Route Development & Rumours

[Finger66]

@Aviador If it means the speeding bird returns along with any other domestics then more than happy to keep all toes and other digits crossed for as long as necessary

 

[oldendays]

It would be great to have our Heathrow link back. I wonder if Aer Lingus mainline might like a crack at it ?

 

[Aviador]

It would be great to have our Heathrow link back. I wonder if Aer Lingus mainline might like a crack at it ?

Part of me thinks we need the rail link in the bag really before getting a Heathrow service back. It reminds me of when Flybe started London City before the DLR had opened. We need to be able to give the route every chance it can get.

 

[BCFC]

It would be great to have our Heathrow link back. I wonder if Aer Lingus mainline might like a crack at it ?

Only if it works for connecting to long haul flights without silly transit times ….the train from Leeds connects the businesses to the City.

 

[Finger66]

I was more thinking Emerald UK as the mystery airline but then that's more ATR trouble for the LBA winter. It really needs to be BA. Unless LM do see an opportunity where BA might lease slots for codeshare. But not sure that's really in LMs thinking right now

 

[lbaspotter]

My London Thinking

1st
Well what is interesting is the fact Emerald Airlines (UK) are starting a 2/3x daily London Gatwick to Dublin service using an ATR72 next month. Not for Aer Lingus this time but for another IAG partner British Airways instead.
I Wonder if they could fit in a London Gatwick - Leeds rotation in between?

2nd
Now that J.H has left Loganair I also wonder also if the might be a possibility of them returning to Leeds and starting a new partnership.
1x based Embraer 145 doing London Heathrow on a British Airways franchise /Codeshare and sticking a Newquay rotation in between?

 

[White Heather]

My London Thinking

1st
Well what is interesting is the fact Emerald Airlines (UK) are starting a 2/3x daily London Gatwick to Dublin service using an ATR72 next month. Not for Aer Lingus this time but for another IAG partner British Airways instead.
I Wonder if they could fit in a London Gatwick - Leeds rotation in between?

2nd
Now that J.H has left Loganair I also wonder also if the might be a possibility of them returning to Leeds and starting a new partnership.
1x based Embraer 145 doing London Heathrow on a British Airways franchise /Codeshare and sticking a Newquay rotation in between?

I think we need something bigger than an E145.
E190 minimum.

 

[HX3]

I wouldn’t say no to a London link for the extra passengers and revenue for the airport, but it certainly wouldn’t be my hub priority. FRA, IST,DXB,MAD, CDG would all feature before Heathrow/Gatwick for me. I know using a hub means feeding somewhere from the regions, but I would always choose something that didn’t feed into the London centric nature of this country. If a hub wasn’t served from LBA I would fly from MAN rather than London. I just object massively to everything being focused there.

 

[lbaspotter]

I think we need something bigger than an E145.
E190 minimum.

Well you’ll find that hard!
It wont be British Airways CityFlyer unless they started a London city route. That’s because they are not allowed to operate out of Heathrow due union agreement/working conditions.

The only other operator of E190’s on UK domestic routes is that tin-pot outfit based at Humberside.
Interestingly Eastern Airways do have franchise & codeshare agreements flying for both Air France (EMA & SOU to CDG & KLM (MME & HUY to AMS) and are part of SkyTeam Alliance whom are big at Heathrow’s Terminal’s 3 & 4.
Where as we know Flybe failed miserably after 6 months without any interlining.

If all the above fails, let’s hope the big wigs at BA’s Waterside HQ can be persuaded by LBA management to see sense and they get either Mainline Airbus A319’s back to Heathrow or EuroFlyer A320’s to Gatters.

 

[BCFC]

Well you’ll find that hard!
It wont be British Airways CityFlyer unless they started a London city route. That’s because they are not allowed to operate out of Heathrow due union agreement/working conditions.

The only other operator of E190’s on UK domestic routes is that tin-pot outfit based at Humberside.
Interestingly Eastern Airways do have franchise & codeshare agreements flying for both Air France (EMA & SOU to CDG & KLM (MME & HUY to AMS) and are part of SkyTeam Alliance whom are big at Heathrow’s Terminal’s 3 & 4.
Where as we know Flybe failed miserably after 6 months without any interlining.

If all the above fails, let’s hope the big wigs at BA’s Waterside HQ can be persuaded by LBA management to see sense and they get either Mainline Airbus A319’s back to Heathrow or EuroFlyer A320’s to Gatters.

What's annoying is that our BA LBA-LHR route was doing ok up until the dreaded COVID-19. It's a no-brainer for an A319 to start with, something also tells me this is not going to happen, hope I’m wrong.

 

[gulftraveller]

BA had a wealth of slots to use at the time it started LBA. That is not the case now. I believe BA domestic will continue contracting so I really do not think new destinations are on the cards sadly.

 

[lbaspotter]

BA had a wealth of slots to use at the time it started LBA. That is not the case now. I believe BA domestic will continue contracting so I really do not think new destinations are on the cards sadly.

For British Airways that's why I brought Gatters into the equation.

Since Covid/pre pandemic EasyJet and a few other airlines have been leasing some of BA's Gatwick slots, but I understand most have to be handed back over the next 12 moths.
Now BA are getting Emerald Airlines (New Franchise) along with using IAG Partners Vueling & Iberia Express to slot-sit and use up there Gatwick slot allocation until BA Euro-Flyer has enough aircraft & crews to operate themselves.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

For British Airways that's why I brought Gatters into the equation.

Since Covid/pre pandemic EasyJet and a few other airlines have been leasing some of BA's Gatwick slots, but I understand most have to be handed back over the next 12 moths.
Now BA are getting Emerald Airlines (New Franchise) along with using IAG Partners Vueling & Iberia Express to slot-sit and use up there Gatwick slot allocation until BA Euro-Flyer has enough aircraft & crews to operate themselves.

I cant see Gatwick working, not enough connections, plus its been tried before.

 

[Starflyer]

You can't viably operate an Embraer 190 into Heathrow. It's quite a noisy little thing and is charged as a "Super High" aircraft at £3,325 per landing AND per take-off at Heathrow. With 106 seats, you have a cost of £31.37 per passenger at 100% load factor just to pay the noise charge at Heathrow. In comparison, an A380 is a "Super Low" aircraft at £731.64 per movement so £1.55 per passenger at full load factor in BA configuration.

Any airline proposing to fly a 170 or 190 into Heathrow is either a) unaware of the charges or b) suicidal. The ATR72 is much better.

I'd very much doubt Loganair would be lining up for this unless the route is to be subsidised somehow. Of their Heathrow operations, Dundee and Derry are both PSOs and Isle of Man is apparently some type of PSO structure locally there. And I don't think JH had any personal issue at all with LBA - it was just that he couldn't see where you could make a profit flying from there, from what he had said. That presumably won't have changed?

The only practical answer here is that LBA is in discussions with BA again. They wouldn't be doing their jobs if they were not. It didn't do that well last time though - load factor in the mid 60%s range is nothing to write home about for using Heathrow slots unless there is an inordinately high value of connecting traffic in premium cabins.

BA does have a couple of European short-haul routes at LHR doing incredibly badly elsewhere and it might do better (read: less badly) flying those same slots and aircraft to LBA instead. It might lend a certain eau d'something to the equation. I'd therefore never say "never" but it's not massively exciting to say that LBA would be less bad than something else so let's have a go at flying it.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

You can't viably operate an Embraer 190 into Heathrow. It's quite a noisy little thing and is charged as a "Super High" aircraft at £3,325 per landing AND per take-off at Heathrow. With 106 seats, you have a cost of £31.37 per passenger at 100% load factor just to pay the noise charge at Heathrow. In comparison, an A380 is a "Super Low" aircraft at £731.64 per movement so £1.55 per passenger at full load factor in BA configuration.

Any airline proposing to fly a 170 or 190 into Heathrow is either a) unaware of the charges or b) suicidal. The ATR72 is much better.

I'd very much doubt Loganair would be lining up for this unless the route is to be subsidised somehow. Of their Heathrow operations, Dundee and Derry are both PSOs and Isle of Man is apparently some type of PSO structure locally there. And I don't think JH had any personal issue at all with LBA - it was just that he couldn't see where you could make a profit flying from there, from what he had said. That presumably won't have changed?

The only practical answer here is that LBA is in discussions with BA again. They wouldn't be doing their jobs if they were not. It didn't do that well last time though - load factor in the mid 60%s range is nothing to write home about for using Heathrow slots unless there is an inordinately high value of connecting traffic in premium cabins.

BA does have a couple of European short-haul routes at LHR doing incredibly badly elsewhere and it might do better (read: less badly) flying those same slots and aircraft to LBA instead. It might lend a certain eau d'something to the equation. I'd therefore never say "never" but it's not massively exciting to say that LBA would be less bad than something else so let's have a go at flying it.

I suspect the fuel burn will be quite a bit less on an E190 than an A319 though so that will mitigate the higher landing fees. Shame neither BA nor any UK airline partnered with them has A220's or similar.

 

[White Heather]

Just to clarify (seeing that LGW keeps cropping up), LBA stated specifically that they were in early negotiations over a route to LHR. It was said that an opportunity had unexpectedly arisen.

Questions are raised frequently from the business fraternity about restoration of a LHR link including at the Consultative Committee. I can't ever remember anyone asking about a link to LGW or the airport ever mentioning it as a viable route.

 

[BCFC]

I cant see Gatwick working, not enough connections, plus its been tried before.

Who on earth wants to fly to Gatwick!

 

[Aviador]

Who on earth wants to fly to Gatwick!

When Gatwick was last served it was very popular. Gatwick is of course also close to the South Coast with places such as Brighton within easy reach.

 

[Jerry]

Who on earth wants to fly to Gatwick!

My sister in May, save her and her partner the long trip there to catch their flight to Mexico and don't forget the extremely large Easyjet operation there not to mention other long haul routes as well.

 

[BCFC]

My sister in May, save her and her partner the long trip there to catch their flight to Mexico and don't forget the extremely large Easyjet operation there not to mention other long haul routes

You can go to Mexico from MAN…..in fact you can go to anywhere from MAN…big Easyjet operations from all over the North.