Route Development & Rumours

[Bob O'JOb]

It dont think it was heavily used for exports and imports were mainly mangoes. Having said that my firm used it for garments, mainly from the Far East. The airport had a Transit Shed back then. It wasnt viable to retain it once PIA went.

The airport management were more than happy to force WFS out by jacking up their rent to an unsustainable level, they then batted off multiple enquires to take over the Xray and trucking operation (Dnata and Swissport) as Jet2 wanted the building (look at it now......). They had no interest at all in the big picture of being a spoke in the worldwide airfreight and passenger network back then. The same with the old new terminal plans, no freight provision, and still none. They can forget Turkish without being able to put freight on their narrowbodies, and there's no way that any other legacy carrier will be interested either. It won't put off the niche lowcost operators in their A321's, they'll be rammed with passengers and all the excess baggage that they make way more money off than cargo at £1.00 per kilo FFWH.

 

[BCFC]

ACL report out for LBA - nothing long haul !

So that's that then.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

The airport management were more than happy to force WFS out by jacking up their rent to an unsustainable level, they then batted off multiple enquires to take over the Xray and trucking operation (Dnata and Swissport) as Jet2 wanted the building (look at it now......). They had no interest at all in the big picture of being a spoke in the worldwide airfreight and passenger network back then. The same with the old new terminal plans, no freight provision, and still none. They can forget Turkish without being able to put freight on their narrowbodies, and there's no way that any other legacy carrier will be interested either. It won't put off the niche lowcost operators in their A321's, they'll be rammed with passengers and all the excess baggage that they make way more money off than cargo at £1.00 per kilo FFWH.

As far as I was aware (and I was involved) no one wanted to take over either the export scanning/trucking or the import transit shed. Without a wide body operator freight at regional airports is dead. Newcastle wouldnt have a transit shed if werent a requirement of the Emirates contract that they have one. I can see why post PIA, continuing with a transit shed at Leeds wasbt viable, despite fighting for its retention at the time.

Incidentally the airport were never engaged with cargo, they saw the operator as just another tennant. I get the feeling that its a similar situation with Multiflight.

 

[LBA4EVER]

But its quite likely that a couple of A321s a week out of LBA to (say) Jeddah would be pretty well loaded with passengers, with the baggage hold also well loaded as a result, so no room for cargo nor any need to carry it. If cargo was a prerequisite then airlines wouldn't be buying aircraft such as the A321LR for long haul, and if passenger loads are poor then the route won't survive and will be gone!

Look at this way, if jet2 and ryanair can make money flying 737s to the canaries out of LBA then an operator flying to jeddah surely would be a success, im aware jeddah is probably an hour or more flying time and a different market (pax) but the 321LR seats more pax plus the fares would i expect be slightly more as it would be a bit more of a premium service id expect. So when you work it out its a possibility, id even say the A321LR is a threat to the likes of MAN, LHR in this sector!

 

[Aviador]

It dont think it was heavily used for exports and imports were mainly mangoes. Having said that my firm used it for garments, mainly from the Far East. The airport had a Transit Shed back then. It wasnt viable to retain it once PIA went.

You are correct that cargo would be essential for a successful wide-bodied service from Leeds Bradford (LBA) or any airport flying to the Middle East. However, that is where the commonality ends.

I can't emphasise enough that this only applies to wide-bodied aircraft. They have long turnaround times, take longer to board, and are more expensive to maintain. This is precisely why using narrow-body aircraft is a viable solution. While this wasn't a practical option in the past, it certainly is now.

As far as I was aware (and I was involved) no one wanted to take over either the export scanning/trucking or the import transit shed. Without a wide body operator freight at regional airports is dead. Newcastle wouldnt have a transit shed if werent a requirement of the Emirates contract that they have one. I can see why post PIA, continuing with a transit shed at Leeds wasbt viable, despite fighting for its retention at the time.

Incidentally the airport were never engaged with cargo, they saw the operator as just another tennant. I get the feeling that its a similar situation with Multiflight.

The problem with freight is it's heavy and we all know the LBA runway isn't ideally suited to heavy ops. That is why the airport is concentrating in different areas. Even with an additional 300m it wouldn't be enough for most of the freight carriers. LBA can obtain some long haul services but it needs to be wise in achieving that objective.

 

[Bob O'JOb]

As far as I was aware (and I was involved) no one wanted to take over either the export scanning/trucking or the import transit shed. Without a wide body operator freight at regional airports is dead. Newcastle wouldnt have a transit shed if werent a requirement of the Emirates contract that they have one. I can see why post PIA, continuing with a transit shed at Leeds wasbt viable, despite fighting for its retention at the time.

Incidentally the airport were never engaged with cargo, they saw the operator as just another tennant. I get the feeling that its a similar situation with Multiflight.

Yup you're absolutely correct, and even had it been saved back then I'm 100% sure it wouldn't be there now. However there certainly were approaches to save it, my employer at the time tentatively enquired as did Dnata (for certain) and Swissport (strongly rumoured) who both saw enough truck traffic to justify keeping it in the network. However the airport maintained the line that the hangar was an integral part of some plan or other and so it was a moot point. The airport sees everyone as tenants, but if you're not driving passenger numbers, they couldn't give a toss about you.

 

[BCFC]

Wizz fly to JED from LGW using an A321XLR…..cant see that full of cargo.

View attachment 33013

 

[mullion]

Saudi have applied for 11 weekly ex MAN according to rumours from a usually very acurate source

 

[79MX]

My first time looking at these reports ever so please correct me if I am wrong, but could this be the Ryanair expansion (or at least some Ryanair and some other airlines) that we’ve been hoping for? Many of these routes have been on a lot of wishlist so I hope it is all true.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

Yup you're absolutely correct, and even had it been saved back then I'm 100% sure it wouldn't be there now. However there certainly were approaches to save it, my employer at the time tentatively enquired as did Dnata (for certain) and Swissport (strongly rumoured) who both saw enough truck traffic to justify keeping it in the network. However the airport maintained the line that the hangar was an integral part of some plan or other and so it was a moot point. The airport sees everyone as tenants, but if you're not driving passenger numbers, they couldn't give a toss about you.

Neither DNATA nor Swissport had any interest whatever. I spoke with both of them at the time. Their view was that provincial cargo had no future and they wanted to reduce their involvement rather than adding to it. Import trucked cargo to Leeds was virtually nil and there was a viable lower cost alternative for the export scanning and trucking, in the shape of Circle Express, who I assume are still trucking the exports from our region to MAN and LHR.

 

[79MX]

Ryanair have also unfortunately removed LBA-BVA from sale (Credit SeanM)

 

[Statto]

Saudi have applied for 11 weekly ex MAN according to rumours from a usually very acurate source

Yes, iron duck posted the details in this thread on Wednesday. I think you’ve probably got the wrong end of the stick if you’re thinking that the LBA visit to Saudi last week was about signing a deal for S26. It was about putting in the ground work for something that might take a few years to come off. We know Saudi is pushing to open up and attract overseas visitors, so its likely to be a big growth market in the future. I’m sure that will mean more growth opportunities from the North of England

 

[White Heather]

Ryanair have also unfortunately removed LBA-BVA from sale (Credit SeanM)

Dont suppose Easyjet flying to Paris CDG will have done much for Ryanairs loads, especially given the distance from Beauvais to Paris itself. It may also explain the take offs from taxiway Delta that Ryanair did a couple of times on the Beauvais flights.

 

[Statto]

View attachment 33014
My first time looking at these reports ever so please correct me if I am wrong, but could this be the Ryanair expansion (or at least some Ryanair and some other airlines) that we’ve been hoping for? Many of these routes have been on a lot of wishlist so I hope it is all true.

Thanks for posting but I can’t make head nor tail of it. What is ‘SAL’ ? Are the movements across the whole summer season? There are 30 weeks in summer (i think) so 1,020 movements to Cork is 34 flights a week; nearly 5 per day. That would suggest to me that whoever has submitted the info has used Cork (and shannon) to disguise their true intentions.

But then the Southampton numbers don’t make sense. Is this Blue Islands, if so, they are operating more than 116 flights surely ? So, I’m not really sure what to make of it

 

[HX3]

SAL is the initial coordination report and SHL the historic requests. Looking at Ryanair the report suggests a doubling of flights, but that doesn’t mean all will come to fruition. Cork equates to more than 3 daily, in all likelihood they want double daily max, so the apply for more to give options on times,

There are 30 weeks, but not all routes(if they commence) run for the full summer period, so as an example Athens is likely 2 weekly over 21 weeks.

 

[JRP]

I assume this is for LBA?
I don’t really understand why they mean

View attachment 33014
My first time looking at these reports ever so please correct me if I am wrong, but could this be the Ryanair expansion (or at least some Ryanair and some other airlines) that we’ve been hoping for? Many of these routes have been on a lot of wishlist so I hope it is all true.

 

[Vzg94w]

Dont suppose Easyjet flying to Paris CDG will have done much for Ryanairs loads, especially given the distance from Beauvais to Paris itself. It may also explain the take offs from taxiway Delta that Ryanair did a couple of times on the Beauvais flights.

You can comfortably take a fully loaded ac to BVA from Delta

 

[White Heather]

You can comfortably take a fully loaded ac to BVA from Delta

I know that. But until mid summer, nobody did. May be nothing to do with loads but something changed.

 

[LBA4EVER]

You can comfortably take a fully loaded ac to BVA from Delta

That may well be true but i wont be sat on it!
Shame about BVA, good little airport with transfers to paris and a good ryanair network so plenty of connection options.

 

[HX3]

There are multiple BVA routes removed according to Sean M post on x (thanks for his reliable posting- both he and SPD travels are excellent and deserve praise for their continued postings ). Based on what he posted, I think the issue lies at the French end.