Lcy - Ncl

[Jamesair]

Having watched the success of routes from NCL to HRW/LGW and STN I can't understand why no operator has started a NCL - LCY route......anybody any ideas why not or heard any rumours of any interest in the route?

[MEFLYBE]

I really cannot understand why VLM have'nt picked up the route, a single NCL based F50 could cope with a 3 weekdaily schedule.

Regards

Mike

[Stampe]

Well guys I live 30 minutes from London City and used to regularly fly LGW -NCL with BA and still do occasionally.The road time from my front door to hotel is just under 5 hours almost exactly the air journey door to door time, so a bit of a no brainer ,no suitcases to lug around and security to negotiate.Admittedly LCY is a super little airport to fly from and hassle is kept to a minimum, but its still not got its public transport together for those not coming from central London,parking is very expensive and the rush hour around dockland has to be avoided at all costs.Under about 400 miles the car wins all ways in the Uk for me.

[Jamesair]

To Mike

I would have thought VLM would have been interested...others I have in mind are FLYBE...SCOTAIR.....BA (with its new LCY ops) or even AIR WALES...linking it with its Cardiff/Swansea ops.

Stampe

using your argument of mileage...that would rule out MAN which seems to work and LPL (just starting up)

[WHBM]

I'm 1nm north of LCY so it's even more convenient for me and I think I've got to understand some of the load characteristics of the flights.

If a destination is already well served from London (eg Manchester) then the flights seem to appeal to those mainly in the Financial industry going to the City or Canary Wharf. Only if the destination is not well served from London (eg Liverpool) do they have a broader appeal.

Placs like Manchester and Edinburgh have their own substantial financial bases and thus there is sufficient demand. Newcastle does not have this market. The best example is to look at Glasgow and Edinburgh, both equally well linked to other London airports. Glasgow is the larger market but because the financial business in Scotland is concentrated in Edinburgh, flights from the latter have always done well whereas no one has been able to make a go of LCY flights to Glasgow (not for the want of trying, BA, Scot and if I recall correctly Air UK as well).

I saw an article in a LCY publication some time ago where they had researched the employment area their pax worked in, and was surprised to see banking and finance was up at about 50% of the total.

[Jamesair]

WHBM

Thats a good point....it would also explain why Dundee seems to work although Cork didn't......although I think that had more to do with a lack of advertising of the route....most people seemed to have never even heard of JetMagic....however good it was.
Using the "badly served" theory....AirWales...Cardiff and Swansea should work.

[MerchantVenturer]

"Using the "badly served" theory....AirWales...Cardiff and Swansea should work."

One would hope so but the Swansea-Cardiff-London City (x 2 on weekdays) has been reduced to Monday, Thursday and Friday only as far as the Swansea leg is concerned.

Cardiff-London City still operates twice a day M-F, and Swansea-Cardiff-London City still operates once on Sundays.

[Jamesair]

MerchantVenturer

AirWales seem to have habit of chopping and changing routes in a very short period.....the LPL section of Plymouth - Cardiff - Liverpool - NCL didn't last long....originally the route should have continued to GLA but that never even started!

I had heard a rumour that AirWales was evaluating LCY - NCL.

[WHBM]

When the Air Wales service was first introduced it had a too late first arrival at LCY of 0935 which was unsuitabe for business traffic. Unlikely to be an LCY slot restriction as there are very few inbounds between 0900 and 0930. At least it is now 0845 arrival but it must have turned off a lot of initial interest. VLM has got this right with an 0730 first arrival for the new Liverpool service, which also allows an adequately early return flight.

I can't see Cardiff and particularly Swansea being good LCY material wth little finance traffic, short distances (the shortest LCY route), a very competitive London train service (unlike Dundee), and whose road and rail links come in to London on the right side for Heathrow.

In passing I am forever amazed at the number of pax I meet in LCY, invariably visitors to Europe, who are making a connection between a Heathrow longhaul and a LCY shorthaul flight. Met one recently, he was doing Singapore to Antwerp via LHR and LCY. As ever, VLM were having to rebook him as he had missed his connection.

[Stampe]

Lcy is a great airport which addresses many of the problems of larger airports ,recently used it for a trip to Paris using AF (actually a rather tatty Irish reg 146) still punctual good cabin crew and only about 18 pax either way.Even better AF were paying for the Lcy parking as a special promotion the saving was about £70 quid over a three day trip.I thinkLcy s main market is the finance boys and when you get to the airport apart from an exec jet it provides an unbeatable travel experience.I,m lucky my road journies can normally take place mid-day off peak I consistently manage front door Kent to hotel room(Copthorne near the airport) in Cwl in 2 hours 50 minutes.That takes some beating and I don,t get speeding tickets,as for the train well thats a joke.A recent journey to Paris showed the eurostar most expensive followed by Easyjet to Ltn and the cheapest option by far Ba from Lgw.Not the way most of the public see it sadly.

[fuzzbear01]

I feel that the introduction of the NCL-LCY route would be disasterous for any airline . The sheer monopoly presented by BA and the demographics of the area do not show enough demand for any airline such as Air Wales or VLM to start a service .
Any airline looking to start such a route should do a lot of homework to ensure they get it right .
The high tax charges at LCY would not help any airline either !