Cobalt Airlines

[jfy1999]

The flight times change over the summer in case anyone's interested. I've yet to see Cobalt at BHX and I think the summer times are more "spotter-friendly".

LCA 08:35 BHX 11:55
BHX 12:55 LCA 19:40

 

[Brum X]

The flight times change over the summer in case anyone's interested. I've yet to see Cobalt at BHX and I think the summer times are more "spotter-friendly".

LCA 08:35 BHX 11:55
BHX 12:55 LCA 19:40

 

[Jerry]

CWL is still waiting for them to release the flights same with GLA and NCL. What aircraft do they usually use for BHX? A319 or A320?

 

[Brum X]

CWL is still waiting for them to release the flights same with GLA and NCL. What aircraft do they usually use for BHX? A319 or A320?

CWL is still waiting for them to release the flights same with GLA and NCL. What aircraft do they usually use for BHX? A319 or A320?

Its normally a mixture of A319 and A320, I dont think you really know until the day.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Cobalt are now showing connections to Tel Aviv and Beirut.

I've tried their website several times over the last few days and all I getis a spinning circle followed by a time out message. Even a redirect from Skyscanner doesn't seem to be working.

Has anybody else been on their site recently?

 

[Bhx_fifteen]

I noticed that too Ray! Using Larnaca as a hub has always been on their radar, but they're still a very new airline and setting up a hub certainly isn't an easy task. I imagine we'll have to wait and see. If they can execute it well, they could be very successful - Larnaca is in an excellent location geographically bridging Europe, Asia and Africa.

Abu Dhabi keeps appearing and disappearing from the drop down list - another potential connection. Cobalt have advertised that they are hiring crew for new A330 aircraft on their Facebook page, the aircraft they've previously said will be used for connections to China. This too could be popular from BHX.

A number of other routes keep surfacing and they'll be up to 7 aircraft this summer (more than Cyprus Airways had at the time of demise!) and Cobalt should overtake Aegean as the largest carrier by seats/weekly flights this summer from Larnaca too. Watch this space!!

 

[Ray Finkle]

The website seems to be working again now although when trying to book connections it just give a phone number. I've also noticed Abu Dhabi appearing and Tehran is also listed, is that new?

I wish them luck, they could end up with a decent operation.

 

[jfy1999]

Cobalt have cancelled all their BHX flights until the 24th.

May is apparently a very quiet time of year for UK-Cyprus travel and it seems loads on several of their UK flights in recent weeks barely scraped into double figures.

 

[Brum X]

Cobalt have cancelled all their BHX flights until the 24th.

May is apparently a very quiet time of year for UK-Cyprus travel and it seems loads on several of their UK flights in recent weeks barely scraped into double figures.

I wont hold my breath with this airline im afraid, On other forums people are complaining of a poor website that never works. If your website doesnt work, what about your planes ???

 

[Ray Finkle]

In recent weeks you could have combined BHX, MAN and STN loads onto a single A319 and still had a row to yourself.

I've seen absolutely no advertising for their flights, aside from a couple of Tweets, which is pretty useless given the competition on the route.

 

[JF57]

Cobalt have cancelled all their BHX flights until the 24th.

May is apparently a very quiet time of year for UK-Cyprus travel and it seems loads on several of their UK flights in recent weeks barely scraped into double figures.

Not sure where that view comes from. The season is just getting going and many people like to visit in May before the summer heat kicks in and the flowers are still in bloom.

Cobalt punctuality was terrible to start with but had got better. Not tried the website recently. It worked OK to start with when I looked for some flights. Having said that we booked with Monarch.

 

[Bhx_fifteen]

Cobalt's connections are not bookable! Well.....sort of.

It says 'no flights' everyday for flights from BHX to Beirut (via LCA), and to Tel-Aviv only outbound flights appear (I guess the timings don't work on the way back).

From Stansted connections work for both Beirut and Tel-Aviv in both directions (because Stansted has daily flights), and Beirut in particular has really good connection times - around 45 minutes!

I guess there's more to come - trying to establish a hub from scratch must be an exceedingly difficult task. If you consider the fact that both sides of the connections (e.g. West - BHX, MAN, STN, CDG etc and East - BEY and TLV) will ideally be frequently connected to the hub, in this case Larnaca. But at least one 'side' (East or West in this case) must be frequently connected for it to work. Take Keflavik Airport, for example. Wow Air fly semi-frequently to European cities (in general) but frequently to America, so it works. If both 'sides' of the connection were just semi-frequent, logistically connections from any given European destination to any given American destination simply couldn't work, only certain routes could work...

V complex.

Good luck to them anyway - their backers seem really serious about making the hub work so we'll have to sit back and watch.

 

[Bhx_fifteen]

Despite the (seemingly) poor loads and negative press, Cobalt have actually named Birmingham as on their radar as a destination to serve from the smaller Cypriot airport of Paphos....

http://cyprustraveller.com/interview-cobalt-cyprus-5870-2/

"We also fly from Pafos Airport to Athens which is presently our only flight from that airport, although we’re currently evaluating to offer flights from Pafos to Brussels, Dublin, London Stansted and Birmingham this winter."

They didn't even mention Manchester which surprises me!

 

[Ray Finkle]

It's interesting that he talks about launching Paphos routes for winter but further on he says that Cyprus has too much capacity for winter. Great interview though

It sounds like they have a long term goal and are slowly working towards that, the potential is clearly there with Cyprus a transit hub as well as a tourist destination. I hope it works for them.

I'd really like to see an ad campaign to raise awareness of their UK services, a couple of Tweets from BHX aside I've seen nothing.

 

[Bhx_fifteen]

I read recently that Cobalt has a new UK partner to help with advertising and brand awareness.

This seems to be some of their work:

Great to see Cobalt doing some advertising! Also, just me being extremely anal or does it bother anyone else that they say Birmingham International Airport after the airport made a big thing of dropping that from its title?

 

[Ray Finkle]

Nice to see some advertising.

Still nothing on sale for winter yet. Monarch and Blue Air have had Cyprus available for a while now, one has to wonder if Cobalt are missing out on potential bookings.

I've heard nothing more about Paphos for winter, they did put Larnaca on sale in October for a Dec start so we may well see something similar.

 

[Brum X]

Being a bit geeky now but ive just added Cobalt Air to my flight traffic on my Flightsim FSX, they look awesome at Larnaca Airport. My only problem now though is getting rid of Cyprus Airways. I mean Cyprus Airways, they went years ago. I cant have Cobalt Air and Cyprus airways alongside each other, its just not right.

 

[Kevin Farnell]

Being a bit geeky now but ive just added Cobalt Air to my flight traffic on my Flightsim FSX, they look awesome at Larnaca Airport. My only problem now though is getting rid of Cyprus Airways. I mean Cyprus Airways, they went years ago. I cant have Cobalt Air and Cyprus airways alongside each other, its just not right.

Going off topic here, I'm a bit of a 'flightsimmer' myself. I've moved on from FSX (although I still have it installed) to LM's Prepar3D. A great platform with wonderful support from Lockheed Martin although some older FSX aircraft no longer work.
Back to reality, I really miss seeing the Cyprus Airways A310's at BHX.

Regards

Kevin

 

[User001]

Is Cobalt going seasonal?

Uploaded their W17 offering, including new routes to Frankfurt and Gatwick, but BHX hasn't been loaded, along with the known seasonal routes of DUB/ZRH and BRU?

 

[Ray Finkle]

I hope so.

Their loads have been pretty bad (not just from BHX) and with Blue Air now year round on the route I'm not convinced that there is enough demand for them both (along with Monarch) outside of the peak period. For me Blue Air are much more important so hopefully this will help them.

My guess is that we could well see Paphos start around Dec time with Larnaca gone, for winter at least.