Archive Route Development & Rumours

[ethanegcc]

I was thinking these would be the kind of times too! I have read somewhere it wont be operated by a 787 so do you think it will be an A330-200 or -300?

 

[Jerry]

I do wonder with all the new the airlines that will/could fly out of Manchester whether many of them will codeshare with Flybe and turn Manchester into a UK hub for a lot of the regional airports that Flybe serve?

 

[ethanegcc]

I do wonder with all the new the airlines that will/could fly out of Manchester whether many of them will codeshare with Flybe and turn Manchester into a UK hub for a lot of the regional airports that Flybe serve?

On Flybe's website it does market 'One stop to the world via Manchester'. I know Etihad and others have codeshares with Flybe and VS are starting. Don't know about SIA but I am sure Hainan or Air China would do well codesharing with flybe to connect with the other parts of the UK not served with a direct flight to China as an alternative to London e.g. Belfast or Edinburgh

 

[ethanegcc]

I think CX codeshare with BE already, too as well as AF, EI, KL, AY and AI from BHX (could be MAN too soon).
Previously mentioned VS but surpirsingly no mention of SQ or HU

 

[Dobbo]

It will help. I have heard that it's the evening services for the ME3 that are the ones that are most full so being in the same region with the same spread of destinations, it looks like the favoured timings to use to launch services. The difference being that they are plugging into their big departure bank from the get-go rather than add frequency to feed that bank at a later date.

Yeah, for the Kangaroo route a night start at the UK end gets you in early morning two days later.

I've wondered whether SQ or CX (all in good time) might consider such a move but we are a long way away from that as things stand.

 

[ethanegcc]

Possibly, given SQ will go direct soon from MAN, CX could change the times, increase to daily with the A359 (hopefully) or (being optimisitc here) add a second daily 2/3 times weekly maybe to appeal more to those going to NZ/Australia and take more pax from the likes of EK or QR or continue to add growth to CX and the ME3?

 

[David_itl]

EK was the market leader for MAN-HKG passengers. CX comes along and.... the EK passenger numbers are still increasing! At what point passenger transfer from 1 airline to another comes along is what we don't know but it would appear that that moment is still a bit off. Remember it wasn't that too long ago that MAN was broadcasting that 4 million passengers a year from the MAN catchment was still using LHR.

If were to assume that the last 2 years increase at MAN is a direct passenger away from LHR it mean that we are still roughly 1 million to 1.5 million passengers away from capturing that "lost" market. The reality may be that we are still have 3 million or so passengers still using LHR from our catchment.

You only have to look at BA's comments here https://www.businesstraveller.com/news/2016/05/20/428264/ "We have an inherent interest in the city of Manchester because we have a pretty large call centre there and we have a fairly large number of Executive Club members from the Manchester area who are coming to Heathrow to fly to a number of places" to realise that BA's frequent flyers up here are not going to be venturing on any flight ex-MAN other than the LHR shuttle or any flight that they can acquire frequent flyer mileage.

 

[ethanegcc]

The only places (not to the west obviously) that are a pain to get to using EK via DXB are the likes of South Africa and Japan as going via the UAE is a bit of a detour. All other ares now are pretty much covered:
Oceania and south east asia:
EK via DXB, EY via AUH, QR via DOH, SQ via SIN or to SIN, CX via HKG
Indian Subcontinent
EK via DXB, EY via AUH, QR via DOH, TCX to GOI and WY via MCT that's if we don't gt a direct link to DEL or BOM
China:
HU to PEK, CA possibly PVG and CTU, CZ to CAN maybe on top of the usual suspects
To Japan the best way to get there is probably with the likes of SAS, KL and LH so a direct link is needed here. Similar story with South Africa in my opinion. Using the ME3 makes the journey too long for these - the only other option is CX but even that adds quite a bit of time (even after you've got to HKG it is another 4hrs to NRT.

 

[Aceshigh]

I can't believe there is anybody left still using BA.

Surely they must be bleeding long haul passengers from Manchester and indeed now Edinburgh at an enormous rate.

Eg Whilst the EDI QR is only half full per flight it's still 180 pax who I'm pretty sure would have used BA. With hourly flights they must be down 10% per flight evety time a new long haul starts.

Although there is a codeshare element it can't make up for that amount of lost revenue.

Are other passengers from our region driving down ?

 

[User001]

BA is no longer BA in the sense we know it.

BA is now IAG, so, it's important to realise the bigger picture of what that means.

Firstly, it means IAG and its direct shareholders serve London, Barcelona, Dublin, Cork, Madrid, Alicante, Doha, Tenerife, Rome, Billund, Aarhus, Bremen and Gothenburg.

Joint ventures mean that essentially, all revenues are shared on other routes too. New York, Chicago, Helsinki and Philadelphia are also served.

It's also worth noting that the above list of IAG routes is expected to increase dramatically next summer.

Like I say, bigger picture guys, bigger picture. It's no longer such the narrow point of view it once was.

 

[Dobbo]

Looking at the top 20 airlines in Skytrax top 100 list, MAN is well served by 11 (Emirates, Qatar, Singapore, Cathay, Etihad, Turkish, Lufthansa, Hainan, Air France, Swiss, Austrian) with Qantas also serving MAN via the successful codeshare.

Will we see any of the others serving MAN in the future?

ANA
EVA Air
Garuda Indonesia
Thai
Asiana
Air New Zealand
Bangkok Airways

(I omitted Virgin Australia for obvious reasons!)

Food for thought.

 

[ethanegcc]

Looking at the top 20 airlines in Skytrax top 100 list, MAN is well served by 11 (Emirates, Qatar, Singapore, Cathay, Etihad, Turkish, Lufthansa, Hainan, Air France, Swiss, Austrian) with Qantas also serving MAN via the successful codeshare.

Will we see any of the others serving MAN in the future?

ANA
EVA Air
Garuda Indonesia
Thai
Asiana
Air New Zealand
Bangkok Airways

(I omitted Virgin Australia for obvious reasons!)

Food for thought.

I would definitely see Thai as a possibility. Would be great to see ANA to NRT, Asiana to ICN and Air New Zealand though! Just a question: we've established MAN-BKK is a major route that is indirectly served so do you think it would be Thai (which could provide onward connections all over Asia) operating the route or another airline such as NokScoot? Don't know whether this should be on the Route Development thread?

 

[Land23R]

Not sure if this is the appropriate thread, but according to Routes online UA are upgrading their MUC-IAH and MUC-EWR
services from a B763 to a B777 in S2017. Has it been confirmed yet that MAN-EWR is being upgraded to a 763 next summer?

 

[Dobbo]

I don't think so. I don't think anything will be confirmed until the MAN-IAH route is sorted by SQ. A codeshare would give UA a big increase in capacity from MAN to one of its hubs and that may be enough for 2017.

 

[Dobbo]

From the MEN:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...ster-airport-routes-new-destinations-11609712


The usual suspects are there, including Oman which has been confirmed.

The most interesting ones for me are:

• Addis Abba - Ethiopian would be a new and welcome addition.
• San Diego - not an obvious route, I was surprised to see it appear.
• Cape Town AND Johannesburg - previously assumed to be an either/or but would be a strong TCX/VS route.
• Bangkok - might Thai actually get their act together, or could we see Norscoot or Norwegian?

And there are those "left off" the list like Chengdu, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur. Nothing from South and Central America.

Houston is more evidence in support of the new SQ service.

 

[User001]

Every one of those routes will appear in the next 2 years. There is a reason that the list is so specific and has been published......

 

[Dobbo]

I'll have to play a game of guess the carrier... Some more obvious than others!

 

[Dobbo]

Shanghai - Air China
Delhi & Mumbai - Air India
Houston - Singapore
Detroit - Delta
San Diego - Thomas Cook
Cape Town - Thomas Cook and Virgin Atlantic
Johannesburg - *scratches head*
Addis Abba - Ethiopian
Bangkok - Norscoot
Oman - Oman Air.

I'd have expected Ethiopian to be a tag rather than a standalone route. I'm not sure what the connections are although it is a growing hub for Africa.

Unless Johannesburg is served by the same airline(s) as Cape Town, that also seems a bit of a head scratcher.

 

[andyc941]

Exciting times ahead. The article says MAN bosses are in talks,dose this mean they are in talks with new airlines?.

 

[User001]

All will be revealed in time. As said, there is a very specific reason why this list has been produced.

Muscat, Houston and Detroit are not exactly tourist hotspots that most airlines are dying to cross off their list, and we know how strong the commitments are, it's so they can tick of the list, one by one in a short space of time.