Rumours about new destinations or airlines?

[tleeds]

Unfortunatley I just can't see Monarch at LBA. Monarch have always been the 'airline in the background' for me and tend to operate from the much larger airports around the UK; Manchester, Luton, Gatwick and Birmingham to name.... well nearly all of them .

On a serious note however, I can only feel that LBA just isn't 'big' enough to tempt Monarch. They are too much of a, dare I say it, 'fragile' airline to put themselves into an Airport that is nearly at full capacity and has more problems than positives. They are much more comfortable at the bigger airports within the UK, of which they can attract a higher proportion of passengers, In a few years, maybe LBA could be the next best thing for Monarch, but not at the moment....

Saying all this however, from recent news they are moving into more UK airports, although I can't see LBA being one of them. I can see; BRS, EMA, NEW, GLA being the next big thing for Monarch, LBA just doesn't have passenger numbers that these airports have, with LBA only just reaching 3Million and the rest being 4Million+..

 

[752]

Iread way back a rumour or emriates intrested in exanding into europe, with new aircraft orders arriving there is alot of a330 being free'd up with a new route to dublin recently anounced, could LBA have any chance off a route to dubai at all?

 

[User0001]

With 3 daily flights to fill over the hill, added to that one is an A380, added to that the investment in lounges and dnata handling recently arriving at MAN, Id say the chances for the next 10 years at least are none-slim.

 

[lbaspotter]

Oh here we go again. The Emirates rumours started.
Did't we discuss this issue on here not so long ago and all agree that Emirates will would not be coming to LBA while they operate 3x daily service's on the other side of the hill out of MAN and daily up at NCL.

So I'm 100% in agreement with user001 on this. Just don't see it happening.

 

[tleeds]

Ap1995, your not wrong, I'm sure a Dubai route would be very successful, but it's likely that Emirates will not be the carrier on this route I'm afraid...

 

[User0001]

Emirates would need to be the carrier on this route if it were to work.

The numbers actually travelling LHR/LGW/MAN/BHX/NCL/GLA-DXB are actually very small, its the onward connections that pull in the punters.
Lets just say jet2 go for it, they would find it very hard surviving LBA-DXB on just origin and destination traffic. And no doubt Emirates would lower the fares MAN/NCL-DXB to enhialate them.

The only other option is if you got someone like PIA to run LBA-DXB-LHE, and then the question of would there be enough seats left open for an LBA-DXB-LBA leg.

 

[Aviador]

The initial rumour was regarding Monarch Airlines "looking around LBA" and the thread has drifted on to discussing Potential Routes so I have moved parts of the discussion into that thread to try separate the 'rumour mill' from future possibilities that either may or may not ever happen.

With regards to Monarch serving LBA, a colleague of mine seemed to think Monarch are going to be coming to Leeds next year. I asked her where she'd heard about it but she couldn't remember so either the plot thickens or it was just a misinterpretation on her behalf somewhere along the line.

 

[Jordan-34092]

It would be good to see Monarch at lba. A few possible routes could be sharm el sheik, and Gibraltar, some of the destinations monarch serve but LBA doesn't have

 

[whoshotjimmi]

I'm not sure what Monarch could add to LBA to be quite honest. Sharm is still tough and Gibraltar? Really? I think that, IF they came to LBA, they would just compete on the already well established routes. Still, anything that helps Jet2 to address their abysmal performance this summer can only be a good thing....

With regards to Dubai - although the point to point aspect is becoming more important, it is very much the Dubai hub that is the main pull of the route. In other words, only Emirates could make the route work. I keep hearing all this "Emirates will not come to LBA" talk and I understand why people think that. But I can't help thinking that Emirates/Dubai nears the top of the list for passenger numbers at every airport it operates at in the UK. The demand is clearly there and it should be in LBA's interest to try and schmooze and coerce this airline. In fact, it should be a priority. One small point regarding the freeing up of A330's - though this aircraft would sit perfectly on the route, Emirates are phasing the type out of their fleet over the next few years, though they will remain for a little while yet (they have the A350 on order which is miles off atm). Maybe PIA could do a little deal with Emirates to bring in a couple of A330's? It would certainly secure the future of their own route that people keep saying won't work because of flights being available at MAN.....

If you get my drift.

 

[Jordan-34092]

One small point regarding the freeing up of A330's - though this aircraft would sit perfectly on the route, Emirates are phasing the type out of their fleet over the next few years, though they will remain for a little while yet (they have the A350 on order which is miles off atm)..

These are staying in the fleet until the A350 comes into service then it will be removed from service, the A340 is to be be removed from service by emirates first.

 

[User0001]

Seems the Catalan Dragons want to set up a charter airline for Rugby matches.

Routes would be Perpignan-LBA/HUY/LPL/MAN.

http://www.code13rugbyleague.com/2011/0 ... tood-down/

 

[whoshotjimmi]

Makes reasonable sense, but I would be worried about it turning a profit.

 

[whoshotjimmi]

Is there really enough demand for Jet2 to get involved? I would have thought there is scarcely any demand for the rugby flights. Half the problem is that games are played on weekday evenings making away travel difficult. Then there is the situation where a based aircraft would have to fly into the UK empty to take UK passengers to Perpignan and back and then fly back empty again. That is thoroughly unsustainable. It would only work at one end.

If there was a Perpignan based aircraft to deal with the Catalan team and support and then the likes of Jet2/Thomson chartered a based aircraft from one of the local airports LBA/MAN/DSA/HUY etc then it may be feasible but I simply do not think the demand is there.

Obviously, the issue of travel is more important to Catalans as they will need to fly to the UK many times over a season but I cannot see the English teams being the slightest bit bothered by it as they only have to do it once a season. I don't think Catalans can sustain such an operation and there would have to be a significant fan uptake to keep it going. I would be very surprised if this even got off the ground (metaphorically speaking).

 

[Aviador]

If anything I would say Jet2 are more than suited to this type of operation. During quieter times of the year Jet2 will have spare capacity to handle private rugby charters as an addition to there usual operation. Indeed through the winter months they seem to pick up numerous private charters.

http://www.jet2charters.com/home/

 

[pilot_737]

The rugby games aren't played on a weekday eveining, they are all mostly Saturday tea time kick offs.

Setting up an airline doesn't mean they have to own an operate any aircraft, they could simply lease say an Air France jet for the Catalan flights and then maybe lease from Jet2 or Thomson to take English fans out there. Therefore there would be no empty positioning sectors.

 

[whoshotjimmi]

The rugby games aren't played on a weekday eveining, they are all mostly Saturday tea time kick offs.

Setting up an airline doesn't mean they have to own an operate any aircraft, they could simply lease say an Air France jet for the Catalan flights and then maybe lease from Jet2 or Thomson to take English fans out there. Therefore there would be no empty positioning sectors.

That is exactly the point I was making. But I still do not believe there would be enough demand. With regards setting up an airline, I was referring to the actual news item which states "Catalan Dragons are about to begin the process of launching their own airline." I have no idea how they plan to go about doing that, I am merely speculating. What I am saying is that there has to be suitable demand for whatever they do to work.

With regards to leasing Jet2 and Thomson aircraft etc, the superleague plays over the busy summer season. So I would have thought the charter capability (with Jet2 at least) would be somewhat difficult.

 

[User0001]

Id bet that if the Catalan Dragons plan did come off, we would be looking at a B737, likely -300 series. Anything bigger just doesnt make sense, and Id bet Jet2 will be snapping up the lions share of 2nd hand B737-800's that come on the market. Between matches they could lease out to airlines to cover short aircraft.

The only flaw in that plan is with Air Finland, Astrateus, Titan, Strategic and more, that part of the market seems quite well covered already, particularly the UK, however, I'm not sure what the same situation is like in Spain/France.

 

[tleeds]

Well you have actually covered a very good point there User001 that you may not have spotted.

Air Finland and Strategic are not actually UK based airlines and so you could say that this market is well catered for throughout Europe.

I think it boils down to the fact that if an airline needs a spare aircraft at such short notice, then one can easily be found and dispatched within several hours.

The Catalan Dragons may just be looking for another revenue stream, to save them paying for chartering aircraft out themselves, and creating revenue by actually chartering it out themselves. The sums would have to be made to see whether this is actually a profitable idea first though.

 

[User0001]

True point about Air Finland and Strategic, However, out of the 3 A320's Strategic have, 2 are MAN based and 1 LGW based. Also, the 2 Air Finland B757's are based at BHX in the summer.

 

[lbaspotter]

Without using the UK operators already mentioned, I can think of 3x French based operators who could do these charter flights for the Catalan Dragon’s Rugby League fans or UK based fans going out to Perpignan from Humberside, Leeds, Manchester or Liverpool
commencing from next season.

Air Air Méditerranée & Aigle Azur with there fleet of Airbuses and Europe Airpost with there fleet of Boeing 737’s.

So there is No need for the likes of using Jet2 and other UK based operators who really work there aircraft hard throughout the summer season at weekends when these flights would be undertaken most likely.