Manchester Airport - General Thread

[David_itl]

David, the other big change from 1978 and the 80s is that scheduled international traffic in March was 80% of the total.
I know it's mainly because RYR, Jet2 & EZY are 'scheduled' and some of the TCX, MON & TOM I believe, but what a change from years ago when charter in summer was something like 70%, wasn't it?

It was! The blurred lines between charter and scheduled traffic nowadays can cause a bit of havoc when doing the comparisons.

We could play a game of "scissor hub potential" carriers? The only airlines I've heard about in relation to operating such a strategy on various forums are the Indian one but there's no stand-outs with Jet having moved to Amsterdam and Air India doing non-stop India-USA. It's a case of thinking what airlines has a few destinations in their home market and a few destinations overseas where they can then see their home-overseas routes flourish and tapping into the MAN-home and MAN-overseas sectors. Can't see too many domestic/European carriers doing this unless we start thinking Flybe further developing what they've got here but focused in on the morning rotations as the afternoon/evening looks okay.

 

[User001]

The scissor hub potential is not an eastern carrier. I used the wrong term really, it's not a scissor hub as such, as all the flights from said carrier would terminate at MAN, but, would use various connection partners including flybe and Hainan.

We are in the mix with 5 other potentials, and word is we are about to make the final 3 and even one in the final 3 may not be an option.

 

[Dobbo]

Who could it be, a U.S. carrier, far eastern or Middle Eastern carrier. Surely couldn't be a European one?

 

[David_itl]

it was odd to see an article on MAN's statistics on Xinhuanet... that's the official Chinese news agency. Now if this reported in mainland China then this will lift the profile on the airport/region as a whole so help bolster the start of Hainan (and others!) services.

 

[User001]

Can only be a good thing to get the profile boosted.

Ive managed to take a peek at the current inbound/outbound loads one inagural Hainan, and at first I was very worried, but, it seems the flight is now filling up.

When I first looked 2 months ago, there were 4/17 booked in, 3/13 booked out.

It now shows that over 50 seats booked in for a tour group, 10/135+50 booked inbound, 11/182 booked outbound.

There seems to then be between 25 and 60 (100+ in July/August) seats pre-booked each way after the first week, and on asking seems to be for Caissa travel.

 

[Land23R]

It's usually me that worries User001, not you.

Actually, I do think we ought to keep expectations realistic in terms of loads on Hainan. The potential traffic previously mentioned for PEK (and PVG) as unserved routes, while significant, was noticeably less than HKG. That said, the numbers you mention for the inaugural flights are encouraging. Does the 25 to 60 you mention for subsequent flights include all bookings, or just those through Caissa Travel. Pro-active links with the prime Chinese travel agents are vital I imagine for encouraging and securing inbound tourism while business connections will hopefully have already been firmly established.

 

[Land23R]

CAA Stats: It's now 20th April and at this time the CAA provisional stats for March have still not been released.
(normally, it's the 15th-16th). Anyone know what the problem is, or is it simply that too many airports have reported late?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

CAA Stats: It's now 20th April and at this time the CAA provisional stats for March have still not been released.
(normally, it's the 15th-16th). Anyone know what the problem is, or is it simply that too many airports have reported late?

Since the CAA website was revamped a few months ago the monthly stats seem to be delayed, although February's figures actually came out around the time that used to be the case.

 

[Seasider]

Going back about 2 years they were always published between the 12th & 15th of the month. I would imagine cutbacks to manpower(somewhere along the line) will be the cause of the delay.

 

[David_itl]

CAA Stats: It's now 20th April and at this time the CAA provisional stats for March have still not been released.

Here you go: https://www.caa.co.uk/Data-and-anal...atasets/UK-Airport-data/Airport-data-2016-03/


Not linked on the website so just clicked on February and in the browser amended the "02" to "03"

 

[Dobbo]

Picking some out of thin air:

Hong Kong - roughly stable
Singapore - a solid 16% increase. Pushing towards the upgrade.
JfK - massive 123% increase! Wow.
ATL - 40% increase. Keeps going from strength to strength.

Istanbul remains strong, and double digit growth across the board with the MEB3 and Saudia not far behind.

Philadelphia seems to be softening demand. One to watch out for. Looks like Washington started later and Chicago earlier this year.

 

[David_itl]

What I find remarkable are the Dutch routes:

AMS 82249 +23.649%
EIN 5382 +3.282%
ROTTERDAM 3144 n/a (ignoring the 100 charter passengers last year)

No cannibalisation from AMS to RTM is apparent!? My tentative figures show 51 passengers per flight to RTM.

 

[Dobbo]

I hadn't spotted that. I think Brussels was down - in part for depressing reasons - but might airports like that become the victim?

 

[David_itl]

I don't think it will be the case. February saw this:

BRU 17133 +16.464%
CRL 15000 +8.342%

AMS 74575 +25.174
EIN 5278 + 9.935
RTM 2461 n.a

Pretty sure there was enough time between for people to make a choice of which airport to use after Flybe's announcement. Looks like there is enough passengers for all to do well in getting people filling aircraft so it's just a matter of if this is being done at profitable levels.

 

[Land23R]

David, thanks for the heads up yesterday that the stats were posted. I was out all evening until late and they weren't there when I checked earlier just before 5pm.

A funny month to make too much sense of until we see April figures I guess. Easter fell in March but the school holidays in April. Last year, I think both were in April. Some interesting numbers nevertheless. Will have a closer gander this morning.

 

[Land23R]

Looking at the non-USA long haul numbers, the average loads assuming all flights operated were:

SQ 155
CX 302 (LF 88.7%)
EK 475 (LF 91.3%)
EY 349
QR 226
SV 229

Load factors for me are too tricky to calculate where equipment varies - QR for example sees the B777, 787, A332 & A333.

On EK, I've assumed the 21/22 was the 2 class, so (427+517+615) x 2 is the daily capacity of 3,118 seats. Remarkable really, and 88,261 seats were filled.

 

[Dobbo]

Land - might you be able to come up with equivalent calculations for the US routes?

It looks like CX and EK are close to needing a positive change, albeit we know CX have crew and aircraft issues.

SQ seem to be doing okay for what is clearly a sub-optimal routing. Looking forward to the response when the service goes non-stop again.

 

[Land23R]

Some of the US routes are too complicated for me I'm afraid Dobbo.

I think these 2 routes were daily with a standard a/c:

UA to EWR was down 7%, with a LF of 83.4%

AA to PHL was 4% down with a LF of 69.2%

If ATL was daily, and I'm not sure it was, the LF would be 74.9%, obviously higher if it only operated say 6 x weekly.

Too many unknowns for me re JFK:
- were AA daily and what was the mix of B757/767?
- DL I believe was daily but how many days did they use the B767
- TCX. Did they operate any JFK flights in March or only resume in April?
You would have to know all of those factors to determine an overall capacity and what LF the 17,420 pax represented.

ORD & IAD only restarted during / near the end of the month so not a good guide anyway.

What I will say is that recent loads for the US carriers from MAN according to web site seat maps on the morning of departures have been struggling, often less than 65% and barely 50% on some days for some routes. BHX has been similar or even worse. LHR flights on AA to ORD and JFK for example have usually had plenty of Economy seats shown as available but Business Class has looked much busier, and that's what counts I guess. Freight is also important.

 

[Dobbo]

Thanks Land

Not as positive as I expected. The headline figures generally look good. I suppose anything averaging LF of 75% and above is good with the caveat of business class and freight.

Easter aside, is March a busy month for MAN? Historically I don't think so but would be curious.

 

[Land23R]

The information for each year, by month, is readily available here:
http://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/about-us/publications/traffic-statistics/

Looking at 2015 pax figures including transit, the busiest to quietest months were:
Aug.
Jul
Sep
Jun
May
Oct
Apr
Mar
Dec
Nov
Feb
Jan

As said before, the timing of Easter and school holidays can make a significant difference to March & April.