Archive Route Development & Rumours

[Jerry]

That is generally good coverage from Korean so that could mean Manchester is high on their list of future routes.

 

[David_itl]

Looks like someone wants a Cardiff-MAN link as a PSO route. If we're being generous, it's roughly 3 hours city centre to city centre by air, factoring in security and transport to/from the airport. Yesterday, I did it on via rail and it was 3 hours 10 minutes to Cardiff and 3 and a half hours coming back (including swapping trains due to a tech issue). The fares they come up with need to broadly competive with the train - my tickets were bought on Sunday and cost £73 return - to buy on the day was over £86.


https://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/new-cardiff-manchester-air-route-15164040

 

[Scottie Dog]

It's one of those catch 22 routes. There is, I'm sure, good potential for both point-to-point traffic as well as connections. The problem, as you've highlighted, is the extra time that needs to be added for security etc, along with general accessibility of the airports by road and public transport. The days of "turn up and go" have gone forever.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Cardiff-Manchester is right on the edge of the EC interpretation that competing rail journeys of sufficient frequency and of three hours or less duration might mitigate against the granting of a PSO air route. The Welsh Government said this week that the UK government has challenged some of the WG's arguments for PSO routes out of CWL, including MAN, and further talks are required before the UK government will send them to the EC for consideration.

 

[David_itl]

I know they are using the "helping business South Wales and northwest England" line but I'm just wondering if this is all about Cardiff to the world. Cardiff Central to MAN is 3 hours 45 mins changing at Piccadilly and trusting Piccadilly-MAN operates (there's been a few instances of signalling operation restricting services).

Maybe MAN should join forces with the Welsh government and CWL by stating this type of routing will aid the longevity of the current portfolio of long-haul routes and may help to secure more as an airline may think there's not going to be a big enough market for them and QR down there with the numbers on a MAN route bordering on viabiity - adding in any CWL transferrees may sway that decision. After all, the UK governement wants to maximise available capacity at UK regionals pending any planned opening of the 3rd LHR runway.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

If it's a PSO route it still has to satisfy the legislation, and in the absence of European Court of Justice case law, the EC's interpretation of the PSO system that was published last year.

What CWL would not want is connectivity to MAN taking some passengers from their own long haul or long haul via a hub such as Doha or Amsterdam.

I

 

[David_itl]

If CWL truly believes that it would ham existing routes then they should stop all attempts to secure more routes as they would do harm to the existing routes that they have?

 

[David_itl]

At least 2 bigwigs went to World Routes

"Airports and airlines in Shanghai, China and Manchester, England are missing out on a 160,000-passenger market annually if the nonstop route between the two cities is not being used, UK-based Manchester Airport executives said at World Routes 2018.... Despite interests from other airlines, one of the issues is that the air rights from Shanghai to Manchester are given to Air China by Chinese authorities. However, Air China has not used this route despite getting the rights for two years. Airlines must reapply for these rights every year.... optimistic that authorities will give it to an airline that will utilize the route. He thinks China Eastern Airlines would be ideal"

"another major untapped market is Bangkok, Thailand, where there are already large numbers of passengers coming in via London. He thinks Manchester is the largest unserved route from the Thai airlines' perspective and should be a priority soon... the team has spent a lot time on the two cities and hopes to have something firm by summer 2019."

http://atwonline.com/airports-route...-shanghai-manchester-market-severely-unserved

 

[Scottie Dog]

With thanks to an old contact for the heads up.

https://ftnnews.com/aviation/34947-...-flight-routes-from-chinese-city-of-guangzhou

During the highly anticipated 24th World Route Development Forum, Mr. Wen Wenxing, the General Manager GAA announced new routes due to fly from Guangzhou in partnership with China Southern to destinations including Rome, Madrid, Milan, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Calcutta, Islamabad, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Tel Aviv, Tehran and more. Wenxing also announced new routes in cooperation with Hainan Airlines, Siberia Airlines, JC Internationals Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines to destinations including Manchester, Siem Reap, San Diego and Oslo among others. The routes are due to launch between 2018 and 2020.

 

[David_itl]

So by 2020, the China services potentially now look like this with potential frequencies

Beijing - Hainan 4 weekly to daily
Guangzhou - Hainan 3 weekly
Shanghai - China Eastern or Air China 4 weekly
Hong Kong - Cathay daily to 10 weekly

 

[TheLocalYokel]

If CWL truly believes that it would ham existing routes then they should stop all attempts to secure more routes as they would do harm to the existing routes that they have?

I don't follow that argument if it's a response to my post.

What I'm saying is that if some CWL passengers used a route to MAN to feed into long haul routes from there an obvious corollary is that without such a connection some would have used long haul routes from CWL such as Qatar Airways to Doha and beyond or KLM to Amsterdam and beyond instead.

 

[Silvercity]

It's one of those catch 22 routes. There is, I'm sure, good potential for both point-to-point traffic as well as connections. The problem, as you've highlighted, is the extra time that needs to be added for security etc, along with general accessibility of the airports by road and public transport. The days of "turn up and go" have gone forever.

That is the problem these days. I've just been in Exeter for business I used to fly, but not anymore. The train is quicker particularly when you just go from your local station.


There was a MAN-CWL route some years ago, I used it once.

 

[David_itl]

What I'm saying is that if some CWL passengers used a route to MAN to feed into long haul routes from there an obvious corollary is that without such a connection some would have used long haul routes from CWL such as Qatar Airways to Doha and beyond or KLM to Amsterdam and beyond instead.

It was more of a general answer of keeping all of your eggs in 1 basket can result in stagnation - look at MAN throwing it's weight behind BA and not embracing easyJet when they set up shop in Northwest England. Could MAN have been hitting the passenger numbers now being seen a lot earlier? Each time we've had a ME airline throw in extra capacity, freqency or launch a route, it's much the same question - will they take from other airines currently operating and will it hamper the objective of securing non-stop routes to some of the desinations that passengers are transferring to? The answer appears to be no - the overall market in increasing even with the non-stop options coming online.

So in terms of the CWL potential PSO route, it does mean 1 less passenger for the existing CWL-hub-elsewhere route. It is down to the indivdual airline to come up with it's own pricing policy so that it (a) maintains market share at CWL and (b) tempt passengers who currently use BHX and/or LHR to use that service. CWL shouldn't mind who actually transports the passenger... all they should care about is that they are actually increasing passenger throughput.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Thank you for your detailed response.

I accept the general philosophy that you outline. However, CWL is wholly owned by the Welsh Government, as I'm sure you are aware, and a considerable amount of money has been invested both in the government's arm's-length owned airport company and in general support from the government itself, both financial and political, with the star prize so far being Qatar Airways' arrival.

Qatar seems to be picking up after a slow start at CWL and my point is that the airline, airport company and Welsh Government won't want to see growth hampered in any way by potential passengers hopping off to MAN on a cheap PSO flight to use Emirates or Etihad instead. The Qatar Airways CEO admitted that he initiated the CWL-DOH route against the advice of some colleagues so it's vital that it's given every chance to prosper.

I presume the Welsh Government has taken this into account when it included MAN in the list of new PSO flights it wants to bring to CWL.

 

[Jerry]

Qatar seems to be picking up after a slow start at CWL and my point is that the airline, airport company and Welsh Government won't want to see growth hampered in any way by potential passengers hopping off to MAN on a cheap PSO flight to use Emirates or Etihad instead. The Qatar Airways CEO admitted that he initiated the CWL-DOH route against the advice of some colleagues so it's vital that it's given every chance to prosper.

CWL is connected to a few airports where Emirates and Etihad operate from and i doubt Manchester would be any different from them.
What Manchester does have is the Virgin and Thomas Cook long haul network which could be connected to by passengers especially if Virgin and Thomas Cook offered packages using the flights.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

CWL is connected to a few airports where Emirates and Etihad operate from and i doubt Manchester would be any different from them.
What Manchester does have is the Virgin and Thomas Cook long haul network which could be connected to by passengers especially if Virgin and Thomas Cook offered packages using the flights.

That's a valid point about Emirates and Etihad.

 

[Silvercity]

The Cardiff to Angelsey route ...is that PSO ? I often wonder who uses it ? I imagine politicians , are there offices in Holyhead or Bangor ?

 

[Jerry]

The Cardiff to Angelsey route ...is that PSO ? I often wonder who uses it ? I imagine politicians , are there offices in Holyhead or Bangor ?

Yes it is. It's used by politicians, local business and ordinary travellers. Looking at the numbers it does quite well. I also wonder if a CWL-MAN could be a substitute for a flight to North East Wales as well.

 

[David_itl]

Just going though the anna aero show dailies and I find Detroit-MAN is top of the searches in the last 12 months on Skyscanner for Detroit services. Looks to be around 14,000 searches (double Barcelona and Madrid and about 5,000 more than Mumbai and Delhi). Pity Delta won't look at it seeing that they prefer to leave the UK regions to Virgin and the A330s would be overkill.

 

[David_itl]

Turn the page and MAN's featured! Couple of bar charts that I can't screen shot so here are my estimates:


1 way bookings from May 2017 to April 2018
BKK 84,000
SYD 37,000
BOM 31,000
PER 29,000
PVG 27,000
MEL 25,000
JNB 24,000
DEL 24,000
KUL 22,000
HKT 21,000

Skyscanner searches 12 months ending August 2018
BKK 2.5 MILLION!!
SYD 750,000
DPS 650,000
MEL 450,000
KUL 440,000
BNE 400,000
MNL 400,000
TYO 375,000
COK 350,000
AKL 350,000