Another new Low Cost . . 'Hop' comes to Scotland

[Spartacan]

The bandwagon continues. This weeks new airlline is called 'HOP' and plans low cost services with 3 Airbuses from Scotland:

http://business.scotsman.com/paperboy.cfm?id=91772004

Go, Buzz, Now, Baby, easy, Ryan, Mytravel lite, Jet2, Flyglobespan, Flybe. Britannia Express . . .

Call me a cynical old git but is the market not getting a little too crowded for another player?

[Sonic Bam]

Reading the press report, I don't think they have done there business research too well if they think they are going to operate an Airbus in/out of DND at some point.

Good luck to them though.

[GOLF-INDIA BRAVO]

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=116702

[Nil further]

Same story in Sunday Times today , however gives base as a London Airport and mentions 10 x ATR72 . seems more like it .
Sorry i dont have a web link

Regards
NF.

[Beyond]

Arent ATR a subsid of airbus - sounds like a mixed up journo to me - cheap flights from Dundee to say Luton - would go down a storm. I think they are specialist domestic.

[Whispering Giant]

Article appeared in both the Time's and The Sunday Express in their respective business section's. The article mentioned that they were going to operate ATR72's and within 5 year's be operating a fleet of 30 aircraft operating to places Like Oxford Kidlington !!! and other smaller regional airfields. The article also mentioned that they would'nt be operating out of any of the major London airport's like LTN/STN/LGW/LHR but would consider some of the smaller one's as they did not want to appear to be going head to head with the other lo-cost carrier's.
The operation will operate like a bus service connecting smaller regional airport's. The airline is being headed up by a former director of GO and they are currently seking investment from investment group'd and wealthy individual's.


I wonder in anything will ever come of it - or if it will just be another paper airline.

W.G.

[avoman]

Another paper airline? Maybe. But Tony Comacho and Keith Luxton at least were involved with real and successful airlines. Surely they are serious.
Plenty of competition from other airlines has already been mentioned. They will be aware of that. However the competition from sclerotic road and rail is hardly terrifying is it? About the easiest opponents one could wish for.
It is my belief that the market can expand to accomodate all these and more carriers which are proper low cost operations. Long term the demand is unlimited. Everyone wants to travel more if the price is right. Fly across the country for lunch if it is convenient and cheap enough. Just look at the growth in road traffic in the last fifty years. Beyond all projections. Good luck!

[P.Pilcher]

And according to their Chief Exec on the news recently, he claimed that because sector times are so short the company would be able to increase A/C utilisation by a further 20% over other carriers so making his project viable. Ho for an 8 sector day or a 10 sector day ... wait a moment while I consult my copy of the revised CAP 371!

P.P.

[homelesssid]

A carrier using small twin prop aircraft for UK domestic flights, based in Cambridge.... wasn’t this done a long time ago with Scotairways (Suckling). And still doing well to this day…:confused:

[M.85]

ATR into Oxford Kiddlington airport:rolleyes: :confused:

Unless BAA have decided to pay for an ILS there i doubt any commercial airliners will be able to operate out of there unless the taxiways are enlarged and the Ndb minima are lowered..

M.85

[leonbrumsack]

has anbody else noticed how certain people here appear to have REAL difficulties with their punctuation? Surely it can't really be all that difficult, can it?!

:confused:

[Finbarr]

Couldn't agree more! What is WG going on about above - The Time's - what next?

[leonbrumsack]

As a student of English Language, I'd actually be very interested in discovering what decisions WG makes regarding where to place apostrophes. Much as I've tried, I've not yet been able to discover WG's logic!

[martin_EGTK]

The ATR 72 could easily operate into Oxford, we've got a decent length runway, reasonably wide taxiways that manage to cope with the odd ERJ 135 and even BAe 146, so I don't see why we couldn't get the ATR 42/72s in here.

[Oscar Duece]

So is this a real thing or another paper airline, fuelled by dreams and some form a development grant, ie- now.

Surely if they won't touch the big London sites, the main customer base will be leisure travel, aka low yeild.

I know we think our roads are poor, but we are a small island and have plenty of roads. For most inter UK holiday travel, we use our cars. I'm sure the idea of flying down to Newquay or up to Carlisle and the lakes or even across to Carnarfon (spelling) for a long weekend sounds great. But when we get there we all need a car to get around and don't want to fork out hiring one in our own country.

Just look at Air Wales, with there loads they'd be better off flying a J41. IMHO

[MARKEYD]

I SEEM TO REMEMBER SEEING A PHOTO OF A BRITANNIA 767 200 AT OXFORD WHICH HAD POSTIONED IN FOR A PHOTO SHOOT OF GRADUATING PILOTS FOR THERE AIRLINE A FEW YEARS AGO NOW

[unmanned transport]

>As a student of English Language, I'd actually be very interested in discovering what decisions WG makes regarding where to place apostrophes. Much as I've tried, I've not yet been able to discover WG's logic!<

It's just the dilution of the 'old english language' over time.

I get a kick out of you good folk by the ways in which you spell some of your words. Such as aluminium, colour etc. We have modernized it over here:) Aluminum and color sound just right, takes less time to spell and seem to be more appropriate.

What da ya all think?

[leonbrumsack]

Interesting to note that so many people still have problems with their, there and they're, as is so clearly exhibited by this thread!

[Herod]

Back to the thread. Tony Camacho is a switched-on cookie. He was one of the driving forces in buzz and, if he hadn't been restricted by those further up the chain, would probably have made it a success (which, incidentally, it was well on the way to being). Good luck to all concerned.

[Flightmapping]

..there are very few internal UK flights..

Over 300 route / airline combinations at last count. Not bad for a very small group of islands (have included Rep of Ireland in this count).

..However the competition from sclerotic road and rail is hardly terrifying is it?..

IMHO, for medium distance journeys, the trains have not only got much better in the last 5 years, they are also much more convenient.

Disclaimer before anyone thinks I'm some form of nut: I am not talking about commuter services, which still suck. I am talking about routes like LON > MAN, or BHX > EDI / GLA. Most of the trains I take these days arrive EARLY, like Ryanair - bags of room in the current timetables.

I don't see how Hop would make any money on £5 each way. MO'L talked about wanting his planes to be "like buses" years ago. Flybe already do various regional routes with very little to LON.

Hop sounds like some very recycled arguments to go round the city & nab some cash to me.

[reverserunlocked]

On the subject of punctuation and grammar, my old boss (an Aussie) had real trouble with the whole apostrophe 'S' idea.

You could always spot his memo's because they alway's contained an inordinate number of apostrophe's all over the place where they really weren't neces'sary. Idiot.

[witchdoctor]

Markeyd,

If Britania had flown a 767 into Oxford I'm pretty sure it would still be stuck in the hedge somewhere. Dunno what the distance between the main bogeys is, but the runway is only 9m wide and the taxiways probably not even that. Can't see it myself.

Bmi however, I think had a 737 make a low pass last year for the opening of the new sim block by Michael Bishop.

Back to the thread though;

Whether it happens or not, at least it gives me somewhere new to send a CV - breaks the monotony for a while at least.:O

[MerchantVenturer]

"I get a kick out of you good folk by the ways in which you spell some of your words. Such as aluminium, colour etc. We have modernized it over here Aluminum and color sound just right, takes less time to spell and seem to be more appropriate.

What da ya all think?"

unmanned transport,

You have to realise that we are just that quaint little country that happened to have invented the English language. Other countries have developed their own versions of it, including spelling.

The US writes 'modernize' yet 'rise'. The UK writes 'modernise' and 'rise'. Which is more appropriate and certainly more logical?

As to brevity, I hear Americans on television talking about transportation systems whereas over here we speak of transport systems. The UK has flats but the US calls them apartments. There are countless other examples where the UK version of a word or expression is shorter than the American, both to say and to spell.

For some of my generation in particular, the inexorable Americanisation of the English language in the UK is a matter of some sadness. The all pervading US film and television influences are the main culprits.

Have no fear. Within a generation or two we shall all be writing 'color', 'traveled', 'center' and the rest in these tiny islands: some of us because we cannot spell and others because the American way seems the best way.

I never regard etymology as being very important in forums such as this. I believe that content is what matters. In any case we all make mistakes. I know I do. If I want to read beautifully written English prose, and I do sometimes, I turn to such as the books of Patrick O'Brian.

BTW, in the quote from your post that I have copied verbatim at the beginning of this piece, isn't there a superfluous letter 's' in 'takes'?

Returning to the subject of this thread, I think it is a marvellous (sorry, marvelous) idea, but whether it is practical I leave to the opinion of people who have a greater expertise on the subject than I ever will. It seems a bit like turning the clock back to the branch line and cross country railway systems we had all those years ago. Now that was a romantic era - looking back from this distance, anyway.

[oncemorealoft]

Britannia took a 767-200 into Cranfield. It was quite interesting to say the least!

It was for a phtograph with Cabair students, I think some time around 1988.

[Deeko01]

Taxi for a couple of fannies on this thread :ok:

[LGS6753]

Britannia took a 767-200 under Marble Arch....

Just for a photo shoot, of course!

[brabazon]

Anyone remember EuroScot - didn't they operate an ATR in their dying days, having started with a 1-11? Are any ex-EuroScot's involved in Hop?

[Joe Curry]

>>Anyone remember EuroScot - didn't they operate an ATR in their dying days, having started with a 1-11? Are any ex-EuroScot's involved in Hop?<<

EuroScot Express? They flew the Scottish- Bournemouth routes that were eventually taken over by Gill Airways?

EuroScot were masterminded by Jack Romero?

[oncemorealoft]

LGS6753...very funny

But Cranfield is true - I was there, though thankfully not on the aircraft.

Somewhere there's a photo to prove it, with the 767 and (I think) a Cabair aircraft nicely refelected in a puddle on the runway!

[newscaster]

Why dont they rename it 'HOP SCOTCH', makes more sense:O

[Harry again]

He's just very free with the Greengrocer's Apostrophe (qv).

Benefitting, as I do, from a Public School education, I judge a man not only by what he says, but also how he says it.

Now, have we yet passed the point at which the majority of airline pilots in the UK have state school backgrounds? (Cat, meet the pigeons, pigeons, this is the cat...)

:O :O :O