to Florida. UA quoted him c. £4k NCL-Florida one way business class, he was about to confirm this, when it was brought to his attention by a 3rd party that UA offering the same journey but on a "round trip basis" for £2.2k. Guess who was a "no show" for the return leg.......
Unsure what this says but you can see where UA sought their revenue & not in packing them in cheap & cheerful in "Y".