New FR routes for MAN summer 2013?
 

Does anybody have any clues regarding any new routes from MAN for summer 2013? There are some clear gaps (e.g. Oporto, Krakow, Vilnius) that I would have thought would be successful even with LPL running some of them down the road. Any info on when we will find out would also be appreciated. Thanks DomyDom

I will never understand why FR closed in 2011 the routes Seville-UK except London airports and now closes Gatwick. From 5 (BRS, EMA, LPL, LGW & STN) UK destinations to 1 (STN) in one year. BRS and EMA did not work very well except in July/August period but flights to LPL and LGW always were up to 90% of LF. A lot of Nothern England working and living in Seville from Manchester/Liverpool area (I know some of them) and they have to take flights from AGP. People is demanding the re-opening of these routes and I expect FR will include Seville in its route opportunities to open from MAN/LPL.

Ireland - Russia by FR
 

Indeed, now one can find also the English language news article on this subject, see The Moscow Times.

This could be a great opportunity for FR, but on one condition. Ryanair should create two "air-bridges", Moscow/Dublin and St. Petersburg/Dublin. As an exemption from their own point2point restriction, they should provide connecting flights to Spain (incl. Canaries) and Portugal, Russian's favourite, I guess. Voilà, not a very complicated thing.

Of course we all know it won't happen (connecting flights I mean), as FR continue to be a master of self-limiting in that regard, their choice.
:rolleyes:

Seville
 

FR8364, From what I hear the Ryanair routes from Manchester incuding those to the Spanish cities have been extremely sucessful. Like you I think Seville would be an excellent choice to be opened from MAN next summer. I think that this was one of the routes given serious consideration just before the base was set up last year and was crowded out by other routes for summer 2012 (I think FR even went as far as requesting slots at MAN). Even with the problems in the Spanish economy it would sustain good loads between that area of Andalucia and Northern England. Also FR do seem to listen to punters with regard to routes as we recently had MAD reinstated after it had been lined up for the chop and it now booming. I wouldn't be suprised if it goes daily for next summer. DomyDom

I see Liverpool struggeling to attract new Ryanair routes. It has lost many key routes like Milan, Riga and Rome to Manchester and has suffered frequency cuts on routes alongside Manchester and any new route developments like routes to Seville or a new service to Venice which I think Ryanair needs from the north other than their Leeds/Bradford service are probably going to be from Manchester. I see Ryanair developing Manchester into a significant base, something around the size of their bases at Frankfurt-Hahn or Stockholm-Skavsta in the future.

Despite that, Liverpool may fight back. When Ryanair opened their Birmingham base in 2008, East Midlands lost some routes such as Bratislava and Derry, which remain from Birmingham and not East Midlands to this day. Budapest operated out of East Midlands until it was axed, then later announced from Birmingham. East Midlands has coped very well though, still accounting for the majority of Ryanair growth in the Midlands over recent years but is coming more apparent that East Midlands is the favourite for summer sun routes (now with Greece and a very good choice of flight frequencies and routes to Spain) whilst Birmingham is slightly more towards the city destinations. The same appears to have emerged in Scotland with Prestwick offering the "bucket and spade" routes and Edinburgh with the cities. Common sense may suggest that the same will happen between Liverpool and Manchester however with Liverpool being quite reliant on city routes, especially to Ireland whilst seeing cutback with both city and sun destinations recently, and Manchester having established a good mix both, then it might suggest Liverpool is going to lose out to Manchester!

Of course they listen to punters, but they listen to the beancounters and the airport bosses even more.

If one particular airport puts charges up, or brings in some other blockage that makes it harder to fly there (sometimes due to noise regs outside their control), then MOL goes elsewhere.

I personally think SVQ is a great city, but ditto to Nearby ODB, where the airport is not likely to see anything commercial any time soon.

High load factors alone don't make a route. They are needed together with high yields AND low airport costs. I asked before about yields for SVQ v AGP, assuming AGP would be higher because it is on the coast, and I am guessing that is still the case. Ditto for GRQ - another great city, but easier to sell as a day excursion from the costas than as a flight destination in its own right.

just making a general observation about Ryanair's routing policy, and I'm in no way criticising Ryanair, but do they continually chop and change routes just to 'find' a more successful route or is there a science behind it.

It seems to me that routes fly from Airport A (in UK) to Airport B (in EU) then next year it's gone only to be either replaced by another route to Airport C (in EU) or moves to airport D(in UK) flying to Airport B. (Hope you understand my logic!)

There is no research behind it other than trying to associate in pairs the airports with min. possible charges and max. possible marketing support on both ends. A pity, as quite often seem to get chopped some otherwise very promising routes - and potentially profitable even with no dole involved.

I'm sure there is an exact science behind it, based on the very metrics you mention. They have a routes director working out all the permutations. The other key factor is where else the plane is already going that day.

Hence routes from regional airport A to Polish or French city B might work, whereas a longer rotation to the Canaries might not.

If destination D is not provided from airport C, will pax accept D instead, will they still fly with Ryanair from airport F, or will they go to a rival.

They are constantly playing with these figures, and if they get them wrong, the route gets dropped.

I am sure there is also a formula along the lines of yield Q on an existing route is better than a predicted yield of Q * 120%, because our predictions are only accurate +/- 30%, and we don't want to keep routes on a permanent yo-yo, although there are of course cases where that still happens, especially if destination airport G turns round and drops charges by 20%.

Also, a destination to us is origin at the other end, and this might be the source of anything from 5% upto 95% of the flight - and quite a few are an even 50-50 split.

Can't see it being that big, it could become the second largest in UK but not much more IMO.

Was idling in Atlanta last week when I saw a Ryanair departure scheduled to Leipzig Halle - shome mistake shurely?

That would be a US military charter by Ryan International Airlines. A US charter company since 1976 based in Rockford. USA.
They operate B767, B737, MD80 & A330s

Zero to do with Ryanair.

New Routes for 2013 from Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden?

Greetings from Baden-Baden :)

BBC HARDtalk - Michael O'Leary - CEO, Ryanair (12/10/12) - YouTube

Some intresting topics discussed.

And also on this forum when it was aired.

They seem to make website changes on the fly. I suspect the Chrome issue will be resolved quickly.

I personally detest CAPTCHAS in all their forms, but it is part of their efforts to stop screen scrapers. It would appear to be more annoying to the casual browser, rather than an actual impediment to booking.

Again, this was discussed at length at the time they introduced them. I honestly thought they'd be gone by now, but Ryanair Web HQ clearly think they are still justified.

I'd guess that the screenscrapers are still out there, watching the Ryanair website, waiting for any sign of defences being lowered. If you have a Google around from May this year when FR removed Captcha for about 2 weeks, you'll see a few blogs where someone's written something to the effect of
"Captcha's gone ! Screenscrapers fill your boots !"

Safari is affected too.

Ryanair are grounding just short of 100 aircraft this winter. Other loco such as DY and VY have substantial growth for winter. Soon Ryanair will be a seasonal carrier as all they do is grow during the summer but still let there LF drop.

What is the point in growing through the winter if you end up losing lots of money ?

It's like admitting publicly: we are unable to achieve any profit for approx. 6 months in a year, our business model is not flexible (versatile, attractive, efficient, tempting etc.) enough. Even while some other airlines are unprofitable for entire 12 month a year, that does not change the main point made here.