Fly Atlantic
 

From Travelomole:New airline Fly Atlantic plans to launch transatlantic flights at Belfast International Airport.

The startup wants to fly to the US and Canada, as well as short haul European destinations from summer 2024.

It still has to gain a licence and secure aircraft.

It plans to generate 1,000 jobs over the first five years.

Fly Atlantic aims to make Belfast a new hub linking Europe with North America.

It would initially operate six aircraft under current plans.

Chief executive Andrew Pyne said: “The lack of direct transatlantic air services has clearly been an impediment to Northern Ireland.”

“We already have offices at the airport and will now be building out the infrastructure.”

There has been a rash of potential new long haul start ups over the last couple of years, precisely none of which has yet carried so much as a single passenger, or a single kg of freight under their own AOC. You've got a pretty FlyPop A330 possibly still running around operating adhoc charters using a Portuguese AOC, Hans Airways with an A330 on the UK register, currently growing roots on BHX ramp and the mob (who's name escapes me) planning to operating to the Sub Continent from LBA that has no aircraft, no AOC and I believe has no sunk without trace and now a potential operator from BFS to North America. On the cargo front there is One Air, who's 747F is still operating non-revenue flights.

If Fly Atlantic get further than a website then I will be surprised, but I don't think I'd be giving up a decent job with a regular salary to chance my arm with them as it stands.

It would be a very pleasant surprise were it to come to fruition!

Apparently theres to be no negativity towards this venture.. Though negativity seems to being confused with realism.
I just can’t believe people are taking this seriously. 8 aircraft to 16 destinations…really?! Even well established well funded VS etc don’t offer that from eg MAN.
I’ll bank this thread for 2024… BTW.. anyone seen or heard from ‘Odyssey Airlines’ ?

If this does see the light of day I'd expect it to resemble what PLAY from KEF is like.

I don't think its totally out of the question it could work. If the price model is right combined with the ease of connecting at a smaller airport as opposed to the usual mega hubs, it'll have some appeal. BFS is decently placed too as opposed to say hopping back to the European mainland. TATL travel from the regions has taken a fair beating the last few years and I don't think its as simple to say that when these routes stopped then people were suddenly no longer interested in travelling to the US or Canada from the likes of Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Newcastle etc. That market is less saturated than it once was.

Good luck to them it won't be easy.

Looking at MAX or Neo.

Check Chief executive Andrew Pyne on Linkedin

There's a few pretty (un) successful airlines on that CV.

Reminds me a bit of Satnam Saini, former CEO of Hans Airways who's "successful" ventures in the airline industry number a couple of short lived charter ops to India largely flogged to niche travel agents in Leicester and Birmingham.

I can never get my head round the number of people who are willing to burn huge sums of cash to try to get these pipe dream airlines off the ground. They’re either so wealthy that it doesn’t bother them or so naïve as regards the industry procedures and hurdles to new start airlines that it’s quite scary.

what’s the old saying again? Fools and money being easily parted………..

That's exactly the plan - create a PLAY rival hubbed out of BFS instead of Iceland. From there they can offer connections between North America and Europe. If you look a little closer, the person behind the airline is a former manager at WOW, so they have some experience of this particular business model, and have a good idea of what works and what doesnt.

On one hand BFS is exempt (currently) from APD, so that should help them undercut everyone else, but on the other hand there's not a lot of base demand. United failed to make BFS work. Ideally you need a decent base demand, then fillt he rest of the aircraft with transfers. It sounds like this operation might end up being entirely transfers. I wonder if they may have been better off at GLA/MAN or somewhere that they can get a bit more base demand too?

BFS may be exempt from APD, but assuming the whole premise of this model is to funnel connections from elsewhere, if they intend to operate flights from other parts of the UK into BFS to connect onwards to north America, you still have to pay APD if you're travelling, say, EMA-BFS-NYC.

APD only really helps the local Northern Ireland market - but then it is up against Dublin where there's no APD either, but a significantly greater choice of routes and carriers.

Who controls APD from Northern Ireland airports ? Govt in NI (ie formally devolved matter), or Govt in Westminster ?
Is there any potential for HM Treasury to raise APD in NI to some non-zero value if there are large numbers of people flying from London to NYC via BFS ?