Can't see BA dumping LGW-JER. It's always rammed and suggestion is that it's one of the most profitable routes on the network.


cs

frank & simon
Points well made. I don't think BA would give up the Gatwick route, but if they decided to operate ex LHR they would, hopefully, operate more than 2 services per day. This might impact on the LGW loads - certainly, a lot of the Jersey originating pax would prefer LHR. This might persuade them to reduce the LGW operation - or even withdraw it. But, as frank says, a 3rd. R/W at LHR might lead to EZY operating from there also.
Exciting times - in 10 years time, or so !

With Gatwick starting to stagnate for easyJet in terms of new routes, what routes are missing out of the network that could be viable to operate. Would operating to Cape Verde be too much of a long flight for EZY?


Also with the success of the Manchester route for Hainan Airlines, could we see Hainan operating LGW-PEK in the future?

Re. Hainan, I believe the Chines have a one carrier per route rule and CA have the Beijing/London route

Yes but they would operating into different airports CA to LHR and HU to LGW, therefore it isn't the same route. Air China also operated a Beijing to Gatwick seasonal service a few years ago before it was terminated.

Surprisingly I am aware that LHR and LGW are different airports, hence I referred to the Beijing/London route, the rule being for City pairs.

Air China could operate to Gatwick as well as Heathrow as they are the designated carrier to London.

With some of the summer schedules starting to be released and a handful of new routes being announced, what are the most likely routes that could be on the cards for S17 from UK airports?

Anymore route speculation?

I have these in mind for easyJet:

Luton-Oslo
Luton-Kraków
Luton-Dalaman
Luton-Athens

Stansted-Paris (CDG/ORY)
Stansted-Zurich

Gatwick-Reus
Gatwick-Eindhoven
Gatwick-Warsaw

Manchester-Lanzarote
Manchester-Faro
Manchester-Rome (Fiumicino)


Feel free to share your thoughts and add any more routes you feel would be logical and viable for airlines to operate.

Avgeek1,

Food for thought there! Easyjet wont touch the Scaninavian volume routes, has never been attractive. Eastern Europe is Wizz turf and Ryanair too competing in the general London market makes the suggested route to Krakow unlikely...

They now do Southend Paris, highly unlikely they'd put an STN on aswell. They've had a very mixed relationship with ZRH, axing their operation before, and then only resuming an LGW route upon foot of Aer Lingus's entry to the market. Einhoven was one of the few Aer Lingus routes that easyJet didn't jump into, do I'm sure they've ran the rule over it.

The MAN options would sound more likely.

Turkey is expected to grow next year, so perhaps!

EasyJet play it very safe and dont take big gambles with share holders money... so if Wizz, Ryanair, Norwegian are in town, or indeed Vueling, easyJet are unlikely to open routes there ...

Have thought about Luton - Oslo, and although they have just started Luton - Stockholm, I think that one is unlikely. Krakow is well served by Katowice, and easy dropped Athens years ago as it didnt perform. Dalaman is also getting a bump next year with an extra THomson service.

China Eastern and Air China both operates CDG-PVG

In the twelve months since I wrote that comment undoubtedly things have changed.

I think your wrong if I'm honest, I do agree that easyJet are safer than airlines like Ryanair, but recently we have seen them launching operations into markets we didn't think they would. They launched Luton-Stockholm, where Norwegian are serving from LGW, British Airways & SAS from LHR & Ryanair from Stansted. They have also launch several other routes into Stockholm like Milan and Bristol & Basel have been announced. They have also launch Are Ostersund from Gatwick & Copenhagen shortly. You cannot say that easyJet won't touch Scandanvia because they have! Are Ostersund may not be a 'volume route' but Stockholm sure is with the amount of competition.

Kraków isnt even served by Wizz, and is growing significantly recently, and Krakow is served from many U.K. airports successfully and Luton is the biggest one without a Kraków link.

I do think Stansted is such a strange set up for easyJet, minimal growth has been seen and with Jet2 now at Stansted it makes easyJet more worthless. As I have said before they need to move routes like Bilbao & Asturias to Gatwick/Luton and serve Amsterdam, Belfast & Edinburgh from these bases instead of from a Stansted base.

easyJet have been slowly but surely filling the gaps at Manchester with recent additions including Paris, Milan, Kraków, Porto etc.

I'd like to see a route from Copenhagen to somewhere east of the Pennines - LBA, EMA or DSA. Currently there's only Newcastle.

I fly CPN-MAN regularly and there are always high loads on the many Easyjet /SAS flights. I think there's room for one more connection from the North. Wizz DSA-MMX might work

Stansted is more convenient than Luton for a significant amount of London. For example, there isn't a single traffic light, and rarely much delay, between Canary Wharf and the Stansted Terminal frontage. Even the road coaches from Victoria go out this way. In contrast the M1 to Luton can be quite unpredictable for journey time, and a tedious challenge to get to in the first place.

Way back when Go had a good selection of routes from Stansted they built up a significant following. I think quite a bit of it was London business traffic siphoned from Heathrow (a significant number of suits in the 7am departures), which set the BA rivalries going and eventually led to the demand for a sale. Easy never seemed to capitalise on this, and where I was making quite a bit of use of Go, and the early Easyjet operations, it has progressively fallen away.

Manston to Outer Space

Wizzair.............. predominantely Poles to KTW from LTN
Ryanair............... predominantely Poles to KTW from STN / 50-50 to Krakow
Easyjet.............. predominantely Brits to KRK from LGW

That is my experience of the routes..................... course flights never been on or friends not travelled on may be different. Love to know the real Stats.

The real issue with Ryanair routes is they can seem to get dumped arbitrarily.

I can remember when Stansted to Prestwick was 10 flights a day, albeit with a 737-200. More than one I took was 100% full. Yet that route has gone completely. I also still miss the Stansted to Tampere, Finland route, I have to drive over to Heathrow, Finnair to Helsinki, then a 2 hour drive. That always seemed pretty full as well (mostly Finns, and in fact a notable number of Russians would drive from St Petersburg for it). That's gone. Tampere, Finland's second largest city, retains two Ryanair routes a few times a week to, of all places, Bremen in Germany and Budapest in Hungary. Just can't get that logic.

But these weren't gaps, all those routes were already served ex MAN, as are the aforementioned routes to Lanzarote & Faro by every man and his dog, Rome Fiumicino up from 1 operator to 3 plus a service to Ciampino.

I did mean gaps in easyJet's Manchester network.

It is very difficult these days to launch a route in the European short haul market that is going to provide good return and loads that hasn't got another airline or more on it. easyJet have many routes out of Manchester that have many other airlines operating on them, such as Alicante which has 8 airlines operating in the summer season! Lanzarote & Faro are routes that would provide guaranteed volume especially in the summer and yield wouldn't be so bad either.