I don't think there is, to be honest. I, and everyone else that I can see, is giving their perspective on where there might be gaps, along with the reasons why they might not be filled.

Agreed. How can we bring politics into the discussion now 😀

Well certainly some 'flights of fantasy'.

I'd like to see Lufthansa increase it's frequency. Once per day misses the opportunity for connections so no competition to BA/KL etc

Which of the examples I or anyone else have come up with would you describe as a 'flight of fantasy'?

India, Africa and China? To a lesser extent, presently scheduled USA.

I think it might be enlightening to take a look at the visitbritain/ONS stats, which are available here:

https://www.visitbritain.org/researc...trends-uk-town

....especially the "Detailed towns data 2009-2022" excel spreadsheet:

https://www.visitbritain.org/media/2...oad?attachment

For instance, if we look at the "top towns" sheet and filter for US visitors, we see that pretty consistently the 3rd most popular destination in the UK for Americans after London and Edinburgh is.....Glasgow (and not Stratford upon Avon, which is down in about 50th place! ). Yet, despite this, since covid, GLA has lost all its scheduled US flights and routes and has so far struggled to get them replaced or reinstated. So the question arises as to how NCL can expect to attract and retain regular scheduled US routes when Glasgow, a city that demonstrably has multiple times more inbound US demand, can't?

The numbers for places like China and India are similarly relatively low and illustrate that there are probably a 1 or 2 other UK airports that are going to be ahead of NCL in the queue for these type of routes.

Of course, inbound demand is only half the equation, but it's nevertheless a major consideration for airlines.

nef,

Facinating data sets, thanks for linking them.

There's a lot to take in but I think the visits data refers to overnight stays as oposed to day trips (excursions) so large cities, with more hotel accommodation will always be higher up the table than smaller towns.

I used to do survey interviews for Visit Britain that asked about visits, including day trips (not overnight stays) which would probably have raised Stratford, and probably places like Alnwick further up the table.

There are rumours circulating in the "Crew Room" that Loganair are looking at cutting their Exeter flights. Any ideas please.

Quoted from a not so reliable source. "TUI to operate a 1 X weekly flight from Newcastle to La Romana on the 787, the operation will start in December 24 and extend throughout the winter period and end in March 25"

Not entirely sure of how accurate this is as I've not seen any slots for LRM from NCL. Anyone else know about this?

Remember La Romana was pretty common from lots of the TUI bases, wonder why it went out of favour. Like Cayo Coco.. these routes/destinations come and go.

What does the airport use the Southern stand for, marked as 60-62 on google earth?

Boris.

How many were they doing for the summer season? Didn't I read it was 5 rotations per week?

Usually long stay biz-jets, especially those with a wide wing-span

Shows on the booking system as a route on the drop down but shows all gone so they are possibly still loading this. Will be great news if the route happens.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....01db641501.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9bc4a84d15.jpg

And them.

Thanks for the sensible answer. Did Jet 2 keep the 733QCs over there.
Why not the FedEx at the moment instead of a northside stand.

Fantastic if true, TUI is expanding into La Romana from December 2024, so this might just be true. There is scope for more long haul from TUI out of NCL. I would have thought that Puerto Vallarta, or more regular/scheduled services to Barbados and Montego Bay might have been more likely, but the Caribbean seems to be growing in popularity and we've been lacking a service to the DR for a while. Fingers crossed

Because freight is screened. Simples.

Pretty sure La Romana is just a one off cruise flight

What's with the sarcasm.

Think it was originally built for when the numerous mail flights used to operate?
But SWBKCB is right usually used for large biz and Samson/ military exercises over spill these days?

I think a PVR route would do well. But runway would most certainly be an issue. AC would almost certainly have to go via another station.

Good to see DR has been loaded onto the TUI site.

Is Cancun not further?

CUN is east coast Carribbean, 4500nm from NCL, PVR is west coast Pacific 5000nm from NCL. 500nm roughly speaking an extra few ton of fuel required. CUN is just doable from NCL and sometimes depending on weight and runway parameters it has to go via other stations.

Is La Romana..not in Dominican Republic? Sorry..must have wrong destination!

from 1st April one of the five daily weekday KLM flights will be operated by an EASTERN E190 a/c....arr. NCL 1310 dep NCL 1340. plus 1 on Sat and Sun. This aircraft also operates on behalf of KLM at MME.

thats not good news........................

I wonder how thats going to work with one E190 on the Humberside KLM and the other on the Teesside flight.

With a big percentage of 'connecting' passengers, 'on time' reliability will be crucial.

Something Eastern is well renowned for :E

Timings suggest a ‘W’ with the MME based machine.

Which suggests 4 x UK - AMS rotations a day on one machine. Perfectly normal for KLM but I have to say I’m nervous about punctuality and reliability. Would KLM bring in their own metal to cover for delays or are we stuck with Eastern?

Seems to be correct ....the MME flights tie in with the timings...........Humberside timings are nowhere near.. It looks like 8 sectors a day on this a/c. Plenty of scope for delays.

I have had a quick look for Monday 15th April and pieced this together, might be wrong but it was the best I could scribble together from the booking system.

Aircraft 1

0610-0810 KL970 HUY-AMS
0915-0925 KL963 AMS-MME
0955-1210 KL964 MME-AMS
1255-1310 KL957 AMS-NCL
1340-1555 KL958 NCL-AMS
1640-1650 KL965 AMS-MME
1720-1935 KL966 MME-AMS
2130-2130 KL975 AMS-HUY

Aircraft 2

0620-0840 KL961 MME-AMS
0920-0920 KL971 AMS-HUY
0950-1150 KL972 HUY-AMS
1225-1300 KL939 AMS-GLA
1335-1610 KL940 GLA-AMS
1645-1645 KL973 AMS-HUY
1715-1920 KL974 HUY-AMS
2135-2145 KL967 AMS-MME

Thanks George we didn't realise the aircraft would be flying between all four points. And a Glasgow.

I'm guessing that it's normal for a crew to end their flying shift at the same place they started it? if I'm right, then this pattern doesn't seem to work.

Appears crew will night stop in NCL and GLA by looks of it, operating 4 sector days. KLM crew would normally night stop, so possible Eastern crew will replace them.

Eastern have advertised for crew based at MME.