Edinburgh-3
 

Was EY AUH daily again for high summer and going back to just 5 / wk now?
EY is a bit of a mixed bag on this route with fluctuating frequencies and loads.

AUH is now 5x per week year round except August when it is daily.

July load factor was 96% and I'd expect August's to be up there too.

I don't really see how it is a mixed bag.

It's been 5 per week for over a year, same operational days every week, same aircraft at the same time every operational day. Loads are strong and there is very little disruption to their schedule. Only August brings some change in that it goes daily due to the demand.

Beijing
 

The latest I have read about Hainan to Beijing is its awaiting Chinese government approval, do we know what the expected start month could be? Any chance of a start before the end of this year?

Surely no one can answer your questions before any final approval from the Chinese government is secured and even when it has been given I think any start will be in 2018 not before the end of the year.

September up 8.4%. international still growing steadily (14%) but domestic soft, and will presumably fall further when Ryanair drop STN.

Finnair increasing from 5 per week to 9 per week.

I noticed that. I suspect they will be using Embraers rather than Airbus.

Apparently Brussels Airlines are upgrading their flights to a A319 from next Saturday.

I wonder if that’s capacity increase or just a reflection on issues they have had with the leased Cityjet Russian built aircraft. Seen a few cancellations. May be ending there Cityjet agreement. Is the schedule remaining the same?

Were the cancellations due to a/c reliability? If, so what?

I believe the SSJs are needed on thinner routes to cover RJ100 retirement and E145/Q400 leases ending, so EDI gets the A319.

Yes it’s the 100 seat E90LRs scheduled now. This looks like both a frequency increase (to with there long haul Far East operations?) as well as an increase in seats ( up from 660 p/w to 900 p/w). Positive news.....
Will the use of the E90 sacrifice any freight potential for the Far East?

Further reduction in seats to New York in S18 (following United cancelling the second daily Flight) with Norwegian reducing the Stewart route frequency from daily to 5 weekly. Providence seams to have benefited gaining the 2 extra.
We’re they not achieving decent load factors?

Pound over the dollar and last few years been a lot of over capacity over profits something has to give

I note that tomorrow will be the last Brussels Airlines flight operated by CityJet, and thus will mark an end of CityJet services at EDI after many years.

I flew on an SSJ with CityJet/Sabena to BRU and was a pleasant flight (aided by it being half empty!)
How often have SN proper (mainline) operated this route on a larger jet for any length of time?

As well as introducing the A319 the frequency seams to have dropped to twice daily and once at the weekends. Has this capacity reduction been in place for a while?

I couldnt recall the various frequency reductions for QR and EY- just to see if an obvious explanation for over 5% drop on QR and 24% drop for EY cw last year.
Fairly big drops regardless on both routes.

Etihad & Qatar
 

VickersVicount

CAA stats for September 2016 show Qatar and Etihad were daily and the latter is now 5 a week.

Qatar is still daily as far as I know and is just suffering as is BHX and MAN and it does make the Cardiff start up even more bizarre. Heathrow was the only UK airport up on Doha and it was the same in August. July was grim for BHX and MAN although EDI was up 1% but there again it was July.

How is Cardiff bizarre? It's a new market for them without any competition. Would you say that if they chose Belfast?

I think he's referring to the fact that their existing services excluding LHR are not doing too well and that it appears unusual to add a new destination which may well dilute the passenger feed to them.

Not unusual considering it's not an area covered by the ME3 and a lot of passengers in this area use its rivals at Heathrow and Gatwick.

Do we know the figures for EK at GLA over the same period?

Ought not really be diverting this thread towards Cardiff, but so far as Qatar are concerned; 1) they aren't a commercial operators in the sense that we understand it, they are the Qatari's globally "willy" that they enjoy waving. 2) there was a straight fight between BRS (a commercial company) and CWL (a state owned "willy" of the Welsh government). One could throw a limited amount of privately generated capital at wooing the airline; the other state money - and the state incentive proved more attractive.

On a level playing field logic would have given the route to BRS, but as OltonPete pointed out, it still would be an odd decision given the relative proximity of Bristol or Cardiff and their conurbations to London and Birmingham.

I suspect you may already know those figures

CAA Stats

EK GLA

JUL +10
AUG +17
SEP +12

but obviously only EK know the yield and the drops in 2016 sustained when QR & EY started at EDI.

Indeed. I suppose if the rumours about A380 intro at GLA are true, they need to build volume.

It can also be a question of choice. Not everyone from places like Cardiff and Edinburgh want to fly from London and also Qatar's passengers coming in to places like Scotland and Wales will probably prefer less stops and a more direct journey not to mention that their will be people who will travel to places like Wales and Scotland for the first time because there is a direct flight or a one stop flight rather than going via the likes of Heathrow.

Nor sure I follow the logic, if they aren't a commercial operation why would "state" money be the deciding factor?

Getting back to OltonPete's point - if your regional UK routes aren't doing well, why launch another one seems a fair point. No slur on CWL!

Anyway, to EDI...

Qatar
 

Jerry123

As SWBKCB stated it was not meant to be a slur on Cardiff, the comment would have been the same if Bristol, Belfast, Glasgow or Newcastle had been chosen at this time and I what I meant to do was highlight the timing in light of the current political situation Qatar finds itself embroiled in, as bookings have dropped significantly.

I know it has been said time and time again that we don't know what goes on behind closed doors and we haven't got a clue as to yields but a shiny new 788 with only 24 business seats and load factors between 60 and 75% doesn't sound a recipe for success and you would have thought Qatar would have avoided any further forays into the UK regional market at the present time.

Although not directly stated by ATNotts but would any other airline still be operating this route from EDI & BHX (not counting AI or PK) in similar circumstances and looking to expand?

FQTLSteve - Spot on but of course only Cardiff or Bristol would have affected BHX or similarly if Glasgow or Newcastle had been chosen in competition with Edinburgh.

As this is the EDI thread and to get it back on track (my fault if went off) what is the feeling about the Norwegian Transatlantic operation as the September figures seem a bit low despite the fact that the main holiday period was well and truly over. Have I got these load factors correct, as FR24 indicates SWF was daily, PVD 34 rotations and 26 for BDL.

Newburgh (SWF) 7207....average 120....65%
Providence (PVD) 3254...average 96......51%
Windsor Locks (BDL) 2837....average 109...59%

... mmm are they correct? Not great for a late summer month, no wonder theres been a double drop with Irish flight already!
Did wonder how these routes would fair into winter. Further adjustments to follow I suspect. Maybe a 737-7Max would have been better for capacity.

Just out of interest the Manchester flights had a B777 on many flights in summer 2016
which therefore had a lot more seats available so one explanation for the MAN drop also some pax would have connected to DUB from BHX/MAN which now has a non stop operation.

AFAIK, the Norwegian transatlantic flights are still restricted to 150 pax. If so, these load factors are not strictly correct.

The reason for the payload restriction is that the ETOPS-120 capable B73Hs don't have the range to carry a full pax load, especially westbound, and the B38Ms are not all ETOPS-120 capable yet, which means some of them need to take a longer routing over Greenland and Northern Canada.

Norwegian's transatlantic ops are being flown by a mix of aircraft with different capabilities and there are no advance guarantees of which aircraft will be available for which route so all flights have the payload restriction applied. On a day to day basis, if certain required equipment is unserviceable, ETOPS-120 aircraft will need to fly non-ETOPS routes.

When I looked last week, only two of the B38Ms (the first two to be delivered, EI-FYA and B) were flying ETOPS routings. The others were either flying non-ETOPS routings or were not being used on Transatlantic flights. I checked a seven day period for all six B38Ms so this didn't look like just a prevailing weather issue. There was a clear pattern.

Over the past seven days, one additional B38M (EI-FYE) has been flying ETOPS-120 routings most of the time.

Not all of Norwegian's B73Hs are ETOPS-120 capable. When a non-ETOPS B73H is used for a transatlantic flight, it is more likely to need to fuel stop. This happened last week, with one flight from EDI needing to stop at YUL.

Now that winter weather has arrived in northern Canada, Greenland and Iceland, non-ETOPS flights could be delayed or cancelled if the necessary diversion airports en route are unavailable.

I wonder whether Boeing is having to pay compensation to Norwegian. I presume the B38Ms were supposed to be ETOPS-120 capable by entry to service but engine problems late in the flight test programme delayed deliveries and appear to have delayed ETOPS-120 approvals of all six aircraft in the fleet. Three now appear to be operating ETOPS-120 routings.

Is it the case that individual airframes need to clock up a certain number of hours before ETOPS-120 ops can be carried out or is there another reason why individual B38Ms have not operated ETOPS-120 routings until quite some time after entry into service?

Norwegian
 

Porrohman

Thank you for the excellent summary and again another example that things are not always as they seem.

It sounds a bit of a nightmare in one sense when you are bedding in new routes and new aircraft as well as the winter weather to contend with.

I just hope Primera are taking note as my local will be getting an unproven transatlantic aircraft from next May and hopefully some lessons to be leant although one is Boeing and the other Airbus but still a new venture.

Just curious, but why is there a Jet2 flight to Krakow tomorrow morning? Presumably some kind of charter?

I would guess it is an educational trip taking schoolchildren to nearby Auschwitz concentration camp which is not to far from Krakow.

I guess you're right. It's clearly a day trip, gets back late this evening.

Porroham
 

Firstly Norwegians 738 & 7M8 deployed on the Transatlantic are 180 minutes ETOPS not 120.

There have been a number of different issues over the last 10 days that have caused some to be non ETOPS compliant, from things like APU inop, odd Maintainance msgs no real pattern.

The limit in number of seats at introduction was around 155 this is now increased to around 175, however I have seen and flown numerous sorties with 189 ( full)

A number of additional NG are being upgraded to ETOPS spec as week speak.

Thanks for clarifying EIFFS.