UK Routes Summer 2007

[OltonPete]

Now that United has won the right to fly to China ahead of CO and others
there is speculation that certain European services will see some changes.

Apparently CO will have two 777's to allocate due to the China decision
and this might feed further down the line to some of the UK routes.

One suggestion was reverting Manchester to a single 777 thus freeing
two 757's for new routes. Other suggestions mention athat a couple of 764 routes could get changed to 777's and thus releasing the 764 for MAN, BHX or Belfast for the summer.

My interest is with BHX, having suffered a recent downgrade for
next summer to one 757 a day, is there any chance of a late upgrade?

Anybody out there with any ideas?

OP

[johnrizzo2000]

They will more than likely start a new route to India with the 777's that are going to be delivered. MAD, MAN then DUB are in line for an aircraft upgrade in that order, should they decide to do so. BHX didnt perform well with 2 757's, so a 767 wont happen. BFS is still a new route, but maybe additional frequenices could happen!:ok:

[OltonPete]

Cheers for the info.

The regions have not done that well thus far for summer 2007 in respect
of the USA especially considering the exchange rate.

It has been mentioned that CO reduced BHX to once a day as they
got wind of another US service starting in 2007. Although these were
rumours & they were nothing more than that but once a day is harsh
and it does not explain why they were selling it as twice a day to
start with.

Also by the time this was in the reservation systems they must
have known the summer 2006 yields. I checked myself and it was
definitely in as twice daily in 2006 for a while.

As for Manchester, would any widebody result in the loss of one of
the 757 services?

Is Newcastle in the frame as well (I note the recent post on the
Newcastle thread) or will any new services be heading for France?

OP

[johnrizzo2000]

BHX wont go back to twice daily. Some days they filled both flights, but yeilds were poor. I was surprised with CO being the only carrier flying scheduled flights to the USA from BHX, that 2 daily didnt work, but obviously the demand wasnt there!! Plus, they need the 757's for other routes.

Manchester to Newark with a widebody is interesting, because apparently, a lot of people like the flexibility of their early morning flight 21, and then a later flight 101 to EWR. So, who knows? Manchester is after Madrid for an aircraft upgrade.

When AA cancelled the planned Newcastle service, I remember the airport authority saying it was still in talks with CO. We should find out in the next few weeks. I think a NCL to EWR route would perform very well!!!

Either way, we should get a new EWR to India route!