Has the bubble burst at Liverpool

[GOLF-INDIA BRAVO]

Just seen the pax figures for Liverpool in January 10.4% down
following on from December which was very poor are things turning very pear shaped at Liverpool?
What is happening at Easyjet are they suffering at the hands of
BMI Baby because thats the way it looks.
Liverpool is the only airport in the area that is in negative rates at present. Manchester up 14%, Leeds up 26.7%, Blackpool up 159.7%

Is it that the new brand of loco`s are eating into the likes of Easy and Ryanair or is it the location?

Golf India Bravo

[Nerik]

Things are definitely going pear shaped. We lost to Pompey yesterday and they were missing 15 players! :{

[Shed-on-a-Pole]

It looks as if Liverpool is facing a period of consolidation following their recent rapid growth, but there is no cause for them to worry at this stage. Setbacks are inevitable at any airport. Whilst the rate of growth is gone, there is no reason to suppose that passengers will desert them in any serious numbers.

Liverpool has lost afew services over recent weeks, but it has gained new ones to counterbalance these. On the deficit side, the Ryanair daily Charleroi ceased; the short-lived Air Wales Cardiff-Liverpool-Newcastle 'bus-stop' service has dropped the Liverpool call; Jetmagic disappeared from the Cork route as a consequence of it's financial failure; and BA CitiExpress will shortly terminate it's Liverpool-IOM service. A further blow has seen the mail operation reduce from around 15 departures per night to 5.

But on the plus side, Ryanair has replaced the Charleroi service with a new daily LPL-Girona; other operators have pledged to replace the LPL-IOM capacity offloaded by BACX; and, Easyjet are to launch a Berlin schedule. And we mustn't forget the nemesis route: London-LPL is back on line with a 5x weekdaily VLM service to LCY relaunched today.

So, whilst Liverpool is facing a more challenging environment than it has experienced for quite a while - not least due to the competition at MAN finally getting their act together - I wouldn't say Liverpool's bubble has burst just yet.

Regards, SHED.

[GOLF-INDIA BRAVO]

24,500 Pax drop is quite a large amount and as The Air Wales flight hardly had any pax anyway and I don`t think the Jet Magic was that well subscribed it puts an awful burden on the Ryanair
which I`m sure wasn`t full every day

Just looked at the CAA figures for November and Ryanair carried 8440 pax which equates to approx 136 pax per flight

Hope your VLM does well which I`m sure it will knowing the rail service

Golf India Bravo

[Flightmapping]

Hope your VLM does well which I`m sure it will knowing the rail service

How does LPL to LON rail service compare with MAN to LON? I know the MAN route has gone through a lot of turmoil lately, and LPL is about an extra 20 minutes, but LCY is still a fair way (or expense if doing it by taxi) from the West End compared to Euston.

I'm sure 5 rotations a day will find plenty of willing pax, but wouldn't there be a more solid market for LPL to EDI? At least from MAN you have a direct train, whereas from LPL you have to change at Preston.

[Caslance]

A 10.4% drop in PAX is no laughing matter, but let's keep things in perspective.

How do today's figures compare with Liverpool's PAX figures pre-easyJet?

[dwlpl]

Figures as asked for and some other news/information:
Jan 1997 - 31481 pax
Oct 1997 - easyJet starts flying from Liverpool
Jan 2004 - 235121 pax

For a comparison the number of weekly easyJet departures from Liverpool in Jan 2003 was 188 with seven based aircraft. The number of departures in Jan 2004 was 172 with seven based aircraft. From the start (?) of the summer schedules, easyjet is basing eight aircraft at Liverpool and will have a minimum of 195 departures (according to the current published timetable).

VLM are saying that they expect to carry 70000 passengers in its first year on the Liverpool/London City route.

The airport is due to open up its apron/terminal extension to cope with the 4.5million passengers it expects to have using the airport by 2006.

The airport is due to present to the city council some time this year its plans to take its annual throughput to 6million passengers by either extending the current terminal or to build another terminal. The recent White Paper makes mention of the airports master plan catering for 12million passengers per annum.

So although not yet in the public domain the rumours suggest that there is 'something afoot' in the plans by Peel and the plans by airlines, easyJet and others .;) , to expand the airport passenger throughput

[Ringwayman]

VLM are saying that they expect to carry 70000 passengers in its first year on the Liverpool/London City route.

Presumably that means they will be increasing frequency sometime during this year as my very quick calculation shows around 73000 seats on offer using the current schedule.

[WHBM]

Ringwayman:

I think you'll find that pax on a route are counted in each direction, where the capacity is 73,000 each way (extremely quickly 5 flights x 50 seats x 255 normal weekdays = 64,000, plus something for weekends etc), so 70,000 pax is 35,000 each way. So about a 50% load factor, spread across the day and the year, is probably about right for year 1, and typical of VLM too. Hope they get it; I'll be on it from LCY next business trip to Liverpool. Where next for them ? Leeds ?

[dwlpl]

Presumably that means they will be increasing frequency sometime during this year as my very quick calculation shows around 73000 seats on offer using the current schedule. Not even close.

50 seats per flight * 28 return flights per week * 52 weeks = 145600 seats.

[runawayedge]

Forecasting an annual load factor of 50%....not expecting to make money so.....must be some fairly empty flights....must be poor even accounting for year one