Low-fares airlines

[Guinness]

Hello there

I would initially like to apologise should this post be in the wrong forum as this is my first post.

Anyhow, I have recently been looking into the low-fares airline market and have hit a stumbling point. Whilst it's obvious that the vast majority of UK low-fares airlines are concentrated in the London area (particularly Stansted), very few have hubs in other parts of the country. The obvious exception is Easyjet, who have created a growing mini-hub at Liverpool and Ryanair, who serve numerious UK regional airports from Dublin. Why haven't other airlines, for example GO, created a Northern hub? What would be the most appropriate airport in order to serve the North? Manchester perhaps? or Liverpool in competition with Ryanair on particular routes? What routings would be most appropriate from such a hub? Help.

Also, does anyone have any idea of possible new routings from London, which a low-fares airline could serve?

Many thanks for your help :)

Guinness.

PS. Does anyone know if a 737 can operate into Florence, Italy?

[Hamrah]

Guiness (excellent name)

The low-cost market is not as straightforward as your question makes out.

For example, Ryanair have staked their sector of the market by operating from large Population centres (Dublin and London) to smaller airports, some close to major cities others that are marketable. easyJet and Go, on the other hand, have initially concentrated on the SE UK market to major destinations. The imporant part is to anchor part of your network at major population centres.

The second factor is to produce a product that fits the market. Again Ryanair, because they have extremely low costs at some of their European airports (Hahn for example) can pitch their fares at the leisure market, but stand little chance of attracting business traffic on such routes. Go and easyJet have gone for Bigger airports in an attempt to capture some of the business traffic.

Now it is not all as black and white as that, but , initially you need a good population catchment area at either or both ends of your route.

Once established, both easyJet and Ryanair have ventored further afield to build their business. Ryanair to Scotland, easyJet to Liverpool. Go will probably follow suit next year with a UK base. But these bases cannot support the level of services that Low cost airlines usually like to put in place, namely 2 or 3 rotations per day to the main destinations. So the growth potential from Liverpool, for example, is limited.

The real growth area is Europe. At the moment, the percentage of passengers in the low cost sector in Europe is around 4%. In the US , it's around 15%. The predicition for Europe over the next five years is 12%. As low cost airlines are at the moment restricted to UK and Irish operators, this offers huge potential.

I see a carve up of the UK in terms of bases for the low-cost carriers, followed by a similar carve up of Europe. Already Ryanair are looking at a German or Scandinavian base. easyJet are starting in Amsterdam and are already in Geneva. Go are evaluating a number of European bases.

So, to answer your question, you will see some growth of low-cost carriers into the northern part of the UK, but of a limited nature. Manchester would be too expensive for a second base.

H

[arrow2]

Hamrah, you say :-

"As low cost airlines are at the moment restricted to UK and Irish operators, this offers huge potential"

Do you believe that potential Continental European operators are dying to get into the market? If they are, but regulatory issues are preventing them (I presume from your comment that this is the case) then there must be a huge market opportunity for your airline and other operators. How long do you think you have??

arrow2

[Buzzoff]

Hamrah says it all.

Regarding the 737 into FLR, if they haven't lengthened the runway since I was last there in 1992, then no - it's too short and had, then, a tiny apron which was full with a couple of 146es and an ATR.

[Puritan]

I think he means restricted as in nobody else in the EU is really into 'low cost' in the way that the UK and EI are.