Cobalt Airlines
 

There appears to be a new 'un-official' Cypriot carrier forming under the guise of Cobalt Airlines, and appears to have obtained (or about to) an AOC. Looks to be feeding connecting passengers to the LCA hub.

From what I read they are Australian/Hong Kong-investment backed, planning to operate A320's and A330's to/from a LCA hub. Current list of destinations in today's press release mentions London, Paris, Manchester, Cardiff, Glasgow and East Midlands as the UK destinations, with numerous others in the EU to be released on 1 June. PPRuNe doesn't like external links so unfortunately I can't provide a link to the articles. The article in the Cyprus Business Mail states that their first A320 arrived in Cyprus today, and look to increase their fleet by 7 additional aircraft during 2017. Further destinations are expected to be announced in October.

They better stay clear of a Hub and Spoke operation if they want to be around for any length of time !

Indeed to choice of UK regionals suggest they want to tap the O&D villa crowds money, in the main.

Can see they have quoted the 1st June to start operations.....that's only 40+ days or so.

Does anyone know when this will all be announced officially ?

Just what the world needs, another Middle East hub (well, almost !).
I don't think Turkish or the ME3 will be panicking just yet.

First aircraft has been acquired, ex Avion Express A320, LY-VEO, nearly 21 years old ...

Aircraft reg has not yet changed, so unclear whether this will actually be owned/leased by Cobalt from its original owner, or whether Avion Express will undertake the flying ?

Quite possible, similar to what WOW Air did to begin with before securing their own AOC.

Reports on Twitter suggest that there will be an announcement of routes, schedule and a launch of their live website in the coming days.

My understanding is that air traffic to/from Cyprus is heavily centred on leisurs passengers visiting the island in the warmer months of the year.
Perhaps a bit late to be putting tickets on sale for S16 or are they targetting S17 instead ? Or are they being brave and launching into the winter ?

Their London route will be into Stansted commencing towrd the end of June, with the regions to follow.

That is also my understanding.

GLA, EMA, CWL and whatever else ex-UK will begin later than the proposed London offering. Wish them all the best with their new venture and I hope it works out for them !

Their A320 was at EMA today operating for Enter Air to Dubrovnik

Manchester was on the list so sounds like a deal with MAG if they are doing there plus STN and EMA

Ian

Where's this news of Stansted come from? Haven't seen anything on-line, Twitter, wiki etc?

When do their flights launch ? Still showing not that much on their webpage.....

pamann

One or two foreign sources are quoting Stansted... but as with every airline development, I don't like to comment too much until confirmed.

The Cobalt booking engine is now up and running, so i'm assuming they now have the license required to sell tickets. It looks quite smart !

The initial schedule looks like this:
STN - 6x weekly, although frequency does tend to change. Begins early July.
MAN - 2x weekly, Sunday and Thursday also from early July.
DUB - 2x weekly
SKG - 4x weekly
HER - 2x weekly
ATH - 2x daily. Seems to be the most served route (Quite obviously)

Considering they only have two aircraft at this moment this seems impossible so as we know a few additional aircraft are coming on-line in the coming weeks. I would have expected MAN at more than 2x weekly so perhaps with further aircraft deliveries then we will see an increased presence. Nothing loaded or even announced yet for the likes of TLV, GLA, CWL, EMA etc. but I gather they are being announced soon, and then loaded into the system.

Flights going on sale 3 weeks before flights start sounds awfully scary from a financial point of view. Yes, it may be peak summer season but if I were the CFO I'd be very worried about cashflow in those first few weeks

Edit - just noticed Cobalt have picked up the old Continental CO IATA code. Wonder what Houston thinks about this...
Edit2 - London to Cyprus in July for up to 9 people for 35 pounds per person ?!?! How on earth will they cover their costs ? Hope the people running the show have a very good understanding of yield management...

I thought the exact same David, but that has been the plan since Day One seemingly. Get flights into the system for early July, well it was originally early June.

I'm sure they'll be able to get some revenue, which given the overheads that they've had doing nothing for the last two months i'm sure they'll be glad to get some punters onto the flights at least. But yes i agree cashflow will be an issue. One can assume the Chinese backers have deep pockets.

Fleet size to increase to 7 by January 2017, with additional A320's and A319's.

Website down for me. Anyone else?

Bargain fares when the website works!