Virgin Atlantic

[EGCC_MAN]

Make it so! Even if this heralds a degree of long-haul consolidation in the short term it's a price worth paying for long term stability. With the Thomas Cook share price having plunged over recent months, the time is right to transfer the long-haul operation into strong hands. I personally hope that Virgin is the successful bidder for this division.

Obviously, the buyer of the short haul division will be of great interest also. But the TC long-haul operation has become critical to MAN and its long term preservation is essential.

 

[User1007]

I know this will sound very gloomy, and obviously Thomas Cook aren't in fantastic shape, and there is certainly potential if it goes well with Virgin: But I would be wary of putting all the eggs in one basket, especially when that basket doesn't turn a profit itself, has a much bigger Heathrow operation to focus on and is partially owned by a carrier who would rather you fly via Amsterdam or Paris. Quite easily consolidation could mean the loss of most TCX flights to the US, and the Caribbean destinations would still be reliant on continuing Thomas Cook tour bookings.

 

[mullion]

As Virgin have already said they are looking at expansion at Manchester not contraction infact it may help in expansion into India
which Was proving very popular with Jet until they went bust as they giving Virgin upto a hundred pax a day transfers on to US flights

 

[David_itl]

Remember why the group wants to sell the airline. Its not because the airline is a basket case. It's helping prop up the whole group whilst being a minority division of the company. Get decent money for it to ease any cash flow problems.

Whilst VS may have a bigger operation at LHR, they have no room for any meaningful expansion and the BE feed isn't exactly timed well for them. DL/VS may want a portion of the London rich pickings but with 12 slots per day at MAN, a significant slot portfolio from BE and the prospect of getting their mitts on 7 A330s and 14ish decent slots per day from Thomas Cook, they really are in the position of being the major based carrier that BA could have been all those years ago with a true hub and spoke operation.

I cannot see the point in buying the airline then decide that its most prized assets, prime slots at MAN won't be utilised. It would be like handing BA an open goal to put some Level A330s into MAN and letting them transport the plentiful BA frequent flyers that are around this region to the most popular connecting destinations out of DUB and LHR. Yes it's not going to be the same style travel experience as BA but if they upped rewards by 25% to 33% for using such services, that may be a way to counteract this.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

If Virgin / Delta pay good money to buy TCX long-haul, they aren't doing that to close it down. That division doesn't offer a great deal other than its MAN hub operation. I understand folks expressing concerns re reduced competition, but which other bidder would have a vested interest in maintaining the MAN long-haul hub as a successful proposition for the long term? The airline has been open to offers for over a year, and there hasn't been a queue of alternative bidders (that we know of). And any other successful candidate would have to contend with head-to-head competition with Virgin. And UAL / AAL / TUI etc.

Norwegian ... enough challenges of their own. Level ... see IAG's historical commitment to MAN. Some hedge fund??? Who else?

Virgin has to be the outstanding candidate for me.

 

[Rob c DSA]

All makes sense and would be liking winning the lottery for Manchester

 

[Seasider]

Would work well with FlyBe feeder. What would happen though,if the FlyBe feeder doesn't work? Entrench back to Heathrow?
We will have to wait and see.

 

[Jerry]

Would work well with FlyBe feeder. What would happen though,if the FlyBe feeder doesn't work? Entrench back to Heathrow?
We will have to wait and see.

Even without the Flybe feed, the network should be sustainable with a few tweeks especially if they had TCXs smaller A330s on city routes and the bigger aircraft operating MCO and NYC.

 

[David_itl]

So on some sites, questions have been levied about the limited connections on BE and how effective they would be feeding a merged VS/MT. It's only isolating out the routes that you can see there are 3 or more daily to ABZ, EDI, IOM, BHD, SOU, EXT, AMS, DUS, and CDG. This "limited" feed that actually gets a decent proportion of passengers actually currently transferring onto the current portfolio of MT and VS services.


I've drawn up this 4 bank wave of combined BE, VS and MT long-haul for tomorrow based on Flightradar 24's "routes" section. It's not in strict time order but based on what a flight best fits in the overall pattern of feeding other flights. It can also be a guide as to which flights ought be retimed to better feed other services. As it stands, it does appear possible for travellers to connect, for example JFK-MAN-MXP or ATL-MAN-DUS and vice versa I may need to revisit this in peak summer when all the VS/MT long haul routes should be in full swing.

The other thing that intrigues me is Stobart operating out of MAN for Aer Lingus. I wonder if they might decide that feeding VS / BE may be a better thing at MAN rather than taking passengers away from the "parent",

 

[BlueManc]

The other thing that intrigues me is Stobart operating out of MAN for Aer Lingus. I wonder if they might decide that feeding VS / BE may be a better thing at MAN rather than taking passengers away from the "parent",

That's an interesting point and could be described as a 'conflict of interest' but I guess the contract is watertight and the Are Lingus service will remain on their books.

Now, if Manchester were to expedite the pre-clearance offering, we wouldn't be drawn to Dublin anyway! It really is a factor if you've experienced clearing immigration at DUB as compared to LAX.

 

[Jerry]

Virgin Atlantic inaugural service from Manchester to Los Angeles started today.

 

[Scottie Dog]

Great to see the route restart after the winter break. Just to be totally accurate the outbound service started on Sunday 26th May and departed, I understand, with 263 passengers out of a possible maximum 266 seats - that's a load factor of 99pc. Not bad for Day One.

 

[Jerry]

Great to see the route restart after the winter break. Just to be totally accurate the outbound service started on Sunday 26th May and departed, I understand, with 263 passengers out of a possible maximum 266 seats - that's a load factor of 99pc. Not bad for Day One.

Sorry I didn't realise it was yesterday!
That is a great load factor!

 

[David_itl]

We always wanted to know the long-term plan was with the A332s. It looks like we've found out what will happen... to be replaced by 6 to 10 A330NEOS

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...0neo-to-virgin-atlantic-sources-idUSKCN1T3086

 

[Jerry]

Doesn't say whether it's the 800 or 900 or a mixture of them.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

Interesting. But ... IF they become the successful bidder for the Thomas Cook UK long-haul operation they could even be needing afew more.

 

[David_itl]

Not long till we have the confirmation that BE and VS can start of planning a co-ordinated schedule. It would be great to see the enhanced VS schedules now in play actually run for the majority of the year (if not year round) as it seems to be counter-productive to try attract the business traveller onto a limited seasonal service at MAN when you maintain multiple dailies year round out of LHR. With the larger O+D from London and little prospect of boosting domestic connectivity there, I would hope the initial focus would be maximising opportunities here.

I previously concocted an early season combined Virgin, Thomas Cook and Flybe schedule but to try to simplify things, I've restricted the table below to peak summer schedule for just VS and BE. Any long-haul that's operating fewer than 5 times per week has been put in pink so we can see how a larger VS base ties in with a non-altered BE schedule. It's not in a strict chronological order but more in line with 40 minute connections onto other services .

 

[Jerry]

It will be interesting to see how far they become integrated. In whether the Flybe website will remain or it'll just be Virgins or whether they'll be separate and if either party will sell each others flights on their website's.
What there is though in that schedule is a lack of afternoon departures for Virgin.

 

[David_itl]

Just realised the Los Angeles departure isn't there! Leaves at 13.00. It's good question about the online presence. Delta does links through to it's Delta Connection airlines websites so I imagine that Virgin may do the same,.

The lack of afternoon Virgin presence is something noticeable. Which is why if Thomas Cook long-haul came under VS control, you could probably see some of the present TCX routes going with those A330s being used to bolster frequencies on BOS and LAX with the potential to throw in a 7pm departure to JFK and add an Indian route

 

[David_itl]

Ordered 14 A330-900 and taken 6 options.