Potential Routes

[Dobbo]

What could be the other popular routes? I'd say LHR, LGW, FRA, CDG, MAD?

David - do you have an equivalent for ANZ?

 

[Dobbo]

Do we want to examine the potential routes Norwegian could operate from MAN, and the equipment they might use?

 

[jfy1999]

A poster on another forum says that Sun Air/BA are looking to start flights to Groningen from Manchester and London-City.

 

[Borneobob]

Why do none of the low cost airlines fly from MAN into Florence FLR airport, when the city is so popular with the short break market? Manchester also seems to be ignored by many of the Eastern European carriers like CSA, Blue Air, Wizz, Croatia Airlines, etc. despite the airport showing incredible growth?

 

[Dobbo]

User001 will be able to provide a better answer than me. I think they go into Liverpool and (on the other side of the Pennines) Doncaster.

 

[User001]

Wizz seem entrenched at LPL/DSA, and despite several meetings, both sides just cannot seem to agree on a contract. Apparently Wizz would very much like to serve MAN, but, for the prices they want to pay and the terms wizz want, MAN are in a position to say no at the moment, it's not like the airport are desperate for the passengers at the moment.

As for Blue air and CSA, maybe just a simple case the LPL made the better offer. Obviously a route to Bucharest would be much desired, but, Prague is well enough served from MAN so again, not a huge loss.

As for Florence, it will only be a matter of time. We do have flights to Pisa and Bologna nearby, so, as above, it's not a huge huge loss at the moment, but hopefully Vueling can be persuaded in time, as Vueling seem to like MAN at the moment.

 

[Borneobob]

I thought FLR would have been a good destination for Ryanair from many places around Europe not only MAN. The low cost airlines seem to do well with the other Italian cities Rome & Venice, and Florence seems to be an obvious choice appealing to a very similar market? I looked myself and was surprised that there was no service.

 

[Dobbo]

Would Flybe have the opportunity to fill some of the gaps in European coverage?

May increase the value of the codeshares with VS, TCX, CX et al.

 

[Dobbo]

Supposedly due to start 3x weekly to Guangzhou using the B788.

Start date TBC, but not till 2017 at the earliest I'd suggest.

 

[Aviador]

Well it certainly looks like China is the place to be. Lets hope it comes to fruition.

 

[Dobbo]

With the explosion of China, and the relatively recent additions of San Francisco and LA, where next for the long haul route team?

 

[Borneobob]

Here's a question that someone on here might be able to provide an answer to. The other day a friend asked if I knew why he couldn't book a holiday to the popular Greek island of Samos flying from Manchester? My answer was of course you can, I flew there a few years ago for a holiday, and Manchester probably has more charter destinations than almost any airport in the UK! So I looked for him and he was right you can't? This seems very strange, you would thought it was one of those places that if its on sale in brochures people would go.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

The island of Samos is located very close to the west coast of Turkey. As such, it is one of the destinations afflicted by public perceptions that there is a major refugee problem to contend with. Customer demand for islands close to Turkey has fallen sharply; tour operators have redeployed accordingly. Bookings to Greece are suffering generally, which is unfortunate because alot of the islands are nowhere near the migrant zone nor on the route they wish to follow. The Iberian peninsula and destinations such as the Canaries are the big winners with tourists for Summer 2016 with Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt also struggling badly.

 

[Borneobob]

It's been missing from MAN for a number of years, even before the current refugee crisis, and all the major operators are still providing plenty of flights to KGS, RHO and MJT. During all this time TOM have been still serving SMI from LGW

 

[Borneobob]

According to an article in the Telegraph, Greece is expecting record numbers of tourists in 2016, despite the so called perceived crisis

 

[EGCC_MAN]

Borneobob - I'm not sure why you asked the question if you didn't want to know the answer. Greek holidays have been a tough sell this season, especially to islands neighbouring Turkey. The "so called perceived crisis" can be viewed regularly on mainstream news broadcasts. Maybe you don't watch?

 

[Borneobob]

EGCC_MAN of course I watch the news, and know that the islands in that area are having lots of problems, in fact I've visited many of them in the area in the last 18 months or so. The term "perceived crisis" was a quote taken from a report in the Daily Telegraph the other day about the predictions for the 2016 holiday season in Greece.
I was really just asking the group why there seems to have been no direct flights between MAN and SMI, probably for at least the last five years, even though it is quite a popular tourist island,and was served regularly from MAN in the summer seasons of the past, and continues to be from many other points in Europe, including LGW by mega large tour operators.
Like I said in the first post, it surprised me when I looked, and it wasn't in the list of destinations from MAN.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

Fair enough. On the migrant situation, it appears that recent agreements between the EU and Turkey have stemmed the migrant flows at this time, though a number of beaches etc. need a good clean-up with thousands of discarded lifejackets scattered around. Unfortunately for the tourist industry, negative publicity was at its height during the crucial January / February bookings period, and this is when tour operators must make key decisions on tweaking their programmes for the summer ahead guided by patterns of demand. Hopefully the Eastern Greek islands will stage a strong comeback for Summer 2017 because they do have alot going for them.

One factor affecting the choice of Greek destinations over the last few years has actually been the evolution of the package holiday industry itself. If we turn the clocks back a decade, today's big names Thomson and Thomas Cook were up against a healthy selection of strong independent tour operators specialising in the Greek product. Sunmed and Olympic Holidays were particularly strong brands, and they (not the majors) often led the way in introducing new destinations and niche islands. Sunmed is long gone, Olympic Holidays is still with us but is a far less powerful brand than it once was. Meanwhile, then major player XL Leisure Group was also a big operator in the Greek market primarily through its Libra Holidays brand before going bust in 2008. Today we are left with a core of very large non-specialist IT operators, some smaller players, and lots of pseudo-packaging options offered by companies such as Jet2Holidays and EasyJet.

Small Planet Airlines and Air X Charter each have a based aircraft at MAN primarily dedicated to the Greek market this Summer. These are flying for Olympic Holidays and Loloflights respectively. But the range of destinations offered by the independents can't match those available a decade ago.

 

[Borneobob]

EGCC_MAN, thanks, in fact it probably was as far back as the XL Leisure days that I visited Samos, and maybe it has not been on the list at Manchester since then. Hope someone starts flying there again soon. All this looking at flights too the area has got me wanting to do a trip through the Dodecanese again. I noticed a nice cheap way to reach the area whilst looking, Veuling to the beautiful island of Karpathos via FCO. Good combo of city and beach.

 

[Borneobob]

Reading the other threads on the forum it looks like there are plenty of new routes and new airlines about to start from MAN in the near future,and things are looking good for the airport, and passengers not wanting to travel south to make connections.
I must admit that I'm not as clued up as other contributors to these posts, but I was looking through the destinations list again and could not see a direct flight from MAN to BOD Bordeaux. Again a great destination for the short break market, and a route that you would imagine would be popular if offered.
The route is offered from LPL and BHX so why not MAN.