Rumours about new destinations or airlines?

[tleeds]

Here is a copy of my reply to White Heather's point on the LS aircraft being parked up on the apron all the time in winter on the Infrastructure and Developments forum that I thought was also appropriate here.

Innsbruck - apart from its tricky approach - would be a functional and profitable route and I can't understand why routes such as Corfu are only operated May to Sep/Oct. The worst thing Jet2 did was drop SSH. That was an all year round route, that made great loads. I would like to see FUE and LPA(?) in the canary islands operated by LS, its two more all year round routes for them to operate.

 

[markietg]

Sorry guys lol....oh I mean Laugh Out Loud!!! EFL= Kefalonia JTR= Thira(Santorini) both would be most welcome out of LBA= Leeds/Bradford! 20years of doing check-in im afraid, I have more codes in my head than Jason Bourne.

 

[User0001]

I would be very surprised if Jet2 didnt re-enter the Tunisia and Egypt markets.

Thomson is doing a roaring trade on Enfidha/Sharm at DSA, as well as the Hurgarda, Sharm, Enfidha and Taba at MAN.
Also, Flybe has entered the Tunisia market at MAN, as well as Tunisiar comming this May too. I do think Jet2 were a bit hasty, and they would be mad not to take it back up again.

As for some of the routes, Ljubniana is a very niche route these days, seems only MAN/LGW and I think, LHR? can sustain it, and MAN is only 2 weekly peak summer at that.

Also, Santorini (Thira) is probably a no no. Dont for get, its a very small island that probably couldnt cope with many more tourists. It already has MAN/LGW flights, an Easyjet Gatwick flight, Day trippers from Crete, too many cruise ships to count.... I think it would be a tight squeeze, as Id imagine BHX/GLA/BRS would have flights before Leeds, and then it really would be bursting point!!!!

Las Palmas would be a good route, as would Keffalonia and maybe Athens. It seemed to be a niche route years ago, but it seems to be more and more accessable nowdays with flights form LGW/LHR/MAN/EDI and I think STN? (I know LTN was dropped a while ago)

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I think it would be a tight squeeze, as Id imagine BHX/GLA/BRS would have flights before Leeds, and then it really would be bursting point!!!!

BRS and BHX did have weekly summer charter flights to Santorini for a year or two around 2005-2006. The carrier was Aegean Airlines to BRS - come to think of it, it may have been a double drop to BRS and BHX, at least for one of the summers.

 

[User0001]

BRS and BHX did have weekly summer charter flights to Santorini for a year or two around 2005-2006

And I think thats what Im trying to say about an LBA flight.

Those 2 airports would warrant a service first, so, by the time LBA comes online, you have 3 extra weekly flights on a very small (and from personal experience, a quite frankly expensive island!). Im not saying Leeds doesnt have the demand, Im saying the infrastructure at the other end may not be able to cope.

Id say Greece wise, a 2 weekly B737-300 to Athens from Jet2 may work, if they feel brave, and who knows, maybe a 1 weekly Chania in Crete. Then I think the Jet2 Tunisia/Egypt programmes need to be brought back.
Also, a Las Palmas and possibly a Madrid from Spain would work for jet2 aswell.

 

[tleeds]

WorldURep - you mentioned a Madrid, I still don't know Jet2 dropped it a couple of years back. A Valencia route would be welcomed back as well as Almeria - but all were dropped by LS around 2/3 years ago.

 

[User0001]

Madrid would be good, its just a lack of suitable operators. Iberia seem to be doing a 'BA' and dont serve any UK regional. Jet2 seem to have shyed away from Madrid (as well as LBA, also served MAN-MAD briefly), Ryanair only seem to do LGW/EDI/MAN-MAD, so that just leaves Vueling really, and, they dont seem to serve UK regions either.

Lisbon seems to be getting very clogged up at the moment, and when Easyjet finally opens its base, it would be hard to find stands etc for another operator. Im afraid the north west may have to put up with MAN-LIS on TP, or LPL-LIS on Easyjet.

Berlin- Once the new airport opens, theres going to be tonnes of space, but, like MAD, who would run it? The Berlin airport operators have already said that once the new Berlin airport opens, Ryanair have to pay or basically 'get lost', so, that could rule them out. There is no easyjet base at LBA, otherwise they would be the best contenders. Could be another Jet2 route, as there isnt really a foreign operator that could do it, other than Air Berlin, and for some reason, I just dont see Air Berlin at LBA?

 

[a300boy]

Madrid has a large Ryanair base so they would be my guess for operating Leeds-Madrid next year when and if we get further based aircraft or maybe Madrid-Leeds-Madrid with a Spanish based aircraft.

 

[User0001]

Madrid has a large Ryanair base so they would be my guess for operating Leeds-Madrid next year when and if we get further based aircraft or maybe Madrid-Leeds-Madrid with a Spanish based aircraft.

Yes but big bases at each end doesnt automatically mean airports have the MAD link.

LPL, BHX, BRS, EDI (I said it did have the MAD link in my last post, but on looking, it doesnt) all have bigger bases than LBA, have been open longer and do not have a MAD link with Ryanair.
I think this boils down to what I said about easyjet. When a carrier opens a route/base at LBA, people just seem to be assuming many more routes will follow.
Just because easyjet started GVA-LBA, there was the whole 'oh 2 aircraft based soon...', then theres the whole 'TCX doing well so TOM will just HAVE to base aircraft at LBA', now RYR will base more planes at LBA so MAD is going to be opened.

Rather than just assuming a route is a given, do we have any pax figures for LBA-MAD, either via air to another airport or overland to LPL/MAN/LHR/LGW?

 

[a300boy]

No figures available to me and not my scene personally. Just pointing out if the figures on the Jet 2 route they abandoned were reasonably good it would be pretty easy to operate either way by Ryanair. I will leave Mr O"Leary and his boys to decide.

 

[White Heather]

I feel sure that some pax figures from LBA - Madrid have been provided on here in the past, going back to when Jet2 dropped the route, but I seem to recall that the loads were very good. It certainly came as a surprise to most of us that the route was dropped. Maybe someone will be able to show what numbers used the route during the time Jet2 operated it and the average passenger loadings? Hope so anyway.

Another route I would love see from LBA is Seville - another area of Spain that is not served at all. Not sure what the demand is though, but we have other routes operating that I didn't think would have so much demand, but they continue to do well!

Warsaw would be good - probably Ryanair. When we had the route operating a few years ago by Centralwings, I understood the loads to be very good, despite the silly timings which were arrival at LBA around 2230 and departing to Warsaw around 2315 (from memory). That was a 737 operation and I do know that LBA were very disappointed it was dropped 'due to aircraft shortages' just as it was really starting to do well. I seem to recall the airline, which was a division of LOT, disappeared not too long afterwards?

 

[White Heather]

Replying to myself here!

Just a thought - since Jet2 seem to be possibly under-serving Jersey, it would possibly be an opportunity for their service to be supplemented by a Flybe Dash 8 operating at weekends and perhaps a couple during the week. I know they do DSA, but I really think that there would be room for them at LBA too without impacting too severely at DSA. I guess that it would depend on aircraft availability since the aircraft would probably operate SOU - JER - LBA- JER - SOU or something similar. Perhaps it could alternate between LBA and DSA during the week, and operate from both at weekends?

 

[User0001]

I feel sure that some pax figures from LBA - Madrid have been provided on here in the past, going back to when Jet2 dropped the route, but I seem to recall that the loads were very good. It certainly came as a surprise to most of us that the route was dropped. Maybe someone will be able to show what numbers used the route during the time Jet2 operated it and the average passenger loadings? Hope so anyway.

The airport's own data that they provide as part of their route development activity reads as follows:

UNSERVED ROUTES/KEY MARKET OPPORTUNITIES:

Top 12 unserved routes from LBA are;

* Orlando / Florida

* New York / US

* Dubai / Gulf

* Toronto

* Frankfurt

* Madrid

* Zurich

* Copenhagen

* Oslo

Increased business connectivity to the Gulf, SE Asia, China and Japan required for increasing business demand.

Strong ethnic traffic support in West Yorkshire for services to the Gulf, India and Pakistan. PIA has successfully operated twice weekly to Islamabad since June 2008.

West Yorkshire has one of UK's largest Indian (90k) and Pakistani (160k) communities in the UK living within 20 km of LBA.

Leeds is the largest UK city without direct service to US.

The US is West Yorkshire's main trading partner and LBA has strong business and leisure demand for a New York service and onward connectivity to satisfy a daily transatlantic B757 service.

####################################

In terms of Madrid, it's a relatively low yielding route relative to the sector length so whist Jet2 attracted the volume, the revenue wasn't there to support it. A number of UK routes to MAD have come and gone for much the same reason.

As a business, Jet2 make around £4 net profit per passenger, therefore the difference between average cabin yield of a few pounds can make a big difference in terms of route profitability. Such differences are impossible to detect from those outside of the business and looking at the prices via booking engines gives little away as to what is really happening. The obvious thing to say is that airlines don't generally walk away from routes that make money. So if they stop a route, the overwhelming probability is that it wasn't profitable - regardless of the load factors. If the route was 'marginal' then there is always a chance that if there are favourable changes to fuel prices, airport charges, APD, competitor airlines withdrawing, consumer confidence etc etc, then an airline may be persuaded to have another go.

 

[Aviador]

[warning]OOPS!!!!
Hi folks,

Over the last few days people have been getting a bit mixed up here.

This is the thread for "Rumours about new destinations or airlines" not for discussions about Potential Routes.

To avoid any further confusion I have renamed the Potential Routes thread as the "Route Development" thread.

So just to reiterate, this thread is just for "Rumours about new destinations or airlines" or if you like, gossip type of rumours.[/warning]

 

[lbaspotter]

Hi

I've been told by a reliable soure to expect an announcement regarding a new route with-in the next couple of weeks from LBA commenceing from October time.. Watch this space is all i will say....

 

[eastcoaster]

Well Ryan Air are having this long overdue meeting, delayed from December in Leeds on May 10th. Something might come out of this hopefully.

 

[Moo2009]

Will it be a new airline to LBA

 

[White Heather]

I suspect that there is nothing to give away yet, and the source probably doesn't know what the route is either - perhaps not even the airline. It would, in some ways, be nice if it was a new airline other than Jet2/Ryanair - a few more airlines operating out of LBA would be good. However, anything is good. Lets hope the source is correct about this one.

 

[lbaspotter]

lbaspotter can you not give anything away?

I could tell you. But that would give the game away. Also I don't want to say anything else about this at the moment as it may well not happen. I have told some people in person but I'm not willing to let slip this over a forum for it then to be splashed all over the Internet.

Sorry..

 

[lbaspotter]

lbaspotter I appreciate your comments and maybe your reticence is due to the nature of the discussions, but would you not have been better not putting anything on the web then? The idea of a forum is to discuss and the title of the thread is rumours - so to put a one liner on a web page and to not expect something then to discussed on the web is somewhat surprising?

Quite true. I cant argue with that. I just thought people would like to know that something maybe happening sooner rather than later.
But hey from now on if I do here anything been rumoured or get told anything in person by relailbe sources I guess I wont be saying anything until its confirmed. Sorry...