Advanced rumours for new bmibaby Teesside routes

[Simon Lumley]

Advanced rumours suggest that bmibaby will launch daily services from Teesside(MME) to:

Alicante, Cork, Palma, Paris CDG and Prague

with Jersey being operated on a reduced frequency.

The Cork and Prague flights will be 'Ws' using East Midlands aircraft with the others being operated with 2 based Boeing 737-500s.

Daily services to Belfast International and Malaga will also continue throughout the summer, with Geneva being dropped.

[generallee]

This sounds like a good mix of routes to start with. Did/does baby have a problem with getting enough aircraft for s '04? (Rumours regarding route/frequency cuts).

Any ideas when the routes will be on sale?

[Eira]

The word on the street is that Baby have had problems with not having enough Aircraft or Crews to man them, hence the strange reason to drop one aircraft out of Cardiff to accommodate Teeside.
I understand that the load figures on the majority of routes out of Cardiff are excellent, thus to remove one aircraft from there must send out completely the wrong message to people.
What's going on Baby?, don't overstretch yourself !!!

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Airlines don't withdraw aircraft from profitable bases to open new bases.

Cheers

WWW

[MerchantVenturer]

Forgive a layman's interjection but excellent load figures do not always translate into excellent yields, do they?

I know that when baby started at CWL they undercut GO/EZY at BRS on some routes to the extent that some regular BRS passengers made the road journey across the Severn to fly from Wales.

I believe that EZY have recovered these pax and I do not know the seat prices that baby now charges for its routes out of CWL vis-a-vis other low cost airlines elsewhere.

I believe that someone from EZY told me on a forum that the BRS-BFS loads were not brilliant but the yields were pretty good.

I must confess that the mysteries of airline economics is sometimes slightly baffling to those outside the industry.

[generallee]

Aye, very good. Back to the routes.

Simon, is the info about the routes reliable?

I'd imagine this would be a nice xmas present for those at Durham Tees Valley :ok:

[flower]

WWW,
on this occasion I am afraid Cardiff has lost out to Teeside and the word from all the crews says it is to do with staffing and the inability to have enough aircraft to supply all the routes.
I know Baby on many routes has almost if not an 100% load factor, OK as Merchant Venturer says that does not necessarily mean profitable but apart from a couple of routes which are being dropped they are apparently doing extremely well out of Cardiff and the hope before the entry of Teeside into the Equation was to introduce a 4th Aircraft into Cardiff .
We have been told that they hope to return the third aircraft and hopefully increase the Fleet further in the future, but this is really sending out all the wrong signals.

[Frankfurt_Cowboy]

Call me a pendant (sic), but what are advanced rumours?

[mmeteesside]

Great news for Teesside!
Any ideas if the Jersey services are going to take over the current bmi regional weekend services in the summer?

mmeteesside
Scott

[LGS6753]

Frankfurt -

Advanced rumours are those that arrive before the real rumours.
Do you know nothing??

(Irony)

[babydoc]

The loads would need to be good as CWL is a relatively low yielding market.

As WWW rightly says airlines do not take out planes from a profitable base to put them somewhere else.

baby's record at CWL suggests its operations there aren't as "fantastic" as Tony Davis says in his statments to the Welsh press.

A significant number of routes have been chopped and changed since the base was established there last year. Some routes have been tried then axed and others have had some serious pruning done to them - GLA, BFS, BGY, JER, CDG etc etc. It's not that disimilar a story at EMA.

When carriers cut capacity they do so to increase yield. Baby's actions would suggest that most of their routes are delivering pretty poor or modest returns out of both CWL and EMA.

It doesn't auger well for when the discounted deal at CWL and the Welsh Assembly money runs out.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Indeed. Not wishing to crow at a competitor - nothing would suit me more than for Baby to succeed in CWL and offer a competitor employer in the local area. But. You can rustle up a 737 and a crew in a jiffy these days. If you are making good hard profit at CWL you ain't going to shout STOP - lets move you up to Teeside to open a new route.

You just aren't. Profitable routes need to be tended lovingly. Chop them and reintroduce them at your peril. But then - Sir Michael Bishop does know a wee bit more than me about running airlines so I'll wind my neck in gladly.

On the side issue of loads vs yield. Some fag packet statistics show that EZY made 52m gross off of 26m pax last year. Thats £2 yield before tax - about the profit off two cups of tea or one G&T on board...

The yield is tiny to the turnover - loads mean little.

Cheers

WWW

[Cyrano]

WWW - suspect that the £2 per pax you're referring to may be the profit margin per passenger rather than the yield. The yield is equivalent to the average ticket price and even Mr O'Leary would not be happy with a £2 average. I seem to recall EZY's average yield is somewhere in the £40 range (and Ryanair's is lower - hence their "Easyjet fares are xx% higher than ours" blather).

C.

[TwinAisle]

A few facts.....

1. bmibaby is limited to 13 aircraft by the bmi board.
2. Teesside is not going to become a good base with 1 737 based there.

From 1 and 2, it is obvious that you either give up on Teesside (embarrassing volte face for all concerned) - or you move things about to get critical mass at Teesside for their first summer season.

3. Cardiff loads are very good on the majority of routes.
4. In the low cost game, loads and yields are simply proportional.

So don't sweat about how they are doing. They will - like all lo-costs - tweak their routes. Bear in mind that they had no role models in Cardiff - doing a lo-cost in the South East is dead easy, you copy everyone else, and Bristol was just a Go copy of Stansted - Cardiff is virgin territory and a learning exercise for all concerned (and look at how Go played tunes with their routes our of BRS, as has easyJ?)

5. Cardiff needs a new road to the airport, and baby and the airport have been pushing the cretins in the assembly hard to get them to make a positive decision, rather than carrying on batting it back and forth between the Vale council, the DETR and themselves.
7. Baby needs more aircraft at Cardiff and their other bases, but Sir Michael, he say no....
8. Tony D was, in a former incarnation, the man in charge of government relations for bmi - so is well used to playing the politicians (and airline bosses?) at their own game to get what he wants.

Could it be that moving a 737 may be a political ploy?

Let's not talk baby down, boys and girls..... Tiny Tony knows what he is doing, trust me.

TA

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Hmmmm.

1. So are they not serious about becoming a major low cost carrier then?

2. So why open new bases that you know (from point 1. above) that you can't support?

3. Loads mean diddly - what the yield? Oh, we don't know because Baby is a part of a private group and the figures just aren't there.

4. Umm, hello - £9.99 for the first 5 seats but £399.00 for the last 5...

There were no role models in Bristol either. Cardiff is just a Baby copy of EMA which in turn is a copy of Go. Go started then dropped Rome and Ibiza out of Bristol. Everything else they have kept or expanded or added:

Dropped, Ibiza and Rome. Kept, expanded or added EDI, GLA, BFS, NCL, FAO, BIL, AGP, ALC, BCN, NCE, VCE, PRG, CPH, AMS, PRG.

5. Thats because it will never be built. The airport is only a few miles from the capital - it doesn't need transport links. It needs people with the money and inclination to travel on weekend breaks and own second homes. It doesn't have that.

6. Missing.

7. If your aircraft are making money then why place artificial limits on them? Oh I know - because you are not really serious about becoming a major player.

8. Tony D can be a mafia Boss for all the use it will be in getting Joe Punter into your B737 - which at the end of day - is what is needed when it comes to creating and maintaining a viable route.

So Twin Aisle, how do you like them facts?

Cheers

WWW

[TwinAisle]

WWW

1. Yes. But they have finite funds and are determined not to go down the "do it all on tick" road adopted by too many of their competitors.....

2. They can. They just need to wiggle things about a bit.

3. "Loads mean diddly" - they do in normal fare models, but they don't in the low cost world. The pricing model is different.

4. You HAVE grasped the low cost model!!

So could you have predicted which routes out of Cardiff would sell best? If so, you are wasted as a PPRUNE moderator - you could earn a serious fortune doing route planning, and the airlines would kill for you.....

5. Cardiff does need better links. As does Bristol. I am amazed that this is even arguable, personally.... any other Cardiff locals want to comment?

6. Fair cop - I can't count, it was late... no excuse!

7. See bmi's financial results..... what you ain't got, you don't spend.

8. I have more faith in TD than you do, clearly.... you sort of imply that baby run half empty out of Cardiff, which I can assure you is not true. Like all airlines, some routes do better than others, but overall, I would bet baby is committed to Cardiff. I wasn't referring to his ability to fill his aircraft (which is clearly a strength...) but more to his ability to play the long hard game with the powers that be....

TA

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Has any airline ever flourished at Cardiff?

Cheers

WWW

[flower]

Yet again a"lets knock Cardiff" post, what is it with folks that they seem to think its clever to do so.
Cardiff is a very different city today than it was 10 years ago, a vibrant exciting go getting city which requires a successful airport.
It is essential to build the M4 link from J34, it would then take minutes to arrive at the airport , unlike another airport to the west of us which takes for ever to get to.
A new terminal to cope with the increased demand will also help increase demand.
In the past maybe people could scoff at Cardiff but i think that will all change. Passenger figures have increased significantly, we are served by both Baby and Air Wales to numerous destinations.
The Welsh deserve an airport as much as any other, else wise the quickest option for us is to fly from Birmingham ( not Bristol it is quicker to get to Birmingham most of the time).
The terminal is a very different place this year than it was 15 months ago, we will succeed.
Thank you TwinAisle for explaining Baby's ridiculous decision to withdraw an Aircraft from Cardiff, lets hope Mr Davies can get things sorted with BMIs board to ensure that Baby can continue to grow at units where they are already doing well.

[MerchantVenturer]

Although this is debate has gone slightly off subject I thought I would comment on some points raised herein.

On the face of it it does seem strange that baby is apparently taking an a/c from CWL (albeit temporarily so we are told) when loads have reportedly been generally very good, The difference between yields and loads has already been talked though.

It also seems odd that BRS has pulled well away from CWL in pax number terms in the last few years given its own dreadfully disadvantaged position: poor road links, short runway; poor weather; constricted site and so on. In the 1980s and early 90s both airports were roughly the same size in passenger numbers.

Possibly a clue might lie in some figures announced last month by the BRS management. A consulting firm discovered that 54% of BRS pax are middle aged and professional (36-60 years) with 76% of this group being ABC1 socio economic grouping. Perhaps this type of person is prepared to pay more for 'low cost' flights, thus improving the yield. They are also more likely to have second homes abroad.

Furthermore, 50% of BRS's 4 million passengers live within one hour's drive of the airport with another 14% coming from South Wales and 12% from Devon and Cornwall. This is over half a million South Wales-based people using Bristol Airport.

I know some people from Bristol use Cardiff Airport and also Birmingham which is sometimes easier to reach from the northern side of the city, and it also has routes that Bristol doesn't have, but I don't know how many Bristol area people use CWL and BHX.

Given the government's projected figures I don't see either CWL or BRS stagnating in the years ahead, despite relatively poor road and rail communication links to both airports, especially BRS.

[LGS6753]

The reason for the relative success of BRS vis-a-vis CWL is the affluence of its catchment area.

Bristol has become a very successful finance and media-orientated city, and both those sectors are high-income.
Just to the NE is Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds - where house prices are high, there are lots of affluent retirees (with money, time and the inherited belief that flying ought to be more expensive than this), and where many Londoners have second homes.
South is Somerset/Dorset, could be described as 'Cotswolds-lite' in terms of rural affluence.
Bristol is the closest airport for all these areas notwithstanding poor road links, and few would consider Cardiff second-closest - people would opt for BHX or LHR in preference.

Contrast Cardiff/South Wales: still a lot of industrial decay, but with some grant-induced inward investment which provides low-paid manufacturing jobs. Other than small pockets, no seriously affluent areas, no aspirational areas (except Cardiff Docklands).
If the flight's not available from CWL, options are BRS and BHX. For those north of the Heads of the Valleys, BHX is probably as accessible.

I see more success for BRS in the future. The only hope CWL has is if Wales becomes independent with Cardiff it's capital. Now there's a thought....

[flower]

There is no doubt that catchment area has a major impact on the limited growth of Cardiff in comparison to Bristol. However I do not believe that is the only reason for Bristols extensive growth over the last 5 years.
Bristol airport must have employed lobbyists to gain all the advantages they have done , and i congratulate them for it. I too am glad to see the growth and success of Bristol I do however wish to see the same thing happen this side of the Severn estuary.
There are more affluent areas in South Wales than simply Cardiff Bay , and the low cost market has tapped into a market that previously travelled to Birmingham.
The Welsh Assembly Government however needs to get off its backside and do something about the transport Links to the Airport , they have dithered and dithered over the new road, the link will seriously reduce the travelling time to the airport and will potentially enable Cardiff to tap into markets previously unthinkable to us.
Baby I am assured intend to increase the Aircraft capacity as soon as they are able to source more aircraft again ( BMI haven't taken so gladly to the success that is Baby by all accounts)
Maybe with Baby reducing their fleet this summer the WAG may finally realise they have to do something and soon.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

The nail has been squarely hit on the head. South Wales is a poor area.

You need lots of businessmen on domestics and lots of second home in the sun owners on the Med runs to make a really good low cost airline base. Bristol has both in abundance whilst Cardiff does not.

Its not the fault of the Welsh assembley nor the managers at either airport.

It doesn't matter a jot about what the last 15 miles of road is like to either airport either. Battling your way into Heathrow or Gatwick is often misery and even if the motorways are flowing you are still going to end up in car park Z5 miles from the terminal - unlike BRS and CWL.

I can't see how anyone other than members of BMI Ops planning dept can say that this aircraft/route withdrawel is either temporary or caused by a 'lack' of aircraft available. Doesn't make sense - sorry. If the route makes money why annoy all its users by withdrawing it for a while? If you really need another aircraft then there are plenty of pilots in the group available and the leases on B737-300s are on the floor with aircraft - available tomorrow - currently parked in Bournemouth....

Cheers

WWW

[Uncle Monty]

Low cost airlines have taken a lot of the cost out of the business, however they haven't changed the fundamentals that much.

There are some routes from some bases that simply won't take or sustain a 737 type operation.

This is very much a case of first to market gets the best and most profitable bases and routes. By the time baby got going ezy/Go and FR had cornered off the best routes from the best bases - DUB, STN, LTN, LGW, EDI, GLA, BRS, BFS, NCL, PIK, LPL etc.

Where did that leave - CWL, MME (both low yeilding), EMA (up against ezy) and MAN (which is swimming with charter alternatives).

Oh and the established operators also have a significant number of European bases to make money on when the going gets tough in the UK.

MOL thinks there will only be two big low cost carriers in Europe in the longer term. I'm with him on this one.

[LGS6753]

What intrigues me is the statement that BMI won't allow baby more than 13 737s.
If it's a success, it needs as many as it can cope with.
If it's losing shed loads of cash, it needs to be constrained.
With 13 aircraft, baby is a significant size for a UK airline. If it's profitable, or moving that way, Sir MB will want to invest in its future success. If it shows no sign of long term profitability, it should close. There's not much ground in between, so can someone say why it is being limited?

[TwinAisle]

In reply to LGS6753 - the answer is politics. You are exactly right; if baby is a success, let it grow, else can it. For the record, baby is doing remarkably well financially, but there are some political reasons being mooted at Donington Hall that suggest common sense is out the window for a bit.....

Uncle Monty - firstly, you have missed the point about low costs. They grow markets. If you had tried to convince anyone at STN five years ago that they would be putting a zillion people through Hahn, or Baden-Baden, or any of a dozen others, you'd have been sectioned under the mental health act. But they do. CWL and MME are still building; markets are being grown here. And as for "CWL, MME (both low yeilding)" - nope, wrong. Well, no more low yielding than most other loco bases - the nature of the game is low yield but high volume - that's the point!

WWW - South Wales "poor"??? I will grant you, pockets of it are less affluent, much like pockets of Bristol (bet YOU don't live in St Pauls...) - but, amazing as it may seem, we don't all work down the pit, or in the steelworks, or down the docks. We don't all live in 2up 2down hovels clinging to the side of a derelict valley. Many of us live very nicely thank you, and we may earn a bit less than those lucky bods in the South East of England, but then, I don't get raped for £1.000 council tax on a shoebox either (£340 for my band E, thank you, right in Cardiff Bay, cinema and restaurants at the end of my road). And remember, the whole point of low cost is that it allows the less affluent to travel - accountants, bankers and 737 skippers can sit and sip their champagne in BA lounges, the rest of us can travel with baby et al.

Must dash. Got the pawnbroker dropping by so that I can flog my first-born for a fiver to feed the meter.

TA

Just a thought, www .... has your employer managed to start selling next summer's timetable yet? Baby's getting one hell of a march on you, aren't they? Tony must be laughing himself sore at Uncle R..... Now that would have nothing to do with your baby-battering would it, www??

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

South Wales is a poor area subject to EU funding for deprived regions. I'm not knocking the fact, I was born and bred in Mid Wales which is even poorer.

Air travel is hugely discretionary. You don't NEED to take city breaks and you don't NEED a second home. Two significant sources of no frills customers. And to answer your question, yes, EZY Bristols summer programme is now on sale - including this years additional routes of Copenhagen, Bibao and Amersterdam.

Cheers,

WWW

[Hand Shandy]

Here`s a rumour circulating CWL . SWS is to shut in the new year , 6G will move to CWL and code share BMI`s internal routes now they have`nt got the capacity to cover with 2 73`s

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Forgive my ignorance but what is SWS and 6G?

Cheers

WWW

ps epic thread wander.

[Tom the Tenor]

SWS is Swansea and 6G is Air Wales.

Up Swansea, Up Air Wales and Up Cork which is a happy recipient of flights from both Air Wales and bmi baby. Baby is transforming a lot of flights at Cork with services to MAN, EMA, CWL and hopefully some time next year MME.

A serious question I have for EZY is how well have they studied the chances of a flight from LGW to ORK? In it's last year of operation BA City Flyer flew 160,000 pax between LGW and Cork. Surely, surely there is good business for a good operator to be had on LGW-ORK?? :8

[le loup garou]

Hand Shandy,

That's a good one :} :} I haven't laughed so much for ages.

Go on tell us another.

[Hand Shandy]

i know , but i did hear it from two sources, so as rumours go it must be fact eh!

[onion]

are baby eva going 2 announce the routes or as some suspect pull out all together, as they said december 4 the announcement and it's getting late.

[Maxrev]

As someone who's lived in Cardiff and Bristol I'd like to just add that if you want to see decay, despair and abject poverty then have a wander round most of Bristol City!

There are scarier people, places and sights in that city than I ever saw in Cardiff! Beggars on the street everywhere, ghettos, drug related shootings an everyday occurence..Bristol's an overrated, overpriced dump IMHO.

Cardiff's taken enormous strides forward in the last ten years and is now as cosmopolitan as Bristol thinks it is.

:ok:

[MerchantVenturer]

Like most large British cities Bristol has areas of deprivation. It also has a drugs problem, again it is not alone in this. However, to say there are daily drug-related shootings is absurd. The problem of on-street drug dealing is largely confined to areas of the inner city.

Bristol has a larger population than Cardiff, much larger if the two conurbations are compared, therefore one might expect to see more social problems. Equally, there is more prosperity.

There are beggars on the streets in the central areas but his is because they see Bristol as an affluent city with plenty of pickings for them.

The late Sir John Betjeman called Bristol his favourite English city, and the architecture that gave rise to these remarks is still there. He was not a bad judge and I would take his opinion on such matters before yours.

Bristol is cosmopolitan and vibrant as witnessed by the opinions of many outside commentators, but so is Cardiff, and the two are not mutually exclusive.

I have lived in Bristol for forty years.

Merry Christmas.

[Caslance]

I visit Bristol quite often on business and I like the place, especially the Old City.

Horts, on Broad Street, is a bloody good pub as is the Royal Oak near the Holiday Inn. I've found it to be an eminently walkable city, and have never felt threatened at any time.

Cardiff, however.........:ooh:

[Lite]

I really think someone ought to talk Sir MB into adding some extra aircraft to the bmibaby fleet, because unlike the case with Air Canada, whose low cost airline zip is restricted to 20 Boeing 737-200s by unions, it doesnt seem to be a problem to expand the airline.

To try and stretch 13 aircraft across 4 bases and to try and consider the airline as a growing and major low-cost-airline is just plane stupid.

I would say to let it have at least 20, and to standardise on the -300 series.

[TwinAisle]

Re: Cardiff v Bristol... is there an argument here? Both cities have some issues, both have many good points. Both have areas I wouldn't walk around in the daytime, let alone in the dark. Both have room for a sizeable lo-cost airline IMHO.... no-one will win if it does so merely by rubbishing the other!

As for Lite's point - YES baby must be allowed to grow up into more than 13 aircraft.... but as I said in an earlier post, the issue at Donington is not one of common sense.... if you have a "lo cost is where we dump our weak routes and aircraft we don't particularly want on mainline, and we'll give them a bit of head but not much" argument, then you would have to feel pretty miffed if the "runt" airline starts making more money than all your established bits put together - and pretty miffed with the whizz kid who is making it all work in the black...

I would hate to think this is true, and the green-eyed beast of EMA is plotting anyone's downfall.... but jealousy is a cruel and selfish monster, and if it struck here, then the industry as a whole would be a poorer place. C'mon bmi board and Sir M - give Tiny Tony a break and let him do what you pay him to do - build a bigger airline with more bases, planes and customers! Four bases is indeed sustainable with the current route structure, but with 13 a/c it's going to be hellishly tight.... definately need some ATRs from January (as Hand Shandy alluded to)....

I think we could be in for seeing something pretty good from both CWL and BRS....

TA