Route Development & Rumours

[paully]

Yes more from Jet 2 and Ryanair staying around is good news but we hoped for so much more.
We have to accept people will happily travel to Manchester so the leakage is continuing and probably accelerating all the time pax numbers at Nanchedter are booming and they come from everywhere in the North and Midlands

God knows why..its a soul destroying experience either departing from or arriving back at Manchester. Its amazing what inconvenience and ritual humiliation some will put up with to save £10 off the price of the ticket

 

[Aviador]

God knows why..its a soul destroying experience either departing from or arriving back at Manchester. Its amazing what inconvenience and ritual humiliation some will put up with to save £10 off the price of the ticket

...and then people on here will question if there is enough demand for another charter aircraft to be based at LBA.

 

[airforced]

...and then people on here will question if there is enough demand for another charter aircraft to be based at LBA.

Quite. Manchester is the pits and the only times (3)I have used it is when nothing was available from LBA or DSA going to where I wanted to go. So as far as I am concerned there is plenty of scope for more flights from LBA as long as they are not duplicates of routes already served.

 

[Finger66]

There are two problems here. The historical/legacy issue where people just assume you can't fly from LBA so just book from MAN without checking what is on offer from LBA. Secondly the mis construed LBA weather record. If the airport didn't work then no one would operate from here. This then combines and compounds the issue of fewer services because those that complain don't use what we do have and therefore airlines are reluctant to expand. The current situation has become worrying but one decent positive announcement could change that..........if it ever happens!

 

[LBA4EVER]

LBA could and should be at least 3 times its size in terms of passengers but I will say it again, it will only grow to its true potential once the runway is extended or at the least seriously improved! Its too much of a risk to base a massive operation by any airline due to the runways length and weather conditions up here! LBA should be at least BHX size but it will never happen until that bloody runways sorted!! Yes the terminal expansion may help abit but just sort the runway out!

 

[SNOWMAN]

hi offint
jet2 might do ok with the runway in summer but winter is a different beast the 757s cant use the cat3 on the 32 end and as for the 14 end cat1 only,and some of the 737-800s can be too heavy for a cat3 if the runway is wet.

 

[White Heather]

Jet2 are basing another aircraft for S19 which is a plus and they are adding 3 new routes. Ryanair have dropped and cut back routes but added extra frequencies in addition. Thomas Cook cut back the Turkey routes but added Tunisia. However the whole TUI situation well I won't get into that...

The extra 737 800 being based at LBA next summer will actually result in more passengers through LBA than the Sunwing 737 800 carried, because it will be operating in and out of LBA all week and not going off doing W Legs to other airports, so although the loss of that Sunwing aircraft is disappointing in the extreme, the loss will be outweighed by the extra Jet2 capacity and of course we do still have some TUi movements (unless they opt to cancel those too because DSA or MAN isn't selling fast enough, which is how TUi have always worked). Overall, despite the loss of a few Thomas Cook flights and smaller aircraft on the Turkey flights, the passenger throughput in Summer 2019 is likely to be very similar to Summer 2018, which is perhaps just as well given the capacity issues of the terminal. The big test will be summer 2020 and beyond, when the terminal is better able to cope with the increased passenger throughput.

As for the leakage to MAN - most of that is due to the airlines, rather than the choice of the people. Yes there are some who think MAN is wonderful and LBA is the work of the devil, but given a situation where airlines flew the same routes from MAN and from LBA, at the same price, how many would choose to go to MAN then? Significantly less I would think. The major problem is getting airlines to fly from LBA instead of, or as well as from MAN, when they are not incentivised to do so. As long as we all trek over the hill to MAN, and fill their planes up, they will happily fly from there and not take the risk of setting up a new operation at LBA. That situation would apply at any airport when there is another, larger airport within what airlines consider reasonable travel distance. Liverpool suffers too, and Glasgow suffers at the hands of Edinburgh. Cardiff suffers due to the proximity of Bristol. Make no mistake, the presence of MAN is the prime reason why successive LBA owners have struggled to attract and then maintain flights operated by many airlines. And the bigger the airport, the more able it is to offer airlines incentives to fly from there rather than competing airlines. MAN just sucks them in.

 

[a300boy]

I absolutely agree with you fight2win !
We need enough runway to operate safely and allow all aircraft types to operate in good and bad weather at weights that allow long range operations.
Last night was a good example as the last five aircraft made Cat 2 and Cat 3 landings and we lost nothing.
A Flybe Dash 8 made a Cat 2 approach and a KLM made a Cat 3 with autoland the other three were Ryanair’s who landed Cat 3 too with a 9 kt tailwind on runway 32.
I doubt Jet 2 or any other of our operating
airlines would have been able to do the same.
Too often we cannot use the facilities we have because of restricted landing distance.

 

[a300boy]

All agreed White Heather it would seem the battle is lost !
This new management has its work cut out to keep what we have !
I wish I could be as positive as you but it annoys me we keep on loosing ground when we all want to see more passengers with more airlines and more destinations.

 

[Aviador]

What LBA needs other than a greater landing distance is it needs an airline which is based at Manchester to do the reverse of what Jet2 did and come in with a sizable operation with say three or four aircraft. I have no doubt that Leeds could sustain another large operator. The airport then needs to follow up with sufficient investment to sustain longer term growth.

 

[White Heather]

All agreed White Heather it would seem the battle is lost !
This new management has its work cut out to keep what we have !
I wish I could be as positive as you but it annoys me we keep on loosing ground when we all want to see more passengers with more airlines and more destinations.

Who says I am positive? The loss of TUi and reduction Thomas Cook and BA has dented my positivity considerably, despite the plans for the terminal. I am clinging to the hope that the terminal plans, when completed, will usher in a period of growth but I have heard the positive messages before from senior airport staff and then something happens that derails their plans. On the other hand, I try not to be negative either. Despite the losses, next summer promises to be 'flat' in terms of passenger numbers, with possibly a very small increase, so I am far from despondent. I guess that I am just getting impatient as I seem to have been waiting all my life for LBA to really take off!

 

[ex_crew]

Could not agree more , its very dissapointing and quite worrying . I really felt , although not for very long , that we had finally strarted to crack the market .....Scandanavian bringing in a glimper of hope with a national carrier to a fresh market , followed by Vueling etc . Once again we find ourselves scratching our heads , licking the wounds wondering if we do have any " trump cards " left , lets hope that the new development at LBA is the tool that will bring growth through new carriers and routes .

Feel exactly the same , it feels like a lifetime of waiting , in reality , it actually is .

 

[a300boy]

Me too !

 

[Deleted member 82]

Has any one heard owt regarding the rumoured new carrier/routes? All seems very quiet. I’m still hoping something may come of it all to raise spirits and passenger numbers.

 

[dmrodgers]

More poor journalism from the YEP. States ‘this is the first time passengers from Leeds Bradford have been able to fly to the Alps in the summer’. How many years now has the summer Inghams flights been operating to Innsbruck using a variety of airlines including Flybe in the past! It has operated for at least five years and more.

 

[Silvercity]

More poor journalism from the YEP. States ‘this is the first time passengers from Leeds Bradford have been able to fly to the Alps in the summer’. How many years now has the summer Inghams flights been operating to Innsbruck using a variety of airlines including Flybe in the past! It has operated for at least five years and more.

I just read.the YEP article and though it was a new connection.

 

[White Heather]

Flybe operated the route this summer just gone, and the year before...…..although oddly enough, LBA management stated a few months back that the route was being upgraded to a 737 in summer 2019 and operated by Neos. Obviously not now! Good to see the Johnstone Press and our favourite deskbound reporter getting it all wrong yet again.

 

[Deleted member 82]

Well I suppose we should be thankful it has been retained. Lakes and Mountains routes in the summer are fickle and even at MAN they have seen reductions. SZG as an example has seen Tui using Flybe instead of their own equipment.

 

[louis_walton]

I just had a look at the press release pictures and the aircraft have Skyteam logos could be nothing could be lots... Alitalia,Air France,Aer Europa or Czech Airlines hints. Who knows!

 

[Jerry]

I just had a look at the press release pictures and the aircraft have Skyteam logos could be nothing could be lots... Alitalia,Air France,Aer Europa or Czech Airlines hints. Who knows!

Press release for what?