Quite legitimate I think you'll find, as whilst you and I might know that it has to be LGW for UVF, the original comment suggested that not everyone does ;-)

Indeed. I thought it said LHR on the Virgin route. Just goes to show, even if you are familiar with the industry you can still get caught out. :ouch:

AA to Philadelphia
 

Thought I would offer my recent experience as it seems topical to the recent AA debate

Used the MAN - Philly flight to transit to and from Jamaica last week, it was full up front on both flights and appeared to be full down the back as well. Great flights and service, (actually quite surprised because Im probably a little spoilt by Emirates regular use). The only downside is the clearing immigration, baggage recheck and then backtracking through immigration again, both transits at Philly were really tight because of this. Not really ideal especially if your a bit on the wrong side of 60 or trailing young kids !

The MAN T3 experience was without fault although there wasnt many other flights around at the time !

You do realise VS have A350-1000's on order that will replace the 747's within the next few years?

yes, but that's a few years away, so in the meantime.......

Obviously that's a couple of years away and by the way there was no need for a question mark at the end of your sentence because you wasn't actually asking a question you were explaining so an explanation mark is more appropriate.

Well it is that time of the year and I thought that you would appreciate a few "heads up". You will have to bear with me if I am on occasions being slightly vague, but the information has only just been released and I prefer to keep some of the confidentiality in which the data is supplied.

We know that the demise of Monarch has resulted in the loss of 9 based aircraft. I am led to believe that between them EasyJet, Jet2, Ryanair and Thomas Cook and a certain Spanish carrier are looking to increase the number of based aircraft by 16 or more. That gives a nett increase of 7.

On the trans-Atlantic routes there is confirmation of the loss of AA on JFK and the reduced ORD service. VS to ATL and JFK remain a mixture of A330/B747 and there appears to be an increase in MCO that is offset by a reduction on LAS.

Keep an eye on both India and also increases on China and Pakistan routes/services.

Have a good evening.

Variety is the spice of life, isn't it Scottie dog (also Roverman will see what I did there haha).

Looks like Spice Jet then ?

I don't think any future announcement regarding possible Indian routes will involve Spicejet.

Spicejet have recently made an announcement that for now any thoughts of long haul expansion to Europe is of the cards and the airline will concentrate on their core markets and expansion going east rather than west.

There was an article that covered the announcement on ch.avation a couple of weeks ago.

Vistara on the other hand still intend on long haul expansion to Europe which more than likely will include the United Kingdom.

I'm not doubting the "aspiration" but is 16 at one airport in isolation from others actually plausible ?

Would those same airlines not be also looking to put a similar number into eg Birmingham or some frames into say Leeds ?

OR is Manchester soaking up that capacity ?

If it's true re Manchester then surely there must be increases elsewhere.

On that basis where on earth do 50 / 60 737 A320s suddenly materialise?

Monarch, Air Berlin to name 2 that have a lot of frames sat around

2018
 

Today's Thomas Cook results advise that U.K. margins are under pressure. Dart Group results show flight ticket margins declining by 17%. easyJet results confirm that margins are being squeezed.
The demise of Monarch and Air Berlin should be opportunities for airlines to reduce margin pressures. It makes little sense to pile more volume into saturated markets as to do so will simply result in more failures.

Well, better tell the airlines to back off then, because if you could see what the airlines have added into the MAN systems, you'd think they have lost their minds.....

It's definitely been a tough time for airlines and margins due to over capacity. Normally you'd expect the demise of a carrier to alleviate these pressures, but what will actually happen (and as LAX_LHR points out, is already happening in MAN) is that everyone is adding capacity to grab the excess market share.

I'll bet one everything's on sale, there will be more capacity than before and again margins will be squeezed to claw that precious market share from the grasps of others

The fares are already a fair bit more next summer versus last summer.

An anecdotal example, I'm looking at an Alicante fare for a birthday party, and at the moment, it's £288 Rtn for the 2 of us in May. Last year similar dates were about £68 Rtn for 2, and we are no where near may yet.

The capacity due to come online will help bring the fares down a little, but it's interesting that a lot of the new capacity coming online isn't always going to replicate the Monarch loss. Monarch didn't serve Ponta Delgada, Tallinn or Genoa, for example.

All will be revealed in time, just because nothing has been made public, doesn't mean nothing is happening or likely to happen. Easyjet is going to be the big one to watch.

Still can’t see where a net additional 7 aircraft (and associated pax) will physically be accommodated in the midst of a major construction programme. Unless of course the freight flights, ad hoc charters, diversions etc are going to be turned away?

Customer satisfaction levels are already suffering, this will not make it any better.

They are hoping to be able to get the apron around the back of the new pier down by S18 which will provide the needed stands. There should be about 6-7 new ones which don’t impede on the pier construction.

In terms of the customer experience, will still feel a bit tight for obvious reasons but work being done to try and improve it. More security lanes, removal of shops for more seating and so on.

I assume that all these tantalising hints about additional S18 traffic come as a result of the Slot Conference which was held about 2 weeks ago.

It is a well known fact that what comes out of the slot conference, when all the airlines finally get to find out what the competition is actually planning, is often a very different animal to what actually happens at the actual start of S18 with the clock change. In practice,operations are usually some percentage points down on what comes out of the slot conference.

We will have to wait and see what happens.

But the scale of bids does show how astute MA were in challenging the Monarch slot business to ensure that potential new operations were not stymied by not being able to access slots that were never going to be used.

Not just the slot conference, other bits of information too.