United Airlines

[Aviador]

The proximity of another airport maybe important to United but for many passengers within the catchment areas of regional airports, local departures are an important feature of the booking process and probably the primary reason why so many people prefer to use feeder services from local departure points to airports such as Amsterdam & Paris at the expense of airlines such as United.

The statistics stack up, the number of journeys between many of the UK regions and the States are of a sufficient level to enable a limited number of successful services to the States from our regional airports.

If Ryanair ever get around to starting transatlantic operations you can rest assured they will have a go at operating from regional departure points if they think they can make money and it hurt their competitors in the process.

 

[Jerry]

The proximity of another airport maybe important to United but for many passengers within the catchment areas of regional airports, local departures are an important feature of the booking process and probably the primary reason why so many people prefer to use feeder services from local departure points to airports such as Amsterdam & Paris at the expense of airlines such as United.

The statistics stack up, the number of journeys between many of the UK regions and the States are of a sufficient level to enable a limited number of successful services to the States from our regional airports.

If Ryanair ever get around to starting transatlantic operations you can rest assured they will have a go at operating from regional departure points if they think they can make money and it hurt their competitors in the process.

As someone who flys to the US a couple of times a year i prefer to fly from my local airport to AMS i find its just as easy and cheaper than travelling to LHR. It would have to be significantly cheaper for me to make the jouney to LHR. From a personal point of view i would prefer an airline like JetBlue to fly from regional airports in the UK as they have the onwards connections that Ryanair do not.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Didn't work like that with the EWR service from BRS. It lasted five and a half years and although load factors particularly in summer were healthy - often monthly lfs in the high 80s% (which was much higher than the NCL loads sometimes quoted in that other forum) - the yield didn't satisfy Continental in the end. A major reason according to Continental was a lack of take-up in the business-first cabin despite local business saying they'd use it. They didn't do so in sufficient numbers, preferring to use LHR instead.

My son used BRS-EWR quite often in the business-first cabin for business purposes and when I asked (he isn't interested in aviation for its own sake) about the business-first loads he said it was often sparsely filled and when it was busier it usually seemed to be the result of upgrades.

The other point is that whereas a single daily to NYC from a smaller UK regional is fine for the New York area, if someone wants to go further afield it can be more efficient, particularly for business users, to go to LHR and fly direct to another North American destination. My son found that he could be waiting several hours at EWR for connections so would use LHR for most journeys other than when final destination was the New York area, although he did concede that a Bristol route was very handy when he could use it.

Unless you are flying to a New York area destination a direct flight from CWL to NYC for the first part of the journey may not be any quicker than using AMS because you'd still have to change aircraft, whether at AMS or NYC.

BRS may not be a typical smaller UK regional because it is so close to LHR and punters can get there fairly easily by surface transport, but then again it has no air links to LHR which some regional airports further away do have.

 

[Jerry]

I'm assuming someone is messing about with Wikipedia but i thought it worth mentioning. Originally American Airlines to Chicago to start on the 4th May was posted there but now it's been changed to United Airlines for Newark to start on the 2nd June. It's no doubt someone messing about but would be interesting if it wasn't!