Your ideas are quite similar to mine! Especially with Kraków being the second biggest city in Poland, without a connection to Luton, home of most Eastern European routes! I always wondered why Wizz never set up a Kraków base. Also I feel like even if easyJet won't operate a Prague route maybe even Monarch could give it a try!

I think that easyJet has so much potential out of Luton, but cannot grow at the moment because the airport has reached capacity.

MANFOD

I think that was partially what I had in mind. The issue seems to me to be whether the MAN-JFK/EWR O&D market (i.e. Non-connecting PAX) is strong enough to demand a "late" service.

The jump in 2014-2015 figures seems to be a good indication that it may be. However the wider figures for MAN-USA traffic for this period indicates that overall growth is not as robust. Do these flights attract connecting passengers? If so where do they go to or originate from?

MAN "suffers" from being very well connected to the hubs of LHR, AMS and CDG. Using your example of a west coast transfer, passengers have the option of routing via these hubs on BA, KL, AF respectively (I have omitted to include DUB &EI here but I'm sure the point is made). These routings also have the additional advantage of likely being on a more modern product than the B757 and B767 that operate ex MAN and whatever service is on the internal US flight.

Then there is the often mooted possibility of a direct west coast service from a "major" airline. How would this affect services like JFK or ATL - both of which are currently very successful.

I'd like to think the general demand is there, but when you have significant momentum of funnelling passengers in these routes on frequent flights via LHR in particular, it is difficult to overcome that inertia without significant effort. Whether this can be achieved by one or more of the U.S. airlines or VS is at best uncertain.

I think you're right. Once the airport expansion completes we'll see a whole raft of new routes and not just with easyJet. Vueling seem to be getting their feet under the table at Luton so I wouldn't bet against a major expansion by them too in due course

I was thinking about British Airways' Gatwick operation and how they are increasing their presence, with many new routes including Seville, Valencia, New York, Porto, etc, being added either recently or in the upcoming months. I was thinking about routes they could operate in the future and this is what I came up with:

Gatwick-Dublin (an early 7am-8am could compliment other EI services, plus another evening service.)

Gatwick-Gran Canaria (Spanish tourism booming at the moment and could operate year-round, could replace Sharm el Sheikh)

Gatwick-Palma de Mallorca (Spanish tourism booming, one of the busiest routes from Gatwick in the summer)

Gatwick-Berlin Tegel

Gatwick-Milan Malpensa (I have always wondered, why BA operate both LIN & MXP from LHR. Surely they could operate LIN from LHR for business traffic and MXP from LGW for leisure traffic. Connecting traffic wouldn't suffer as they have LIN to connect. It would also free up a few slots at LHR.)

Gatwick-Paris CDG

Gatwick-Miami

The trouble with a lot of suggestions is that in isolation they might work, but a combination of factors might make them impossible. For example, MAN-JNB or MAN-CPT might work in isolation from the other. However, if they were to both launch at the same or similar time they would dilute each other and possibly make them both unviable.

Possibly MAN - JNB. I've just been checking the CAA data & the LHR - JNB market was 940k in 2014. LHR - CPT was 423k so a few weekly frequencies from MAN in the winter season would make sense.

I saw in a CAA publication a few years ago - before CX started the route - that (from memory) 140,000 passengers transferred a year at LHR between MAN & LHR so I wasn't surprised when CX started the route. It must surely go daily.

UK - LAX was nearly 1.4m pax p.a. in 2014 & UK - SFO approaching 1.0m (including transfers) so 10% of passengers could justify a daily flight to each. Surely MAN could manage this?

It is interesting that the ME3 are doing very well with eastbound traffic - over 3m pax travelled from regional airports to AUH, DOH or DXB in 2014 most of them doubtless transferring on to the Indian sub-continent or Australasia.

There are fewer westbound routes although I suspect that a lot of traffic transfers at DUB & AMS - & that IAG plans to increase the former. This may be because the ME3 are more concerned about volume (you could argue ad nauseam about subsidies) the US & UK carriers need high yield traffic and it is probably the lack of high yield traffic holding back MAN - LAX/SFO. As said probably less of an issue for VS than BA and not one at all for DY or TCX. There are 3.1m pax p.a. to the US from regional airports but many go to the leisure destinations of LAS & MCO.

Lastly could LGW - Winnipeg support at least a weekly frequency by TS? I seem to remember Wardair operating it may years ago.

As an aside I was asked to look at the feasibility of starting a new route from LCY when I was doing my M.Sc. back in 1994 and suggested LCY - Bern. I was only around 20 years ahead of my time!

Gatwick - Winnipeg will be served weekly by Westjet this summer.

Peter47

I agree. There is a big difference between the present (or rather soon to commence) MAN-LAX service by TCX and a year round daily (or at least 4x weekly) service by a mainstream airline.

I feel that with the correct feed from BE and some improved surface access it would be possible to run 4x weekly to LAX and SFO. The question is how that would work with airframes (it would take more than one and would need to be used elsewhere over the week) but that aside I feel both could be supportrd.

I feel differently on the CPT/JNB question. CPT seems to make much more sense as a leisure service but I doubt both could be supported year round due in part to the SA economy.

The issue with Milan is that the main airport there these days is MXP. LIN which I used last year is much smaller so fewer if any connection opportunities.

I agree about routes like Berlin which could do well for BA from LGW and even Paris which was once dead in the water after Eurostar arrived, now seems to be recovering with new routes from LGW & LTN recently. Maybe BA could make it work again? The question is, so they want to step on the toes of Vueling who are doing the CDG route?

Miami is an interesting choice. It's a route that surely has leisure potential for any long hail operator and thus could work from LGW.

With the decline in the Egypt and probably Turkish tourist routes this year, the likes of Spain and Portugal could benefit so routes like PMI may well see an upturn which BA could take advantage of.

If BA plan carefully, they in conjunction with Vueling could begin to develop an operation at LGW which starts to seriously rival EZY

Dobbo Dobbo
I think TCX are just testing the waters, at present they don`t have
the aircraft available to do it more, my feeling is if it does well
they subject to sufficient aircraft increase to 4 weekly 2017 and maybe
operate all year perhaps 2 weekly in winter but you have to look
at how many aircraft are needed to service the route

Ian

Chaps (Ian)

Agreed. To start up gauging frequency they would need to expand their fleet. I don't know where they would get airframes, crew etc from and this might leave them vulnerable to VS or another operator.

I think that BA need to start concentrating more on their Gatwick base since Heathrow cannot possibly sustain any more flights.

About the Milan answer, I feel that people would only connect at LHR to Milan and would not connect in Milan for onward travel. There are plenty of routes to other Italian cities, so I don't see it being a problem.

We'll have to see what they have planned for W16 and S17!

AvGeek1 I hope you're right. I think there's a real opportunity for BA at Gatwick especially if they factor Vueling & Aer Lingus in to their plans. Presumably when the terminal moves happen, both will end up in the South Terminal. They can use the move to generate a real buzz about their Gatwick operation and start to put some real pressure on easyJet

I hope I'm right too, so much potential. People actually don't realise as soon as they hear 'BA' they think 'expensive' but it's not true in most cases. Many times I've flown BA from LGW and they have been cheaper than EZY every time!

I couldn't agree more and that's not a dig at EZY, I love them. Competition is only a good thing so let's hope BA get their act together at LGW

No certainly not, I agree that EZY are a great airline too and have also flown the multiple times. But BA always win price wise for peak summer flights. Talking of easyJet they have not announced any new routes from Gatwick in S16 and they are ending multiple routes. What routes are they still to add from LGW or have they run out of destinations?

Speaking of Easyjet, does anybody also think they are ignoring a lot of potential at Glasgow and just focusing on Edinburgh. They are basing an eighth plane at Edinburgh but Glasgow is still at four and there is so many potential destinations currently unserved from Glasgow. With Ryanair's arrival they need to cement their position at Glasgow before Ryanair starts to really pressure them on routes.

Getting there act together is something that they have already done. BA's shorthaul operation at LGW was operating at a loss about 3 years ago. It is now profitable. Yes it could do more to improve it's route network.

Eastbound vs Westbound at MAN
 

I think your post was talking about regional traffic in general, as opposed to MAN specifically, but a mildly interesting fact for this Summer's schedule from Manchester:

There are 51 weekly services to the Middle East ex MAN during August, and 101 (almost double) westbound to the US and Canada alone.

SFO seems MAN's biggest gap in North American coverage in terms of direct destinations - but with LA only just re-introduced at 2 x weekly, and numerous indirect options, I wonder how likely that is in the near future?

(NB Excludes Mexico/Caribbean - and PK if they still operate to NYC because I believe it's still just one way UK-US.)

As LAX is currently 2x weekly and is seasonal, I don't think it is quite "there" yet. If LAX and SFO would be at least 4x weekly and year round that would pretty much tell the tale of whether it is sustainable.

The airline operating is likely to need some feed at MAN and in the US - and I don't know who is best places for that to make it happen.