Airline routes have the iceland flights operated by an 319. So will the next aircraft being.based be a 319

RE : Air Canada at Manchester
 

Air Canada are forming a low cost division (a la Air Transat / Canadian Affair). They haven't announced any routes yet but have confirmed that there will be European destinations.

They plan on using 767's from the mainline, two for 2013 and then more to me moved over when their 787s arrive.

It will be more than welcome seeing as I'm from the midlands but live in Ottawa now!

Can I be the first to suggest a name for this new canadian
offshoot:

AirCanada ZOOM !!!

MM

There plan is to transfer for some European routes first and if they are only using 2 767's for 2013 then I can't see MAN starting as Dublin and Barcelona are operated daily and would imagine that could be all for 2013.

The decision was nothing to do with the train franchise as it was being worked on for some months before the announcement of the loss of the train franchise. It was sparked off by the fact bmi was taken over by BA and there would be no competition on LHR - MAN anymore. And Branson always likes the opportunity to take a pop at BA :)

Rumour has it that following the franchise debacle that Virgin have been offered an extension of 1-2 years for the rail franchise operating as a management contractor for the Dept for Transport whilst the franchise business is sorted out. So I think that means that DfT will set the parameters for fares, frequency etc and Virgin will operate the trains for a fee.

Suzeman

I think the last minute hokey cokey all over this suggests it became a priority when Virgin lost the trains franchise. They are clearly not unrelated, the left hand ought to have some idea what the right hand is doing.

Unless you are the late departed Abu Hamza.....

Re Virgin LHR/MAN
 

l was speaking to a senior guy in Air Canada at LHR who said they had approached VS regarding a domestic link to Manchester from Heathrow as soon as knew they would loose the Star Alliance link with BMI to connect with their flights in LHR. Apparently they estimate that 200+ pax per day from MAN connect in Heathrow on AC flights to Canada, and they wanted an alterative to British Airways MAN/LHR.

Surely IF 200 people a day fly AC from MAN via LHR, then they deserve a direct non stop flight to Canada.(?)
I certainly wouldn't entertain flying via LHR to access an Air Canada flight, but might consider AC if it was non stop.
In the meantime, it's Air Transat or KLM via AMS for me, depending on schedules.

I am sure its not 200 all going to the same Canadian destination, plus its 200 out of one of their LHR services

That may be true but a %age would be going to Toronto and a %age of the rest would maybe transit YYZ rather then LHR, add in people using other airlines/routes it would suggest a direct service could be viable.

Easyjet - New MAN routes showing on the easyjet mobile app: Antalya, Mykonos, Santorini and Venice.

Ivor

Disappointing if true, more Greek/Turkish bucket & spade routes. Venice already has over capacity from Monarch & Jet2. Vienna, Moscow and maybe even Seville would have been more interesting.

I have to disagree with you Mr A Tis. Mykonos is a route which has been served for a number of years from Manchester and with Thomson dropping the route next summer it provides an ideal opportunity for Easyjet to start a route which has proved popular for many years. It is not unusual to see fares on the Gatwick to Mykonos service at over £500 return per person and certainly this summer last minute flights on Thomson were not reduced to their normal price levels indicating 'possibly' a high usage service. Also both Mykonos and Santorini are not your traditional 'bucket and spade' destinations. A quick look at any hotel website will show a high percentage of the accommodation is high end and pricy meaning generally that customers are not afraid of spending a few bob to get to their destination. The flight times from London Gatwick do not permit easy transfers from the rest of the UK and most of the time mean an overnight stay. I applaud Easyjet for continuing to provide services which allows people from the midlands and north of the country to have access to routes which without it would mean a number of Greek islands, not just the islands the airport is on, would be much more difficult to access.

Mykonos & Santorini are good choices in my opinion. Antalya & Venice are already served by other carriers so might be a bit competetive but we shall see. Hopefully EasyJet will announec even more routes.

I hope Vienna will also come onto the Map. Hopefully someone like Austrian or Niki will start it soon.

North West today
 

Manchester Airport's propaganda machine/mouth piece namly North West Today/Tonight is at it again, christ I've just watched absolute ****e, an advert on the BBC for the Airport/Easyjet which lasted 50 odd seconds, christ it even showed a route map, and all this for eight flights a week, but nice see me licence money being used for adverts.

Ouch! it must of hurt

Ian

My point was that it was basically an advert, I think they did report Liverpool in the negative I while back which is par for the course for this Manchester based/biased shower when Ryanair reduced their fleet at LPL.Manchester is very lucky to have a giant mouth piece batting for them.

Someones jealous Ryanair/Easyjet have seen more potential at MAN which is a) a bigger airport and b) has a much bigger cachment area

Build a bridge and GET OVER IT thats life.

LPL has had great success with the amount of service they have had considering the proximity to MAN so i applaud for how well they have done but it was always gooing to be a matter of time before MAN swallowed its pride and bowed to the LCCs.

Regards

For some reason my previous post seems to have been deleted.

The point I was trying to get across, with a heavy dose of sarcasm I admit, was that whenever the BBC report a good news story about a city, town, business, tourist attraction, you name it, in the North West, it is not a deliberate swipe at another part of the region.

Whenever we have a good news story for aviation North West, we inevitably get cries of foul, not fair, favouritism and why not us?

Please stop this inward looking resentment. It ain't healthy and it reduces normally educated debate into bar side barracking and sniping.

Fact is, a new based aircraft anywhere in the region is GREAT news for the region, not just Manchester. Candidates for the jobs reported will be drawn from the ENTIRE region, and for that reason, the story was absoutely newsworthy.

I would understand your anger had the report mentioned the fact Easy were reducing by 2 frames at LPL, BUT THEY DIDN'T !. :ugh:

The fact your bitterness and antipathy towards anything Manchester permeates your posts on here, says more for you than for the reporting standards of the BBC.

Let's ALL embrace the fact SOMEONE is investing in the region.

It's all good. Let's move on and look forward positively.

How can the region AS A WHOLE move forward with its aviation strategy?

Regards

I recall a long running series 'Airline' which was a 30 minute advert (a good or bad one could be debated) each week for Easyjet and heavily featured Liverpool and the routes from there.But to complain about that would be churlish in the same way to complain about new services from the region because it isn't from the airport you wish it was, works both ways.