Thomas Cook

[ethanegcc]

Thomas Cook Long-Haul Summer 2018

Los Angeles - re-commences May 7th 2018 - twice weekly - Monday/Saturday
San Francisco - re-commences May 13th 2018 - twice weekly - Thursday/Sunday
Boston - re-commences May 28th 2018 - twice weekly - Monday/Friday
Miami - currently not bookable
Las Vegas - four weekly - Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday
New York JFK - six weekly - except Mondays

Whether the full schedule has not been published yet, or not, it's a bit of a mixed picture. I'm hoping that Miami will become bookable and Los Angeles will fill out to thrice-weekly, which is probable, depending on TCX's sourcing of A330s. Atleast we are seeing (at present) VS and TCX stay on SFO and BOS.

Alternatively, and being extremely optimistic, are they freeing up for a new two-weekly route out of MAN?

 

[Aceshigh]

This years flights must be doing ok. Thomas Cook would not hang on to loss making routes?

Hopefully Miami is a glitch?

 

[User001]

Miami will be re-added later on. If you look at their timetable, it's a better representation of what will operate.

MIA/SFO will be 2 weekly, BOS/LAX will be 3 weekly, MCO 8 weekly, JFK looks to be 8 weekly with a 2nd flight on Thu (random day for a 2nd flight but may be down to aircraft availability and fleet utilisation). LAS seems to be between 4 and 6 weekly depending on the week you look at.

There will apparently be up to 3 new USA routes, with SAN/TPA/MSY being the front runners.

 

[Land23R]

Am I right in thinking that LAX, MIA and SFO are all 2 x weekly this summer, or has LAX increased to 3 x weekly?
VS is 3 x weekly to SFO but TCX is just 2 times isn't it?

 

[User001]

LAX is3 weekly this summer. MIA/SFO 2 weekly.

 

[ethanegcc]

Miami will be re-added later on. If you look at their timetable, it's a better representation of what will operate.

MIA/SFO will be 2 weekly, BOS/LAX will be 3 weekly, MCO 8 weekly, JFK looks to be 8 weekly with a 2nd flight on Thu (random day for a 2nd flight but may be down to aircraft availability and fleet utilisation). LAS seems to be between 4 and 6 weekly depending on the week you look at.

There will apparently be up to 3 new USA routes, with SAN/TPA/MSY being the front runners.

Hi User, where is the timetable available? I did think that the frequencies would most likely be padded out, but I reported what was currently bookable.

Surely New Orleans would be overkill with an A330, but would also be a good candidate year-round and, considering that Condor have just started flights to both SAN and MSY, a budding relationship could be starting. Would be great to see this growth if so, but musn't be too optimistic

 

[rutamkrd]

In my opinion what TCX/CFG (already essentially the same company in back office and maintenance terms) need to do is finally merge the two long haul main base operations at Manchester and Frankfurt drop the use of Lufthansa as the conduit connector and actually run two daily shuttles with own A32x between the two networks.
Indeed better still use those rotating 753s to create revenues. Could be a daily swap FRA-MAN -European network then early next day Man-FRA . Just seem sensible to me.
May need some finessing with some intermediate W patterns but could work what do others think ?
OH AND use the Condor Brand for ALL long haul period as this would lead to a much stronger recognition imho.
Job done.

Thomas Cook brand should be deployed for the summer leisure/inclusive tour businesses mainly to the usual Mediterranean Mid Atlantic and Egyptian destinations.

TCW is going away (back into a LH group subsidiary)

VKG operates few if any Northern Summer long haul services at all with mainly winter Thai and Cuba flights.
In summer its Greek isles Spain and the Canaries !

 

[User001]

I agree completely Rutamkrd,

A plan of action for me would be:

Rename longhaul to Condor, after all, condor is the selling name in GDs anyway. Rename Thomas Cook short haul 'Thomas cook holidays' similar to how Jet2 operate.

I do also feel TCX long haul should work closely with BA.

It's well documented internally that BA/IAG want to do 'something' with MAN, so, why not tie in a well known Manchester brand, with an ever increasing and established long haul portfolio, and use Cityflyer to add in connections, it sounds bonkers, but, could actually have merit....

 

[ethanegcc]

I completely agree also, 'Condor' also has a small business class cabin which could work well for them on routes like SFO and with high yielding tourists.

 

[David_itl]

A321 G-TCDM is the one with the 'I❤MCR' insignia. Wonder if they may do an A330 as well.

 

[Aceshigh]

Well chaps I usually agree with your postings not least because you have much more of an insisght than I do but replacing

"Thomas Cook for Condor" ?

I really think we would be in BA / Vueling territory with that one.

Thomas Cook like BA has considerable brand awareness. Outside of this forum has anybody got a clue who Condor are ?

Thomas Cook is a solid British high street name using the Condor brand would be commercial suicide IMHO.

By all means use Condor aircraft but the front page that encourages a user to book a holiday MUST be Thomas Cook.

 

[User001]

Actually Condor has a much bigger brand awareness across the USA which it Thomas Cooks main target market.

Given Condor has been serving Manchester for about 3-4 years and TCX still have Condor emblazoned across several aircraft, as well as the same livery to keep familiarity, I think Condor would be the better name and wouldn't take us yokel local folk to figure it out.

With that, comparing Condor to Vueling is a severe serving of apples and oranges.

Sometimes we have to think outside 'little Britain' really.

 

[Jerry]

Thomas Cook is a solid British high street name using the Condor brand would be commercial suicide IMHO.

I don't think people are advocating replacing the Thomas Cook holiday brand with Condor. What i think people are advocating is that Condor becomes the long haul airline of the Thomas Cook group and Thomas Cook Airline concentrates on the short haul part. Thomas Cook holidays and airline would still exist and effectively just sell the flights on Condor operated aircraft. When I fly to the US I usually book with KLM and get a KLM flight number but a lot of the time the flight is operated by Delta Airlines as they are Skyteam partners so it would be something similar and could be better for the group as User001 says Condor have bigger awareness on the American side than Thomas Cook. If you look at the Thomas Cook holidays they often book packages onto the flights of other airlines. At CWL they use Thomson especially in the winter, at LBA they use Monarch all year round and at other airports they use Easyjet and I believe at LHR they use BA so this would be no different.

 

[Aceshigh]

"What i think people are advocating is that Condor becomes the long haul airline of the Thomas Cook group and Thomas Cook Airline concentrates on the short haul part. Thomas Cook holidays and airline would still exist and effectively just sell the flights on Condor operated aircraft."

Ah ok. I misinterpreted the delivery.
Certainly some traction FROM the US would help enormously.

Was there not a suggestion of a scheduled split hub network by Condor a few years back on.
FRA MAN westbound
MAN FRA eastbound

 

[jfy1999]

Thomas Cook Airlines UK in the past few weeks made additional changes to its planned Manchester – Cape Town service, previously reported on Airlineroute on 16JAN17. This route has been converted to scheduled charter, with 3 flights scheduled on 10JAN18, 24JAN18 and 07FEB18 from MAN (CPT departs the following day).

MT3520 MAN2230 – 1235+1CPT 332
MT3521 CPT1435 – 0055+1MAN 332

http://www.routesonline.com/news/38...adjusts-manchester-cape-town-service-in-nw17/

 

[Dobbo]

I don't know how ambitious CPT flying ever was from MAN, but it's a shame it isn't used more frequently by TCX, VS to redeploy winter capacity.

I'm not suggesting anything like a daily flight is viable, but as a winter seasonal summer holiday destination, South Africa is a pretty attractive proposition. It remains relatively cheap, has beautiful scenery, cultural ties, but is very hard to get to.

 

[User001]

GDS now shows the right frequencies for the US flights next summer.

Those being 3 weekly LAX/BOS and daily JFK. MIA still not loaded but is showing in the timetables from 6th May.

One stand out was that Cancun increases from 4 to 6 weekly next summer. For Posterity, using a mix of TCX timetables and GDS, this is the summer 2018 long haul overview as things stand for a week in August:

New York JFK: daily
Boston: Mon/Fri/Sat
Cancun: daily ex-Mon
Santa Clara: Sat
Los Angeles: Mon/Wed/Sat
Las Vegas: Tue/Thu/Sat/Sun
Cayo Coco: Wed
Holguin: Mon/Thu
Miami: Fri/Sun
Varadero: Fri
Punta Cana: Mon/Thu/Fri
Orlando: daily with 2nd flight on Tue (8 weekly)
San Fransisco: Thu/Sun

This means based:

Mon: 6
Tue: 5
Wed: 5
Thu: 7
Fri: 6
Sat: 7
Sun: 6

Based on fleet utilisation into flights, we have about 4/5 gaps for new routes/extra flights. I'm reliably told that there will be no short haul on the A330 and there will be no positioning out of base with MAN essentially being a 'self contained unit', while 2 A330 cover the other long haul away from MAN such as STN/GLA/BFS.

For reference, the TCX fleet should be:

G-OMYT/MDBD/TCXC/TCXB/VYGM/VYGK/CHTZ
OY-VKI/VKF

Hearing they are trying to aquire a G-TCXD, but we will find out in time. All will be based in MAN barring CHTZ/VYGL.

 

[Aceshigh]

Excellent analysis User .

 

[ethanegcc]

GDS now shows the right frequencies for the US flights next summer.

Those being 3 weekly LAX/BOS and daily JFK. MIA still not loaded but is showing in the timetables from 6th May.

One stand out was that Cancun increases from 4 to 6 weekly next summer. For Posterity, using a mix of TCX timetables and GDS, this is the summer 2018 long haul overview as things stand for a week in August:

New York JFK: daily
Boston: Mon/Fri/Sat
Cancun: daily ex-Mon
Santa Clara: Sat
Los Angeles: Mon/Wed/Sat
Las Vegas: Tue/Thu/Sat/Sun
Cayo Coco: Wed
Holguin: Mon/Thu
Miami: Fri/Sun
Varadero: Fri
Punta Cana: Mon/Thu/Fri
Orlando: daily with 2nd flight on Tue (8 weekly)
San Fransisco: Thu/Sun

This means based:

Mon: 6
Tue: 5
Wed: 5
Thu: 7
Fri: 6
Sat: 7
Sun: 6

Based on fleet utilisation into flights, we have about 4/5 gaps for new routes/extra flights. I'm reliably told that there will be no short haul on the A330 and there will be no positioning out of base with MAN essentially being a 'self contained unit', while 2 A330 cover the other long haul away from MAN such as STN/GLA/BFS.

For reference, the TCX fleet should be:

G-OMYT/MDBD/TCXC/TCXB/VYGM/VYGK/CHTZ
OY-VKI/VKF

Hearing they are trying to aquire a G-TCXD, but we will find out in time. All will be based in MAN barring CHTZ/VYGL.

Superb analysis of Thomas Cook ops. Yes, I have checked and the LAX/BOS at 3fpw are in Amadeus. It shows Cancun at 6 weekly, as you say. That is a large increase and really unexpected.

 

[jfy1999]

For some reason TCX seem to be short of aircraft today? JFK is being operated by a Wamos Air 747 and Holguin by an Evelop A333.