bmibaby Routes from MAN

[jmc_757-200]

bmibaby have announced the following routes from Manchester:

Alicante (Costa Blanca),
Malaga (Costa del Sol),
Murcia (Costa Calida),
Palma (Majorca),
Belfast Int.
and Cork.

Some good flights here i'm particulary interested in the Cork flight.

Thanks

jmc_757-200

[brabazon]

Does anyone know which of their existing routes are making money? Anyone want to guess or know what their breakeven and actual load factors are? It's easy to fill a plane with low fares, but not so easy to make money with it.

Of the passengers who currently use Liverpool and easyJet how many come from places which are closer to MAN? I guess then it's a question of fare comparison and the actual flight times and frequencies. It will interesting to see how this develops.

However, for what it's worth mine is a "Don't No" vote.

[The Grooover]

As a regular pax on the EMA - FAO service I am really dissapointed that they did not seem to think that MAN could also benefit from a cheap n cheerful link to the Algarve.

There are a good few regulars who do the journey to EMA, and travel from that part of the world a bit miffed with this anouncement, especially as the amount of flights out of EMA are being cut, why I have no idea as it is always (in my experience) pretty full.

If it is due to competition from EZY / GOE I am surprised as the product has in our experience (and many others) been a breath of fresh air, to the days of 2-3 hour delays.

Even the cabin crew on our last journey back to the UK last Monday night seemed to think that a MAN-FAO was pretty much a definate ?????

Maybe time will tell


TG
--------------------------------------------------

[Shed-on-a-Pole]

I wouldn't anticipate any problems for BMI Baby making a success of a two-aircraft operation out of MAN; the no-frills market there is far from saturated. MAN-FAO is actually served daily by Monarch Crown Service [3x weekly rising to daily in Spring]; this is a "with frills" operation but competitive on price, reports of the service are positive. It is interesting that Baby have chosen to go head-to-head with Monarch on the three other Crown routes though [ALC, AGP, PMI]; I'm sure there will be plenty of business for both but I would have liked to see some new destinations on offer.

Best of luck to both Baby and Monarch on their new programmes ex-MAN.

[Buster the Bear]

easyJet and Monarch scheduled seem to compete well together out of Luton.

[sisyphus1965]

All seem quite well thought out.
Looks like they are trying to entice passengers away from Easyjet and LPL without treading on too many toes at MAN.

[Alan Tracey]

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Does MAN offer discount charges to BMi or do they pay full wack like EZY at LGW.

If discounts are offered ....was their a queue of sked + charter carriers now after the same...

[chiglet]

The only toes being trod on [IMMHO] are BA. Man-BHD and Man-CORK :rolleyes:
MAN- Spain..... Yet another kettle of fishy-poos. Good market for self caterers and home owners [as Monarch have proved] Good luck to them
we aim to please, it keeps the cleaners happy

[Alloy]

Both Monarch’s and BA’s toes are being trod on.

Monarch Scheduled are from the 1st May twice daily to Alicante and Malaga and also daily to Palma. If, (and it is a big if), the passengers realise Monarch Scheduled is a full service carrier then the bmibaby seats are going to have to be substantially cheaper than Monarch’s to sell.

[The Grooover]

I'm not so sure about MON being that competitive on price as I have been quoted £100 difference on 4 seperate occasions recently between them and Bmi Baby out of EMA to FAO.

I for one don't really didn't really consider (from experience) to be particularly low cost !!

TG

[bmibaby.com]

Well, I have to admit I'm extremely skeptical about our plans to enter the Manchester arena.
Over the past few years bmi has been trying to build up Manchester as a mini-hub, and especially with our long-haul feeder traffic, I do not see why bmi do not expand this and our LHR hub to add some of the destinations baby serves ex-EMA/CWL?
When bmibaby started crews and passengers were told it was going to be a non-interline operation, so how it'l lwork at Manchester?

[sisyphus1965]

Rumours abound that BMI are starting services from MAN to AMS, BRU & CDG on 1st May. Can anybody confirm or deny?

[Shed-on-a-Pole]

I too have seen this story reported on an enthusiasts' group website. It even says that the aircraft type will be A320's not FK100's as previously programmed. The report is a complete surprise to me though, and if BMI genuinely intended to operate on the hotly contested AMS/BRU/CDG routes ex-MAN they really would need to consider accepting bookings by now. Accordingly, I just checked the BMI website. There is no press-release addressing this story, and sample flight searches for these routes after the alleged 1st May launch date brought up only connections over LHR. Also, recall that BMI briefly operated MAN-BRU with BAe146 equipment following the demise of SABENA, but withdrew from the fray when DAT [ SN Brussels Airlines ] launched a robust schedule alongside the existing BA service. Would BMI really want to re-enter that route now with an even larger aircraft type?

However, dare I speculate that there may be a possible explanation here? What if ... and I'm only guessing here ... your airline needed airport slots for six new routes starting on May 1st but didn't want to alert the competition about the real deal? Is it not possible to book slots in the guise of another service? Just a thought ... could be wrong. But May 1st is an interesting choice of date?

[EGNR]

RE: BMI ops on MAN-CDG/BRU/AMS etc

True, BMI did hold slots (under BD flight numbers showing as the F100) out of MAN to all of these destinations for some months now. However, when you actually looked at the time between the MAN outbound departure timings held and the return MAN arrival timings, it was pretty obvious the destinations had to be a bit further away than CDG/BRU/AMS. At that stage, it was a fairly easy guess that they were setting up these slots at MAN for the use of baby.

[Landing_24R]

Looks like they're doing well

Taken from manchesteronline.co.uk's news section.

<MANCHESTER arrived late at the budget air fares party - and now it seems passengers are determined make up for it.

Bmi baby became Manchester Airport's first significant no-frills carrier when it announced six new routes to Spain and Ireland, with one-way fares costing from £12.50.

And already 30,000 tickets have been snapped up, most of them to Spain. The early success of the fledgling operation has prompted bosses at bmi baby to consider adding new routes from Manchester to Nice, Pisa and Milan, the Manchester Evening News understands.

From May 1, the year-old airline will operate daily services to Alicante and Malaga in mainland Spain and Palma in Majorca, while Murcia, also in southern mainland Spain, will also have a weekly link from Manchester. The airline also unveiled a new three-times-a-day service to Belfast International Airport as well as daily service to Cork in southern Ireland.

The new operation is a significant victory for bosses at Manchester Airport, who had watched as passengers on their own doorstep flocked to their nearest rival, Liverpool John Lennon Airport, to fly with budget carriers easyJet and Ryanair.

It is known that bmi baby seriously considered setting up its new base at Liverpool. >

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/stories/Detail_LinkStory=52258.html

Cheers
Landing_24R

[babydoc]

Does anyone really believe that any of the "locos" apart from EZY and FR are actually making any money?

If they all survive, can I suggest that the financial directors at bmibaby, Jet 2, MyTraveLite and flybe et al are all shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Economics this year.

Anyone who can rewrite the basic principles of supply and demand so fundamentally surely deserve consideration.

Up until now I was under the impression that limited demand and seemingly unlimited supply was a recipe for massive unprofitability.

[MerchantVenturer]

This is my first post on a PPRuNe forum although I am a regular contributor to some other website air forums.

I have been following the progress of the low cost industry in the UK for some time and watched it burgeon alarmingly to a point where I believe the market is thoroughly saturated. Almost everyone has jumped on the bandwagon and I cannot help but see an analogy with the mad, headlong rush into the stock market three years or so ago that largely ended in tears.

My particular point relates to brabazon’s question earlier in this thread about bmibaby loadings. On the 11 February this year Cardiff Airport announced the 100,000th bmibaby passenger to pass through that airport since the operation started at the end of October, 2002. I calculated the number of seats available during that period and I estimate that the average aircraft loading must have been around 46%. In fact, it may have been less because for simplicity I assumed that the 100,000th passenger passed through at the end of January and therefore I used a three-month period for the seat totals.

I have some personal anecdotal evidence as well. On a late Tuesday evening last month I was a passenger from Glasgow International to Bristol on a Go/easyJet flight (of which more in a moment). Whilst waiting at GLA I saw a bmibaby B 733 arrive from CWL and around 60 pax got off. I then saw it load for the return to CWL and about 40 pax boarded. My Go B 733 arrived from BRS with only around 60 pax as well, and returned to BRS with 27 pax, albeit there were only about 8 empty seats on my outward journey BRS/GLA that morning.

There is no doubt that the arrival of bmibaby at CWL has adversely affected GO/EZY loads at BRS. Prior to bmibaby’s arrival across the Severn it was estimated that about 15% of Go’s pax at BRS emanated from South Wales, which means that GO/EZY will have to find 15% new pax merely to maintain the status quo. Interestingly GO/EZY seem to have increased prices on many routes from BRS whilst WW is substantially lower at CWL. Local Press reports say that some people living within a few minutes of BRS are actually driving to CWL to take advantage of the considerably lower fares to Spain from there.

As an exercise I picked three routes that GO/EZY and WW compete head to head on from BRS and CWL respectively. I selected 15 random dates between March and September for five return flights of varying durations and days of the week to each of ALC, PMI and EDI, and I entered specimen bookings into these airlines’ Internet booking sites. WW was cheaper on eleven of the 15 with one fare the same – I included all taxes/charges in my comparisons. The biggest difference in monetary terms was on a return flight to ALC in March, that was £220 from/to BRS and £136 from/to CWL. In percentage terms the biggest difference was 100 % on a return flight to Edinburgh in September - £50 BRS and £25 CWL. Whilst I use the term ‘return flight’ it will of course be appreciated that it is necessary to book two singles.

I accept that my sample is non-scientific but it does bear out what many travellers in this area believe about GO/EZY fares. It may be that GO/EZY are charging economically viable fares whilst WW are desperately trying to fill their aircraft, perhaps not too successfully if my earlier figures are to be believed, by luring passengers with what might turn out to be unsustainably low fares. This may be a pointer to Liverpool and Manchester when competition starts, albeit the common catchment area there is far more populous than that for BRS/CWL.

My personal belief is that there are simply not enough pax for low cost airlines to compete on the same routes from airports of the size and proximity of BRS and CWL.

I am sorry that my first post is rather long and numerate but I hope that I have conveyed a flavour of the situation as I see it.

[brabazon]

MV

Based on CAA Nov 2002 data, while CWL - EDI traffic was 8,808 (241% up on Nov 2001) and GLA 6,190 (291% up on Nov 2001) the equivalent figures for BRS - EDI was 26,765 (16% up on Nov 2001) and GLA 21,733 (14% up on Nov 2001).

So while bmi baby had dramatically increased traffic from CWL to the Scottish airports - one would hope so with a 737 operating on a former Jetstream (?) route - at least for that month easy/go were still increasing their traffic at Lulsgate.

Certainly worth tracking these numbers in the next few months.

A similar exercise comparing LPL to MAN traffic on easy/bmi baby competing routes will be interesting later this year when the numbers start coming in.

[MerchantVenturer]

brabazon,

Yes you are right that in Nov 2001 CWL would have had three British Regional (as it was then) J 41s on the GLA and EDI routes - two rotations to each city per weekday and less at weekends if my memory is good.

Now, as in Nov 2002, they have two weekday bmibaby B 733 rotations to both GLA and EDI with one each day at weekends, hence the increased loads over the Jetstreams.

I have calculated the seats available in Nov 2002 and the load factors work out at 58.5% on the EDI route and 41% on the GLA route.

BRS had three Go B 733 rotations each weekday (less at weekends) to each of GLA and EDI in Nov 2001 plus either five or six Brymon (as it was then) ERJ 145 rotations to both GLA and EDI each weekday (less at weekends).

The Nov 2002 BRS GLA and EDI services are the same as the previous November except that Go now has four weekday B 733 rotations to EDI instead of three - this is being knocked back to three at the end of this month when easyJet formally takes over all the Go routes, and of course Brymon is now part of BACityexpress.

Because there are two airlines on the routes from BRS it is impossible to calculate the load factors of the individual carriers. However, even if the BA ERJs were full on every flight, and on most I reckon 50% would be good if you compare the BA and Go/easyJet fares), the load factors of Go would still be considerably higher than bmibaby.