Liverpool-London air service

[Luke Mc]

Hello
LPL is the fastest growing regional airport in the country so I think it is appropriate that it should have a link with one of Londons major airports, LHR or LGW. Are any airlines planning such a link, previous attempts at such a service where fruitless due to slot unavadibility, but now LBA as getting its LGW service back with BRAL what not LPL get its london route back? Do you think BD (which used to fly LPL-LHY, JY or BRAL would start such a service), or any other airline?
Luke

[Justin A Beaver]

According to those who know these things, Air Wales will start a Liverpool-Luton opertion with Dornier 228's (Yerr sure)!

Now if I was a betting man, should easyJet and TBI conclude a pricing structure for the Luton operation, then this route would then become orange once more?

Word on the street though is that both parties are miles apart. TBI must pay Luton Council around £1.50 for each passenger (Arr and Dep)!, TBI can only charge for the outbound passenger, so must charge at least £3 before costs and profit are taken itno consideration!

Representations have been made to the Council who are reportedly un-willing to reduce its income (According to sources local, they received £9 million last year)!

So Luton is making a HUGE profit, but not for its operators!

According to another source, a certain Irish Low-cost offered to base 5-737's and fly to 10 new destinations paying TBI 50p per dept pax! Nedless to say.........

[SpanishFly]

Luke McDonnell

"Are any airlines planning such a link (LPL LHR/LGW)"?
With MAN just thirty miles up the motorway and both BA and BD operating from there, not in the foreseable future i'm afraid. However, rumour has it plans are underway, by John Prescott et al, to introduce a policy, for air routes and slots at major airports, of "Use It or Lose It". This may the best chance of airports like LPL of re-establishing the capitol link.

It is most unlikely that a low-cost airline would pay the landing fees, at Heathrow, for a LPL-LHR connection. This is another example of the airlines telling the public where, when and how they will fly them. Arrogant to say the least.

[dwlpl]

Not so long ago, within the last two years, a committee, headed by Gwyneth Dunwoody, looked into regional air services into the main London airports from the UK regions.

One of the ways they had thought of to get around the problem of routes/slots etc was to give the air link rights to the city or town that wished to have the London link. I think that this would be a great idea as the airlines tend to reduce or drop routes, once they had gained a foothold, and replace them with links to Europe etc

[SpanishFly]

dwlpl

"Give the air (slots/routes) to a city". What a brilliant idea. Airlines, whether the sched, charter or low-costs have been notoriously cavalier in their handling of slots at our two major airports, in effect, holding the flying public of places like Merseyside, to ransom.

[Capt PPRuNe]

I remember quite a few years ago when I was working for a company trying to set up a Liverpool-London airline that research we carried out chowed that when British Midland pulled out of the LPL-LHR route they were making a profit. What happened was a simple fact of economics. The LHR slots used for the LPL flights were used instead for their BRU flights as these flights were even more profitable.

Love the idea of slot allocation for regional city flights though!

[Bono Vox]

ok cap, let us all in on it! how do we get a groovy graphic to go with our id? mine could be "fly" shades!

[Gaza]

A few tears ago there was a suggestion to use Northolt as a "feeder" for LHR. Idea was domestics would land there and a "high speed link" (never found out what they meant by that) would take PAX to LHR for onward connections. Never heard of it again. Wonder why? ;) ;) ;)