Manchester: Virgin Atlantic Route News & Base Updates

[User001]

Great pic by Declan Fielding of all 4 Virgin based on the ground together. Just think, another 2 aircraft will be joining this picture from next summer!

 

[David_itl]

The sentence out of the routesonline article bear thinking about is this:

"Estimated traffic data from Sabre AirVision Market Intelligence shows that Origin & Destination passengers between Detroit Metropolitan Airport and Manchester Airport have grown by over a third across the last three years from 37.6 Passengers Per-Day Each-Way (PPDEW) in 2013 to 51.2 last year, while retaining a strong yield of around $950. Preliminary figures for the first six months of this year show a 10.6 percent growth in demand versus the same period in 2015."

I'd love to know the breakdown for the other gateway airports in the States from MAN to see how we are performing in terms of purely origin and destination - I've only found a link for 2011 which did have LAX as being down from 62000 passengers in 2003 to 41000 passengers in 2011. It's still around 57 passengers per day each way based on the 2011 figures No doubt TCX ops is boosting the number but I wonder how many of those passengers in 2011 would be using this service (thinking going on the "legacy" carriers").

 

[ethanegcc]

Yes this would be an interesting read too.
Great to see VS aircraft at MAN. User 001 do you know anything more about the DTW route?

 

[Dobbo]

Are the aircraft properly based at MAN or do they rotate through LHR/LGW?

 

[User001]

For the Detroit official announcement, patience is needed.

Just because it's written about in a 3rd party article doesn't mean the route will be announced in the few days following.

It will happen when it happens.

 

[Dobbo]

Do we yet know what the spare A330 will do on the downtime between LAS rotations?

 

[User001]

So far just the extra Barbados flight, but still leaves 3 gaps.

With such a large programme at Manchester now, they may decide to leave the gaps so that there can be a back up aircraft for the schedules.

The small planet fiasco in the past few days shows what happens when you don't have back up aircraft.

 

[Dobbo]

Agreed. It may be that they can sneak an extra rotation to somewhere but yes, having backup seems sensible.

I hope that all six (or at least five) will remain based over the winter.

 

[Comet]

I don't think this has been report before but it seems VS has added a Friday flight to BOS from 28/7/2017. They have already added the third BGI. So more use of the extra aircraft

 

[Dobbo]

That is a good sign of advanced bookings.

I am now keeping my eyes open for confirmation that BOS and SFO are year round, and an increase in SFO frequency.

Then, it's a case of waiting for LAX..

 

[ethanegcc]

According to their timetable though it says there are no flights for the 4th and 5th August 2017 (Friday and Saturday) but is this just because they are not bookable yet?

 

[Comet]

Not bookable yet

 

[ethanegcc]

Right - thank you!
Great so it is theee flights weekly from 28th July then. Hopefully a good sign the route will be a success and more growth for VS from MAN.

I hope they are year round.

 

[User001]

The extra weekly Boston flight is now bookable for 28th July. That makes MAN-BOS 5 weekly overall with 3 from VS and 2 from TCX.

 

[Dobbo]

That's good to hear.

Looking towards the late September early October announcement where I hope to hear more positive news.

 

[User001]

Detroit called off again now, so no sept announcement.

 

[Dobbo]

That's a shame. A one-off or reappraisal of MAN? Assume the former as VS already have significant expansion at MAN in 2017?

 

[ethanegcc]

Hmm, it would have been great to gain another route to that region of the USA and with a more reliable airline than AA! It could still materialise at some point, though.

It will also be sad to say goodbye to a valued and long serving carrier at MAN, DL, albeit only until winter!

Aside from this, Boston is great news. I am in Boston now as I type and I was hoping a third VS flight would come sooner or later. It is a beautiful city and boasts many more European traits than NYC, for example.

 

[Jerry]

From Delta's point of view it might be that in the long run all the flights from MAN will be flown by Virgin? They can codeshare on those routes and redeploy aircraft elsewhere especially on the US coast to coast routes or Asia or other european destinations.

 

[Dobbo]

That may be correct. I wonder how extensive a network they feel they can operate?

6 Aircraft?
8 Aircraft?
10 Aircraft?!