London City ops
 

Interesting choice of routes. It will be fascinating to see how successfully they can compete on Dublin & especially Edinburgh where competition will be fierce. Does Exeter really warrant a thrice daily service, is there that much demand?

What's the reason why they've opted to use the Q400 rather than E175?

Don't think that the 175 variant is certified for LCY ?

cs

No, only the E170 and E190 I believe

Exeter will be a tight one versus the train, in terms of time and cost.

Typical times from Paddington to Exeter with FGW are around 2 to 3 hours, with the fastest that I can see (with one stop at Reading) at 2hrs 2mins.

You need to add the best part of 45mins to that if travelling from The City/Canary Wharf, but it still looks marginal as to whether flying will actually save you any time door to door.

In terms of cost, rail fares can be anything from about £80 (cheapest off-peak return) to £230 (anytime return), and more for First Class, so it's going to be a close-run thing both time and cost-wise.

The trains are always packed though, and flying may "feel" quicker, even if it isn't.

Either the 135 or 145 is also certified as Jetmagic got it done prior to commencing LCY-ORK in 2003.

Any idea if these new services will have a BA codeshare ?


cs

Ah right, thanks for clarifying re E175, I hadn't realised that. Does its range cover the planned ski and Northern Spain routes?


I wonder, will a Q400 put them at a disadvantage especially on the routes where they face competition with carriers who use jet aircraft?


I wish Flybe well with their LCY operation. I love the airport and am all for an expansion of routes & airlines, though can't help feeling it won't be easy for them to gain a real foothold.

Flybe - 7
 

They won't be competing on the DUB route...

Flybe - 7
 

And interesting to see they priced themselves above BA on the EDI route. Brave

Whoooah that's interesting....
Dublin must surely be predicated on CityJet folding or walking away as they will have no choice but to defend home turf as if their life depended on it, which actually it may well do.
Belfast has never worked from LCY, good luck with that one, CityJet couldn't fill a Do328 last time.
Edinburgh is a BA goldmine and CityJet walked away blooded, very high proportion of silver and golds none of whom will use flybe.
Inverness is pretty seasonal but due to diluted capacity from LGW might do well in the summer. They're launching in October.
Exeter is an unknown I think.

Are they thinking that all their ex LGW customers are going to look again as I suspect most will have discovered the joys of the orange monster at Gatters or T5 at LHR by now.

This is what happens when management decides "something must be done" = "anything". Sixteen flights a day out of LCY.

Interesting..... FlyBE could have picked up the many thousands who used easyjet from SEN on the Edinburgh and Belfast routes if they'd chosen SEN above City. I'm not sure that those pax will want to travel into the smoke for those routes, especially as they will be rather more expensive because of LCY's fees.....

Punctuality
 

Despite their tag name FlyBe is (according to stats) one of the most punctual uk airlines, combining that with one of the most punctual uk airports is surely likely to improve those stats. Hopefully that will lure the passenger numbers required to make these routes sustainable :)

Can't see Cityjet going as they have being increasing the service recently however Flybe will probably have a cost advantage over the R jets Cityjet use. Will crew be based at DUB or night stopping. Not a issue as all other airports are bases.

Good luck to them, definitely interesting choice of routes.

Wonder about the competing with BA head on as BA has a share in Flybe, could BA be seeking to drop the route ?

LCY-EDI? It's one of their best performers I believe.

True but IAG has a 15% stake in it and it could suit BA to aid its profitability as a feeder airline into some of its services.

The 135 is approved for LCY; I don't believe the 145 is. IIRC that's why Jetmagic ended up with a split 135/145 fleet.

The CityJet timings on BHD-LCY last time (and I speak from rueful experience :hmm:) were more or less doomed to failure from the start, due to a lack of peak slots at LCY (harder to imagine now :cool:). From memory the peak morning flight from BHD left 45-60 minutes later than it should have done, effectively negating the whole LCY time advantage. Add to that CityJet/AF's complete lack of presence in the NI market and you had a recipe for disaster. I'm not saying flybe will have it easy, but they do have a strong market presence around Belfast and given that they will have an 0645 departure from BHD, they do have a materially better chance than CityJet ever did.

How so?

I think flybe will face heavy competition from BA's Embraers on LCY-EDI - the Embraer passenger experience is very pleasant - but IMHO the RJ85 is not that much better than the Q400 from a comfort point of view, and in many cases worse (e.g. if you end up in a middle seat).

Barling Magna said:- Interesting..... FlyBE could have picked up the many thousands who used easyjet from SEN on the Edinburgh and Belfast routes if they'd chosen SEN above City. I'm not sure that those pax will want to travel into the smoke for those routes, especially as they will be rather more expensive because of LCY's fees.....

I utterly agree with that view and taking the competition at London City into account, I am more than glad that I have not got shares in the 'new' Flybe! It's all far too risky.

I have just run the costs for Flybe on LCY-DUB on a Dash 8.

Looks like sector costs of around £4000 (assuming airport charges of £5 per pax or £10 per departing pax)

That's a break-even fare of £78 o/w including ancillary revenues at 65% break-even which would need 51 passengers per sector on average.

Not sure how this compares to CityJet (the calculator only has Flybe of the two) but my guess would be a significantly higher sector cost for the ARJ meaning many more passengers to break-even at the same fare (even if the total average seat costs are slightly lower).

With regards to the extract in the official announcement that reads 'Regional core services within the UK and from/to Ireland will be supplemented with off-peak leisure flights to selected Ski, Regional French and Northern Spanish destinations'.

I presume they plan to serve these destinations using the aircraft down time that are allocated to the core UK/Ireland routes. Are these destinations capable of being reached by a Dash 8? (with the exception of the Regional French airports) It made me wonder if they were planning to deploy the Embraer's, from memory, the official statement didn't mention the Dash 8 specifically?