LBA - LCY when and who?

[BombardierCR7]

London City Airport have begun a feasability study as to attract an airline to operate Leeds to London City. This is obviously on the back of the successful campaign to get an LPL - LCY connection.

A big market exists between Leeds and London (see GNER rail timetable)

BMI operate 4x a day to LHR and rumours are rife that Jet2 want LBA - LGW (slot permitting)

Forerunners would be VLM for such a service as they have just go two new "customer friendly" (sarcasm appears!!) F50's one of which will do LPL-LCY. Scot Airways have also been rumoured.

So, who will have the balls to do it, JEA (now Flysomeone-else) tried it a few years ago, and pulled of it after a few weeks. From what I understand at the time the loads were good, yield developing, but financial pressures at JEA made them pull off it before the route could breathe.

Is their a market, will it work, who could do it?

Note that the LBA website does not mention anything of the aforementioned study. Maybe the management think that Jet2 will get a 733 in there!!

[682ft AMSL]

Does anyone really believe that the LBA-LCY market exists?

Does anyone really believe it doesn't exist?

1.8 million passengers on GNER between Leeds & London on what, it has to be said, is a very effective service. But 2 hours minimum to Kings Cross and then an onward journey of 30 mins plus across to Canary Wharf involving a change onto the Jubiliee line at London Bridge. Standard open ticket is £120 rtn, First Class is £180.

An air service would need to attract around 2-3% of the market and I would say at £160 - £200 rtn would prove attractive to the southbound market travelling to Canary Wharf / The City and to a northbound market for whom getting to LCY was a more attractive option than Kings Cross.

682

[HOODED]

Nice one Jenkins, but even if Suckling had the strength LBA probably wouldn't have an overnight stand for them come February! How about FlyBE with a Dash8! maybe they could reintroduce LBA as a base and use an ac that may be freed up by Jet2 taking over the Belfast route. Given their recent on time record they may as well just book their pax on Jet2 and have done with it.They put an ac in the hold the other day and then diverted it back to Belfast whilst the Jet2 snuck in on a CAT3. Oh dear are the Dash 8's not only unreliable but also not CAT3 capable.
Before anyone flames me most of the above is tongue in cheek:O

[BombardierCR7]

Plenty of room on Rw27 (or should I say stand 18) for a Do328

[Meeb]

Hooded, the Dash 8 is not Cat 3, no turbo props are I am afraid, (maybe you knew this anyway).

As for starting a service to City, Eastern have no experience of operating there but CB do, in buckets. Their EDI - LCY route is doing really well in the face of competition from BA, they have just aquired another airframe so who knows. However, they are very good at 'missing the boat', so I would be surprised if they started LBA - LCY, but by the same token, pleased for the troops who slave, oops, sorry, work for them. ;)

PS A LBA base would be very unlikey.

[682ft AMSL]

I agree. The likely contenders will be Eastern and VLM.

Eastern have the LBA base, are operating in the niche intra-UK commuter market and are operating the very same J41s that BACX used to gain certification for SZD-LCY ops. They are however unknown at the southern end and would need to incur a fair chunck of start-up advertising costs at both ends to raise awareness.

VLM on the other hand don't operate out of LBA but as one of the largest operators out of LCY, have the knowledge and marketing efficiencies that should help them to drum-up some northbound business.

From what I recall, the loads experienced by British European when they operated LBA-LCY between May & Oct 2000 were around 3,000 per month, which at the time compared favourably with the loads KLM UK achieved on their MAN-LCY operation.

That VLM have reintroduced a MAN-LCY link and have achieved considerably more success than KLM UK should therefore bode well for the chances of improved loads for a prospective LBA link. I believe the increased potential of these routes is a reflection of the increased commercial and real estate activity that has sprung up around Canary Wharf and the East End since the MAN / LBA routes were tried a few years ago.

682

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

There have been rumours of a Scot Airways EDI-LBA route knocking about for a while now, maybe they can look at continuing this on to LCY.

[WHBM]

I live about a mile from the LCY terminal (walking distance on a nice summer's morning) and thus find the various routes convenient, particularly Dublin, Edinburgh and (more recently) Manchester. Leeds wold be good too.

It's a bit of a myth that LCY only exists for the Canary Wharf market. In fact few of my fellow travellers who I chat to seem to be going to/from there. Many of those heading for Central London are making for the West End, and there are always a surprising number going to Kent, as there used to be to Essex before Stansted expanded so much. London suburbs like Enfield also feature strongly, even for those visitors (principally business travellers) who are travelling into London from elsewhere.

I'm always astounded at the number of pax who are connecting through LCY to/from Heathrow or Gatwick, and who I have to give ground travel advice to (on inwards flights) or hear tales of woe from (on outwards flights).

I've always found Scot the best airline for customer service out of there and it's a shame they have never really expanded successfully.

[SM82]

How true this is but here goes anyway i hear that Emb.135 and Emb.145's have now been certified to operate into LCY and BMI will shortly starting the route from LBA

[Meeb]

SM82, the EMB135 is certified for the steep approach needed for operations into LCY, but the 145 isn't, and never will be. As for bmi regional, well BA have started so bmi...? Maybe... :eek:

[SM82]

soz thought it was both

[Going loco]

London City Airport are compiling views on people's current travel arrangements between Leeds and London. An on-line questionaire is available at:

http://www.londoncityairport.com/

Click on the 'click here to give us your views' box on the homepage

loco

[WHBM]

Loco:

I had a look at the survey about Leeds on the LCY website, for as I describe above I would be a user of such a service.

1. It is still titled "Liverpool questionnaire" !

2. Having worked through all the questions I get a web application error right at the end which looks like a programming fault that in the comments box at the end (which says "optional"), if you do not put in comments the this program crashes and I presume the response is lost, as follows:

Error Type:
Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers (0x80004005)
[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] Field 'leeds.comments' cannot be a zero-length string.
/leeds/final.asp, line 31

Sorry, can someone at LCY please have a word with your IT people to check their work before putting it on your site.

** - Edited to add that I've now just put this message into the LCY website "contact us" e-mail facility so they can have a look at it, and I got another Microsoft failure error fro them when trying to send that e-mail !

[KAT TOO]

The wet performance out of LCY is at present limiting for the 135 and Leeds would be about the limit with a full load from a wet Runway. I understand that Jetmagic can use the (wet=dry on groved runway)rule.This is i believe approved by the Irish CAA but not for UK AOC holders, but it is within JAR.?

I can't see bmi doing anything short term on this,they still have two leased in aircraft(one wet,one dry) and only 2 135 in their fleet, one at LBA-GLA(which needs a 145) and one at Aberdeen doing (ABX-NWI) which really needs a 8 seat Citation (on a busy day!!)

Having said all that they still have 2 135's and 2 145's on firm back order, due for delivery before Xmas................but it might be xmas 2005 or 2007!!

Leeds and bmi are good partners in that they are both that slow they tend to miss the boat, but they never burn it either.

I don't mind the train, its not cheap but the is OK in first and at least you have enough room to read a broadsheet.Leeds city train station is quite smart now and LBA is fast becoming a zoo, still the enlarged business lounge looks very smart, does anyone know when it opens? and will you need to be a gold card holder or just C class ticket holder. If its open to C class i might use LBA a bit more.Last time through it was queing with Mr&Mrs Blooby and their 3 Blooby sized kids with simpsons hair cuts cussin: about Chuffin this & Chuffin that, whats chuffin anyway?!!!