Caucasus - the last European LCC frontier?

[jabird]

Looking at prices of bmi's flights to the Caucasus cities, they are absolutely outrageous!

LHR- GYD in April comes up at nearly £900 & £700 odd for EVN. Only TBS gets more reasonable at just below £400, and that must be because that is a continuation from the GYD flight, so they can't price-gouge so much for being 'direct' (or at least non-stop).

Now my gut reaction is - niche market, Baku is all about the oil, not much population, not much spare cash for tourism, not especially stable, esp Georgia.

So is there an opportunity for the LCCs? They seem to have pretty much the rest of Europe sown up, looking at the perspective of routes from the UK.

Very few places they don't go between them - ok, Easy have never made much of the Scandis, presumably because Norwegian have a similar service offering & airport usage policy. Ryanair have been late into Greece, but apart from that, they've done pretty much everywhere that's in Openskies - Luxembourg no doubt too expensive, ditto for CH.

Russia is unserved from the UK, but quite a few options from Germany etc.

Wizzair have pioneered the Balkans, so would they have looked at the Caucasus?

[davidjohnson6]

My personal opinions only...

I think a German LCC tried a route from western Germany to Tbilisi for a few years last decade. The real problems are:

1 - From the Caucasus to western Europe (i.e. where the big money is) is a long way, rather further than the average optimal distance for a profitable LCC flight. That means there needs to be a particularly good reason to fly to these destinations. Luxor as an example, has the attractions of ancient Egypt, the Red Sea offers beaches and diving on the cheap.

2 - A few years ago, I spent 2 weeks as a tourist on my own going round the Caucasus. There's not actually *that* much there to see, and promotion of the area as a tourist destination in the UK at least is poor

3 - It's not part of the EU, so traffic rights are rather limited and the standard join-the-dots route to profitability is closed off. Easyjet could fly there only from the UK and Switzerland. Ryanair can fly only from Ireland - too small a market to be worth trying. Air Berlin or Germanwings might want to give a Tbilisi - Berlin / Dusseldorf / Cologne route a go, but that's about it. Perhaps one of the Caucasus countries want to let Wizz set up a subsidiary airline similiar to the Ukraine, but would Wizz have confidence that there would be no back-room nobbling going on by a local airline ?

4 - Obvious as it is, until the Armenia - Turkey and Armenia - Azerbaijan borders reopen, or Iran becomes a friend of western Europe, Armenia will remain a backwater.

I think the Caucasus will eventually come onto the LCC map, but it'll take quite a while. Places like Tunisia, central / eastern Turkey, and the Ukraine will possibly come further up the priority list.

[jabird]

Yes, very good points, I think the distance alone is a killer.

Despite the Balkans not being EU territory either (below Slovenia / Bulgaria), they are quite a bit closer, and the Dalmatian Coast is a massive tourist draw.

If anyone was going to have a go from the UK, I'd expect Wizz to do the kind of move you suggest before Easyjet - although they've done Amman & Tel Aviv, which also pushes the boundaries of loco / A319s.

I don't think MOL could be bothered with the admin, and as you say, the route would need to be from London, not Dublin. Will be interesting to see if Ukraine opens up after the footie - but the Crimea must surely be more of a draw than Kiev or Lvov?