Archive Route Development & Rumours

[Jerry]

Surely Bangkok has to be around the corner for MAN?

 

[David_itl]

It's one of those where it could go 2 ways with Thailand's carriers:
The prestige of having Thai do the route but may struggle with premium passengers- they'd need to do it 4 or 5 times weekly
Getting a low-coster like NokScoot in 2 or 3 weekly whose 777s are 24 business class 391 economy class but no brand presence in Europe.

The alternative is whether EVA Air or China Airlines would consider a Taiwan-BKK-MAN routing but could cause diplomatic issues at a time when CAN and PVG seem to be there or thereabouts for route launches in the next couple of years.

 

[RhysTheBeast]

I see one issue, the ME3 wouldn't be very happy as a direct service to Bangkok would impact on their business model. In saying that, it would be a real coup for Manchester to get a direct service to Bangkok, connection possibilities from there are enormous.

 

[Jerry]

They fly to plenty of other airports with direct flights to Bangkok. I don't see why it would be a problem at MAN?

 

[RhysTheBeast]

True. I suppose it just adds to the competition. Would be great to have the option.

 

[Tom Whitelegge]

Would Thai, get enough feed to make the route viable on say 4 weekly?

 

[David_itl]

With the amount of bookings made on just MAN-BKK, they won't need any feed! Throw in Phuket and the Australian/New Zealand market only and there's a potential 400,000 passengers that they could tap into. A 4 weekly service on the 321 seat A350 would mean roughly 134,000 available seats in a year.

 

[David_itl]

on the back of the latest CAA statistics showing that there are roughly 60 passengers per flight on the weekly LCY-MAN / 2 weekly MAN-LCY sectors, what do we think of the possibility of this route being expanded?

My initial conjecture was for a single MAN based unit that does MAN-LCY-MAN in the morning then does a MAN-somewhere else-MAN in the late morning/afternoon then a MAN-LCY-MAN in the evening


EGCC_MAN made a very valid point about the scarcity of LCY slots where a MAN route may well be played against any other route with numbers not stacking for a MAN route to be more profitable and also of terminal constraints

However with a handful of E190s joining the BACF fleet, not all of them would be able to actually use the same prime slot departures out of LCY so an alternative proposal would be instead of a 2 daily route, to have a 7am departure ex MAN to land at 8am and then fit in a route or 2 from LCY from 9am before heading back to MAN at 7.30pm/8pm to land here at 9pm and perhaps a "beach route" at 10.30pm to get back for 6am.

That way they would still be able to explore more profitable LCY routes and also extend the night-time flying programme that appears to be doing quite well - we could still have the build up of weekend flying programme but we'd opening up possible city break opportunities at various destinations so we could see something like Florence transformed into a Tuesday and Saturday operation.

 

[KARFA]

on the back of the latest CAA statistics showing that there are roughly 60 passengers per flight on the weekly LCY-MAN / 2 weekly MAN-LCY sectors, what do we think of the possibility of this route being expanded?

zero. it is there merely to position the aircraft and crew to MAN and then back down on Sunday to commence normal LCY operations. any passengers are an added bonus.

776 seats sold out of 1274 is 60% load.

 

[KARFA]

Out of interest I had a look at passenger numbers for this year on the route:

Jan - 191
Feb - 262
Mar - 287
Apr - 265
May - 267
Jun - 495
Jul - 624
Aug - 776

 

[David_itl]

This could go on the CAA statistics thread but it's equally at home here.

Nice analysis by Anna Aero on Monarch's collapse here and the impact on the routes they operated. 19 winter routes and 22 summer route with less capacity with 1 winter route and 4 summer routes with increased capacity. it would appear that there should still be scope for most of the routes to have more frequencies operated by airlines with healthier finances but with the Monarch effect now out of the equation, passengers numbers will start to bounce back up.

 

[Scottie Dog]

Air Canada Rouge will be daily to Toronto from 22nd June until 17th September.

 

[Scottie Dog]

Latest snippets from the Start of W18 ACL report:

Cathay - upgrade to A350-1000 (extra 54 seats) during Dec/Jan/Feb
Corendon Airlines Europe - New weekly service on Thursdays in February and March to Marrakesh (flight to operate via Birmingham).
easyJet - confirmation of increase from 12 to 14 based aircraft. New destinations - Lanzarote, Barcelona, Bordeaux, Budapest, Faro, Innsbruck and Lisbon.
Ethiopian - Service starts 11th December, 4 per week via Brussels to Addis Ababa.
Flybe - reduce Southampton from 7 to 5 per day and Toulouse from 5 to 3 per week.
Jet Airways - 5 flights per week with A330-200 to Mumbai.
Qatar - Doha increase from 16 to 18 flights per week. From 1st December the morning service changes from b787-8 to A350-900, the lunchtime to B777-300 whilst the evening servicestays as a B787-8
Ryanair - an increase from 6 to 8 based aircraft. New destinations include Agadir, Belfast Intl, Bologna, Oporto and Treviso.
Virgin - 6 adhoc flights to DXB for cruises between January and March with B747-400.
Vueling - increase Barcelona from 5 to 7 per week.

 

[Rob c DSA]

Corendon is something different they have the 737 Max in there fleet

 

[mullion]

I take it that these are the Dutch registered aircraft like we had last winter on an irregular basis

 

[EGCC_MAN]

Possibly not. Listing is for Corendon Airlines Europe this time. Previous seasons specified Dutch Corendon as the operator.

 

[mullion]

yes please

 

[David_itl]

Page 37 of the latest Airport Consultative Committee Meeting has updated bit and pieces. The stand-out bits being:


JAL (Japan Airlines) met our network team to lay the foundations for a long-term plan to securea Tokyo service. We know that
such a service is unlikely in the next two years, but it is important to position ourselves correctly as the Airline look to grow international
services. Forecasts show very strong passenger demand for connectivity between Manchester and Tokyo, over the next five years. We need to harness this growth and continue our discussions. JAL showed a considerable level of interest and underlined that they saw
Manchester as an Airport for their mainline product rather than their newly launched Low-Cost Carrier

ANA (All Nippon Airways) also met with the network team to discuss the Manchester opportunity and again, like JAL they showed a good level of interest. ANA believe that the additional capacity, which is being added to Narita and Haneda airports, brings with it opportunities for services to airports such as Manchester.



https://live-webadmin-media.s3.amazonaws.com/media/4211/october-2018-19th-macc.pdf

 

[David_itl]

Today's "when is someone going to fly MAN-BKK" article. This one from Anna Aero who have outlined the top 20 routes for passengers connecting onto other cities. This is the only route that features for all 3 airlines, and it the only city that the flow from MAN to wherever is noted in the top 20 for all 3 airlines.

EK carried 52,571 passengers
QR carried 33,936 passengers
EY carried 27,950 passengers


Market size: it states just under 150,000 passengers flowm in 2017

Market share: EK 34% QR 23%, EY 19%, WY 5.7%, KL 3.3%, BA 2.9% and TK just 1,9%


https://www.anna.aero/2018/10/24/meb3-carriers-leading-airport-pairs-via-hubs/

 

[Scottie Dog]

Courtesy of Airlineroutes

Virgin Atlantic S19 Manchester – US service changes as of 26OCT18
Posted 29 October 2018 04:00
Virgin Atlantic in recent schedule update filed additional changes to its Manchester operation for summer 2019 season, effective 31MAR19. Latest adjustment as follows.

Manchester – Atlanta A330-300 replaced by following:
31MAR19 – 22JUL19 744 Daily
25JUL19 – 06SEP19 744 Day x245 332 Day 245 (Previous plan: daily A330-200)
07SEP19 – 27OCT19 744 Daily

Manchester – Las Vegas eff 31MAR19 Increase from 2 to 4 weekly. Planned A330-200 service, replacing 747-400, unchanged

Previously reported changes:
Manchester – Boston eff 25MAY19 Increase from 2 to 3 weekly, A330-200 operating
Manchester – Los Angeles eff 26MAY19 3 weekly A330-200, new route
Manchester – San Francisco eff 25MAY19 Seasonal service cancelled