Route Development & Rumours

[scottrhino]

Just been reading on the Manchester forum the list of 2016 new operations by airlines. You can naturally discount long haul because we don't have the capabilities but combined with the comment earlier in the week re Wizz and Poland where we seem woefully under served considering the number of people going back and forth I just cannot see how we don't have ANY flights to some cities in Europe.

Brussels Airlines have four daily alone with 3x Copenhagen with SAS. Germany well represented. Istanbul x 5 rotations a day. In just beggars belief that a city with 700,000 people, an area with millions surrounding the airport, god knows how many Visit Yorkshire campaigns we cannot manage to serve these cities. I know the north west is big but jeez go past Preston nothing go west Liverpool or more countryside in North Wales and south you compete with Birmingham.

How can it be that the airport, LCC and other regional authorities cannot get these destinations. I am surprised that businesses in the region don't press harder or maybe they do and it falls on deaf ears.

Anyway semi rant over. Just makes me angry that somehow the north west has 50 million people not, and they can supply the flight opportunities we crave for when we have a sizeable population ourselves.

 

[White Heather]

That pretty much sums up the comments I made to LBA last week Scottrhino. You could be forgiven for thinking that LBA management had given up trying to get new routes from LBA to European Cities as I think the last one we had was over a year ago - Copenhagen - and we all know what happened to that. I discount Vueling to Barcelona as we already have Jet2 and Monarch on that route. It really is quite frightening when you consider the routes we have had an lost in recent years: Newquay, Exeter, Cork, Shannon, Ireland West, Inverness, Edinburgh, Gatwick, London City, Brussels, Hamburg, Berlin, Dusseldorf Weeze, Milan, La Rochelle, Olbia, Madrid, Valencia, Islamabad, Sharm el Sheikh, Gambia, Orlando, and going back further still, Toronto. And there are others I know in France and Spain that for now, I can't remember the names of (although I know where they are on the map!). Yes we have gained a number of new bucket and space routes, which is great, but many of those are summer only, several operate only once per week, and none of those help the business people of the Leeds City Region one iota unless they happen to have a business customer in Kos, or Keffalonia!

 

[lbaspotter]

Sent Aurigny an facebook message this lunchtime asking them as to when will they be putting flights on sale between Gurseney and Leeds/Bradford now they've got the route license approval to operate the service from next year.

This is the positive reply they sent me back: https://www.facebook.com/aurignyair...ment_id=1002674276457329&notif_t=feed_comment

Aurigny.com: We can't say yet but we are working on it. Thanks for your interest Ross.

 

[stars&sids]

Good news about Aurigny there, used them from East Mids to Guernsey once and was quite impressed.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

..............the routes we have had an lost in recent years: Newquay, Exeter, Cork, Shannon, Ireland West, Inverness, Edinburgh, Gatwick, London City, Brussels, Hamburg, Berlin, Dusseldorf Weeze, Milan, La Rochelle, Olbia, Madrid, Valencia, Islamabad, Sharm el Sheikh, Gambia, Orlando,

Heather,

You missed out LBA's twin. :reallyshocked:

 

[ls27]

Lille

 

[Gray Ham]

Algeria, Avignon

 

[Gray Ham]

Predictive txt... Should read Almeria

 

[scottrhino]

We don't even need to go to France......Belfast Int (splitting hairs but you can get flights to the states via transit), Bristol, Plymouth albeit closed and even further back Bournemouth!!!

I was going to post a similar list myself.....staggering. Is it because the train is easier and more services available, people drive instead or more conference calls = less passengers??

I cant remember the figure but flybe's stats for Exeter is amazing. Can't we this side of the pennines fill one flight a day with a dash 8, seems like should but for some reason we can't!!!

 

[lbaspotter]

I cant remember the figure but flybe's stats for Exeter is amazing. Can't we this side of the pennines fill one flight a day with a dash 8, seems like should but for some reason we can't!!!

Flybe use to do pretty dam well with LBA-EXT, Then they decided to combined the flight with ABZ operating EXT-LBA-ABZ-LBA-EXT and it messed the whole operation ans schedule up. Before long both routes got axed and the EXT flight moved to MAN .

 

[TheLocalYokel]

EXT-MAN does so well because they feed into the Flybe network at MAN which is seen as a hub in Devon where the point to point routes are not many in number. Apart from Scilly Skybus all scheduled operations at EXT are by Flybe.

In September 11,080 passengers used the route which was nearly 13% of EXT's total passengers numbers for the month (86,771).

As alluded to by another poster the UK (especially English) domestic network has been shrinking with rail travel often a major culprit.

 

[scottrhino]

Thanks LocalYokel. Knew there was a reason.

As per the post on Intersky worrying that the German market, replicated here in the UK, there are so few independent airlines left. Very sad. Similar to the supermarkets in the UK wanting to take over the world.

As at Bristol BMIR have a route to Nantes and then Easyjet flexed their muscles!! Can you ever see BMIR making a return to Leeds to do the domestic routes now the road is clear?? Doesn't bode well for future development with so few operators.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

As at Bristol BMIR have a route to Nantes and then Easyjet flexed their muscles!! Can you ever see BMIR making a return to Leeds to do the domestic routes now the road is clear?? Doesn't bode well for future development with so few operators.

bmir have four German routes, one French route and one Italian route from Bristol plus Aberdeen. Their fares are usually very high, even ABZ, with return fares, for example, around £250+ to ABZ for flights towards the end of this month.

With an hourly train service between Leeds and Bristol taking around three and a half hours and return fares for next week at under £112 it's difficult to see any airline coming in with competitive fares (versus rail) and a reasonable frequency.

easyJet operates Bristol-Newcastle but even here the flights have been reduced over recent years with monthly passenger numbers around 14-15,000 down from 20,000 a few years ago.

There is also an hourly train service between Bristol and Newcastle but it's a five hour journey making air that bit more attractive. If Leeds was an hour further away by rail then it's quite possible that easyJet would now have a firmly established LBA-BRS service.

BRS has also lost other domestic routes in recent years: Manchester, Plymouth, Newquay and Scilly Isles for starters so it's not just LBA that's seen its domestic route network shrink.

 

[rmac]

Just to back up what LocalYokel is saying about domestic air travel I recently dropped off a neighbour at Edinburgh airport. I asked him where he was flying to-- Manchester, late Flybe afternoon flight. Business in Manchester? I asked him. Oh no-- Liverpool he said. So are coming back via Manchester tomorrow. No, no he said, the train from Liverpool is much easier and I can do some work at the same time. So the flight was to Manchester but how many on board were actually going to Manchester? No doubt others were going to towns and cities around Manchester, maybe Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Chester etc as well as Liverpool.
It is Manchester's central position geographically which enables it attract and support several daily services and that's the problem for LBA and LPL as they are on the fringes of the greater population conurbations. I said to the neighbour that Flybe would be serving Liverpool in the future but this was of little interest as suitable flight times were of paramount importance and the fact that the train was more convenient anyway. So what of a LBA- EDI service?
It is hard to see how it can be successful unless perhaps 3 daily and reasonable fares, and don't forget the many trains per day between Leeds and Edinburgh.

 

[White Heather]

..............the routes we have had an lost in recent years: Newquay, Exeter, Cork, Shannon, Ireland West, Inverness, Edinburgh, Gatwick, London City, Brussels, Hamburg, Berlin, Dusseldorf Weeze, Milan, La Rochelle, Olbia, Madrid, Valencia, Islamabad, Sharm el Sheikh, Gambia, Orlando,

Heather,

You missed out LBA's twin. :reallyshocked:

Oops, how could I forget Bristol??? Sorry Local Yokel. I also missed out Copenhagen. And Dinard. Must try harder.

 

[Airplane]

Just wondered why easy jet don't offer more than just the Geneva route. Do they have a problem with LBA, they could offer great domestic and international routes than we need and want. I would happily have more holiday routes that gives more options compared to Ryanair, Jet2 and Monarch.They could fly to London Gatwick ,Edinburgh , Glasgow and Bristol east jet bases at all these.

 

[Bigman]

Lbaspotter briefly mentioned BMI on the heavily used FlyBe thread this week. We had a similar discussion at the cafe at the weekend. IF this Extrajet gets off the ground and we do indeed get a BMI ER135 based at LBA, would it make sense for BMI to base a second aircraft at LBA to do an LBA-FRA service, rather than to set a second base up at Donny to do DSA-FRA? Thoughts???

 

[Aviador]

I am told that LBA would have no problem getting Wizz - if that airline were prepared to meet LBA's demands in terms of landing fees etc - which I imagine they aren't. I suspect the deal done with Peel Airports / DSA (which related to a deal also done with LPL) was very attractive. Perhaps that is why both airports are making heavy losses? LBA are clearly prepared to negotiate, otherwise they would not have secured Ryanair (notoriously difficult to attract and keep happy) or Monarch, but some airlines expect to pay next to nothing to use an airport.

I agree though that LBA is giving us very little expansion, new routes etc to get excited about whilst other airports seem to be doing rather nicely at the moment. That said, DSA had very few routes so had a huge amount of scope for expansion, whereas LBA (lest we forget) still has around 70 routes on sale.

It worries me most that LBA said (at the last committee meeting) that they are not focussing at present on long haul. If that is correct it suggests a lack of ambition in that market, which is a complete turn-around on what has been said previously about routes to New York, Toronto, Miami, Islamabad etc. Having said all that, I am firmly of the opinion that LBA's tactics these days are to say absolutely nothing about their plans with the airport and with airline partners. Tony Hallwood and his team must be doing something other than just jetting off to various route conferences. I suspect that at the moment they are aware that the airport would struggle to deal with much expansion pending whatever they decide to do under the new Masterplan. That, when published, will tell us a great deal about how ambitious Bridgepoint really are for LBA, or whether they are just looking to settle for what we have. I am hoping that the involvement of Leeds City Council in the development of the Masterplan, and their stated intention to enhance LBA for the benefit of the City, will ensure that Bridgepoint are not given the 'do nothing ' option.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=LBA-YYZ%0D ... V=0&EU=kts

If things aren't depressing enough looking at all the routes on offer at airports like BHX. Here's a Great Circle Map of all the routes LBA has lost over the years. There could be even more.

With competition from rail increasing year on year and with LBA no longer seeking long haul flights, it's makes me wonder what kind of airport LBA bosses are actually seeking? In my eyes, LBA needs to not rule out any destination that's on the airport radar.

I do hope your meeting with Jon Parkin in a few days is both informative and productive.

 

[White Heather]

If it happens Aviador. No confirmed time yet. I will believe it when I am sitting in front of him. Yes there are a good few others we have lost. Cork, Knock, Shannon, Belfast International, Vilnius, La Rochelle, Carcassonne, Olbia, Milan, Bristol, Weeze, Munich. Probably more.

 

[stevolba]

Possibly a certain Irish airline in green with a new route next year... And the Guernsey route we already know about might be ready for announcement