Qatar Airways

[Ray Finkle]

From speaking to someone who deals with it their flights are constantly seeing packed cargo holds.

Just for info Business Class is also doing well

 

[richard winterbourn]

That sounds like a solid and developing route Ray. It had been suggested earlier that economy seats might be easier to fill, but packed cargo holds and business class 'doing well' sounds good to me. One hopes that BHX and QATAR can look to a fruitful partnership.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Indeed, some loads looked a little low throughout June, which is traditionally the low period but things are picking up nicely again.

It's still very early days though with the route only just over 4 months old. I don't know about anyone else but to me they seem as if they've been here forever?

 

[JENNYJET]

I agree with Sir Raymond and suggest that it is so brutally hot in Qatar during the European summer that leisure loads are likely to be somewhat thin.

As a beginning, Qatar have been a most welcome addition to the Birmingham schedules. The double Saturday service and the hopping timetable is puzzling to me. Early morning arrivals with mid afternoon departure and arrival behind Emirates A380 etc. on other days have no logic behind it, was it a simple method to make use of a Dreamliner when this aircraft can do much more on longer routes? Why twice Saturday instead of single A330? If cargo is doing all, would it be wise to deploy a B777 on a designated day and then exploit the tourism market using Doha for connecting services throughout the Far East?

Better people than myself may enlighten me, I welcome such education but my little woman in my mind keeps asking if Qatar may be discussing with Airport management the possibility of introducing a A380 service with the necessary pier works? Only as competition for Emirates given the current scarcity of space on the apron!!

 

[hammerb32]

I think a 77L or 77W once daily or 5/6 weekly would do well at BHX as they can fill economy easier than business class or what about a 332/333 with twice daily services on selected days?

They fill business easier than economy, no sense in operating a bigger plane just to dump the economy seats on to the wholesale websites.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Madam JJ the two different flight times and flight numbers are to connect with the different waves of departures from Doha heading across the Sub Continent, Asia and Australia. If one is performing significantly better than the other it makes it easy to rise up to 10/11 weekly.

Extra capacity will come but it will take time.

It will be interesting to see if Qatar loads dip a little when Emirates introduce a second daily A380.

 

[nwoody2001]

I agree with Sir Raymond and suggest that it is so brutally hot in Qatar during the European summer that leisure loads are likely to be somewhat thin.

As a beginning, Qatar have been a most welcome addition to the Birmingham schedules. The double Saturday service and the hopping timetable is puzzling to me. Early morning arrivals with mid afternoon departure and arrival behind Emirates A380 etc. on other days have no logic behind it, was it a simple method to make use of a Dreamliner when this aircraft can do much more on longer routes? Why twice Saturday instead of single A330? If cargo is doing all, would it be wise to deploy a B777 on a designated day and then exploit the tourism market using Doha for connecting services throughout the Far East?

Better people than myself may enlighten me, I welcome such education but my little woman in my mind keeps asking if Qatar may be discussing with Airport management the possibility of introducing a A380 service with the necessary pier works? Only as competition for Emirates given the current scarcity of space on the apron!!

Hey Jenny,

Im no expert, but I hope to be able to offer you the logic behind the morning vs evening departure schedule for their BHX route....

The purpose of this route, as with most MEB3 carriers is to feed passengers into the airlines hub and on to connecting flights to other directions. in order to achieve this, flights from one airport need to arrive at a hub in time to conveniently connect to connecting flights to other destinations.

The Doha hub currently have 2x waves of departures with flights leaving mid morning and mid afternoon. consequently the morning flights from BHX are scheduled to arrive in Doha in time for the afternoon departures. Vice versa, the afternoon flights from BHX are scheduled to arrive in time for the morning departures out of Doha.

Now, bare in mind, not every destination is served 2x daily from Doha (including BHX) so not every connections will be available in any afternoon or morning. Conversely, launching a new route like BHX at 2x daily is a big commitment and a lot of seats on an untested new route.

What Qatar opted to do therefore was offer 8x weekly flights, 4x morning departures and 4x evening departures given the best spread possible to all possible onward connections from Doha.

It therefore is not so simple to say 'why not replace the flights with a single A330 at lunchtime' because that flight may will miss onward connections and result in people waiting at Doha for 22 hours for the morning departures, not good when passangers want to get from A-Z as fast and cheaply as possible...

I hope that helps!!

 

[JENNYJET]

2001,

Indeed it helps, it simply did not chime within a legal mind. That said, my Law studies did not always follow the 'laws' of logic since human law has infinite variables that even mathematical minds cannot design algorithms to cover all possible cases that come before a court.

However I still fail to understand why the use of two aircraft is better than one if the one can carry the same combined load!! Yes sir, I get the Hub and Spoke stuff but I still wonder why Qatar chose BHX given the apparent dominant presence of Emirates unless they have something cooking......I suspect another debate is about to begin!!

 

[nwoody2001]

the reason/example why 2 aircraft are better than a single larger aircraft.

I want to fly from BHX to Perth. Now imagine that the flight from BHX left in the morning and arrived in Doha in the afternoon. Great, but what if the flight from Doha to Perth left in the morning also? By the time I arrived in Doha in the afternoon, I would have to wait overnight until the Perth flight in the following day. The only way you can resolve this issue and keep transit times to a minimum, is to ensure that you have 2x daily flights to everyone of your destinations, which with many airlines and airports is pretty impossible. you therefore need to time flights appropriate to ensure that the inbound BHX flights connect properly to the likely connections to be the most popular out of BHX. Why would Qatar deliver all its passengers from BHX into Doha at the same time when some will be after am connections and others pm connections.

with regard to why Qatar would start BHX which is dominated by Emirates, its pure and simple economics. Emirates are providing just under 3,000 seats A DAY between BHX and DXB, which equates to OVER 1,000,000 seats a year! that's a lot of seats, and if filled equates to between 8-10% of all pax flying out of BHX

Now if you were the competitors of Emirates, so either Qatar or Etihad, you would start to take notice! what are Emirates seeing that they don't?

Think of it as any other business. If you were ASDA and saw that Tesco opened 10 super markets in Birmingham, a city with no other super markets, wouldn't you think 'sh*t, I need to get in there!!!' why would you let your competitor dominate a market with a monopoly when you can get in there and take some of their market!?

 

[Kevin Farnell]

with regard to why Qatar would start BHX which is dominated by Emirates, its pure and simple economics. Emirates are providing just under 3,000 seats A DAY between BHX and DXB, which equates to OVER 1,000,000 seats a year! that's a lot of seats, and if filled equates to between 8-10% of all pax flying out of BHX

Now if you were the competitors of Emirates, so either Qatar or Etihad, you would start to take notice! what are Emirates seeing that they don't?

Exactly!

Qatar may have been happy, with services from LHR and MAN and hoping that passengers from all points between would travel to either of these departure points. They are however in competition with two other airlines from these departure points.
One of Qatar's competitors is also growing services from BHX and hitting big numbers. These are passengers who will no longer travel to LHR or MAN and therefore lost to Qatar.
Qatar now have 2 options.
1. Surrender these passengers to a major competitor.
2. Get yourself a piece of the cake.

Business is a 'dog eat dog' world. Give your competitors an inch and they'll take a mile.

Kevin

 

[Kevin Farnell]

human law has infinite variables that even mathematical minds cannot design algorithms to cover all possible cases that come before a court.

Precisely why I much prefer the Laws of Science.
I've always been fond of the Laws of Thermodynamics, with the Third Law being a particular favourite.
This basically states that the Entropy (disorder) of the Universe can only ever increase.
In other words, it's easy to make a right old mess in the kitchen (we men are notably good at this), but takes a great deal of effort to tidy up - only for a mess to be created again, next time you cook. This requires yet more effort to tidy up .

The answer? Entropy rules!
Don't fight it. Grab a beer, a good book and go and sit on the patio.

Kevin

 

[Barry Beeth]

And by the same rationale, Etihad won't be far behind either!

 

[nwoody2001]

I suspect they wont be....

Emirates and Qatar are carrying over 3,500 pax a day, or 1,250,000 pax a year out of BHX, im sure that with both EK and QR sharing the market, Etihad wont be happy with that.... Ive (rightly or wrongly) assumed the following for 2017:

Emirates - will increase to 1x 777 and 2x A380 daily
Qatar - will increase capacity to further establish market share (increase to daily 777 or 2x daily 787 although this is dependant on A/c)
Etihad - may well come and say hello with a daily B787/A350

will have to wait and see....

 

[nwoody2001]

I suspect they wont be....

Emirates and Qatar are carrying over 3,500 pax a day, or 1,250,000 pax a year out of BHX, im sure that with both EK and QR sharing the market, Etihad wont be happy with that.... Ive (rightly or wrongly) assumed the following for 2017:

Emirates - will increase to 1x 777 and 2x A380 daily
Qatar - will increase capacity to further establish market share (increase to daily 777 or 2x daily 787 although this is dependant on A/c)
Etihad - may well come and say hello with a daily B787/A350

will have to wait and see....

 

[ethanegcc]

If Etihad do launch a route I think it will be with a 332 like they did with Edinburgh and build up from there rather than an A350 to start with.

It makes me wonder whether BHX are going to get an A350 soon because there is supposedly a new winter 2017 route to MAN with a star alliance legacy A350 and BHX had the diversion contract so they had to get an A350 towbar for that?

I think, for Manchester anyway, the Middle Eastern market will plateaux soon surely there is only so much it can grow and the ME3 aren't the be all and end all. People aren't going to want to travel from UK-DXB/DOH-JFK are they? Airports shouldn't take their eye of the ball to the west - BHX has got so much growth to the middle east but only 8/9 weekly 752s to NY this winter and 1 weekly to YYZ.

I think BHX should look at EY but also focus on getting a larger frequency or new airline to the US and Canada. I am sure despire this route merging QR will be a success for BHX.

 

[nwoody2001]

agreed though I suspect attracting the MEB3 to an airport is part of the wider plan.

I think you are right, that with all MEB3 at MAN, they are likely to plateau a little based on the growth MAN has experienced over the last 5-10 years. With London also full, to my view, BHX is therefore the remaining opportunity for them.

You are indeed correct though, there are other routes, and as of yet, our transatlantic offer is pretty poor. However, Paul Kehoe (love him or hate him) made a very valid point. Airlines take note of growing airports, and nothing grows an airport faster than the MEB3 can. 5 years ago, would the US carrier take note of a UK airport carrying 7-8 million pax, apparently not! but will they now take note of an airport which in 2017 could likely be carrying between 12-14million and experiencing double digit % growth? ...I hope they do!!!

BHX in 2016 is likely to carry circa 11.5m passengers.... with a new Jet2 base and the potential for additional growth with the MEB3 (and any othe rnews yet to be announced), its not hard to imaging BHX topping 13,000,000 in 2017

 

[ethanegcc]

Yes I do think MAN will slow down growth in the middle east as we have not just got the MEB3 but 5 weekly SV and daily WY 788s from March next year however we will continue to grow in other areas.

There is still potential for middle eastern growth at BHX though.

I think though ultimately MAN is the bigger airport with the larger cachment area and more inbound tourism for north wales/the lake district etc. BHX could see Norweigan to the US in the future and increased NY flights.

Anyway, back to QR, the best step for them from here I would say is two 788s daily or even 10 flights a week, and if the aircraft arent available because of 359 delays possible roster a 332/333.

 

[JENNYJET]

....like I said, a debate begins

As for cooking in a domestic kitchen, it is no more difficult than Chemistry in a Laboratory. The combination of varied elements to make a compound , just mixing Flour, Butter, Eggs and water results in a palatable cake!!

 

[richard winterbourn]

Undoubtedly Manchester is the bigger airport, it always has been and it always will be as far as i can see. However while i raised a few hackles in a post i made a couple of weeks ago, i will repeat what i said then, I think the playing field is more level now. Is MAN part of a larger catchment area? With the road and rail links that BHX has I think that is open to conjecture. But what is not open to conjecture in my opinion is the fact that from north to south the country becomes more prosperous. And this is why i think EK, Turkish and others do so well at BHX; they are attracting their pax from not only the vast midlands area but also drawing up pax from the north of the Home Counties.

BHX as an airport was 'asleep' until about four years ago, but look at it now! And i, for one, would not be surprised at any airline it might attract in the coming months and years.

AS nwoody 2001 said, from 9+million in 2014 it is not hard to imagine a possible 13 million in 2017.

 

[IanFarquharson]

My view on this is BHX is a natural alternative to London and the longer the runway decision is not decided the better for BHX and long haul airlines who want more flights to London and cant get them will come here.
I think MAN is far enough away from London to have its own market (Cathay & Singapore is proof of that), so if we are looking at UK capacity MAN will gain, if we are looking at South East capacity then BHX will gain.
BHX has always had 40-45% of MAN pax total, I see this moving up to 60-65%, So when MAN get to 30m BHX getting to 20m - hopefully !