2018 Predictions & Aspirations

[David_itl]

Initial thoughts:

United: drop Washington from September. Upgrade New York to 767 and announce summer seasonal Chicago from 2017
American: Replace A330 with 767 on Philadelphia. Remote possibility: Philiadelphia and Chicago to go 787 with the aircraft rotated at MAN (like the VS 330s are rotated at Atlanta)
Delta/VS: VS side - extension of San Francisco service to make it year round and announce Miami as winter only from November. DL side - Detroit route to be announced to be operated by DL from 2018. Remote possibility: VS announce Cancun with Barbados to go 3 weekly A330 from November .

Air China: Shanghai to eventually start in September
Hainan: Beijing to go daily in June and announce Xi'an service from 2018
(Alliance Manchester Business School website - http://www.mbs.ac.uk/news/events/ch...rucial-role-in-fostering-uk-links-with-china/ - stated "the conference heard that there were likely to be a number of new routes between Manchester and China in the near future, in particular a direct flight to Shanghai.")

Thomas Cook: announce San Diego and Sanya to start in 2018, and start Cape Town and Mauritius. Remote possibility: winter seasonal route to Reno announced (or Denver) dependent on how soon the proposed US CBP is done (pretty sure it was customs issue at Reno holding up their planned LGW-Reno route)

Singapore Airlines: go to daily on their route with the A350 (should be a nice boost to capacity) around May

Cathay Pacific: change to 6 weekly A350

 

[Dobbo]

6x weekly CX seems a bit odd - would probably have flat cargo capacity and a slight increase on passenger capacity (set off by having to operate two more flights albeit at lower cost).

 

[7griffinjack]

Be nice to see VS to LAX announced also.

 

[Dobbo]

I don't think it is controversial for my view to be that the growth in 2017 will be softer than 2016.

Perhaps something in the 7% range would be great, but almost anything could happen over the next 2-3 years.

 

[David_itl]

I'm sure MAN said they were anticipating 2% growth post-Brexit while everything's up in the air regarding the direction of what kind of access there will be between the UK and EU. But with "double digit" growth by easyJet and the 17% increase in seats for winter 2017 by Jet2 plus the new long-haul routes announced (together with those yet to be announced!) then I'm gearing up for around 5.5% growth to 26.8 million passengers

 

[Dobbo]

I'm sure MAN said they were anticipating 2% growth post-Brexit while everything's up in the air regarding the direction of what kind of access there will be between the UK and EU. But with "double digit" growth by easyJet and the 17% increase in seats for winter 2017 by Jet2 plus the new long-haul routes announced (together with those yet to be announced!) then I'm gearing up for around 5.5% growth to 26.8 million passengers

I may be wrong, but was that for MAG rather than MAN?

I'll see if I can find the article later. Quite frankly, if the industry can grow over the next couple of years, it is more resilient than I suspect it thought.

 

[User001]

2017 shaping up to be another good year for Manchester.

So, before the next round of announcements hit, a very brief round up, as the next 2 months could be very busy so a nice little fpreference point to come back to.

So far, we have 23 new routes confirmed and bookable (that's without any new base announcements just yet), one new airline so far, and increases on at least 28 exsisiting operators routes.

So, as said the next 2 months could be very busy.

2016 looks to be finishing with around 110 new routes in all. I don't think 2017 will get to those levels, I'm estimating around 60, so, let's enjoy the Christmas period and see where 2017 lies at the end of January.

 

[Dobbo]

Next round in January-March time?

The amount of short haul routes probably means most growth now is going to come from increased frequencies and/or new operators in existing routes.

I suspect long haul is where most of the headlines are made in regard to new routes and I suspect this will continue.

 

[ethanegcc]

16 US destinations for Summer 17:
New York: JFK (DL/VS, AA, TCX), EWR (UA), SWF (DY)
Boston: BOS (VS, TCX), PVD (DY)
Philadelphia: PHL (AA)
Atlanta: ATL (VS)
Chicago: ORD (AA)
Los Angeles: LAX (TCX)
San Francisco: SFO (VS, TCX)
Houston: IAH (SQ)
Orlando: MCO (VS, TCX), SFB (TOM)
Miami: MIA (TCX)
Las Vegas: LAS (VS, TCX)
Fort Lauderdale (from Sep all going well): FLL (DY)

I want your opinions could we reach 20 in 2018 by adding:
-Detroit (DL)
-San Diego (TCX)

More far fetched but possible:
-Seattle (VS)
-Tampa (TCX)


Even more far fetched (bordering on ridiculous):
-Baltimore
-Dallas
-Minneapolis
-Charlotte

 

[Dobbo]

I think we need to see a bit of maturity in the existing destinations.

By that I mean, several of them are presently "long and thin" seasonal routes that will be amongst the first to feel any axe, like UA appear to have done with IAD.

Turning those into fatter routes (good loads in increased frequencies and/or year round service) so that they are more likely to survive any downturn and are poised for substantial growth when USPC comes online, has to be the priority.

 

[Aceshigh]

The market from Manchester is not infinite, and personally I fear we may be at saturation point, we rely to a certain extent on the prestige of the City of Manchester rather than seeing MAN as a mature hub.

At least Norwegian have 6 months
to raise their game re marketing BUT every opportunity has to be taken to maximise load factors and the airport have to be complicit in that otherwise we will simply end up adding the odd service here whilst losing another.

The aggregation of 2 or 3 passengers a day from Exeter, Newquay etc could be the difference between routes succeeding or floundering.

One other point is Norwegian year round ?

I hope this isn't another Rouge
June July Aug Sep .....gone till 2018.

 

[ethanegcc]

Well Fort Lauderdale is starting in September so I think this may be a year round route.

 

[ethanegcc]

Also, I agree that the East Coast has reached a certain saturation point, with many MAN passengers now being able to travel direct to major connection points, and IAD will only probably return when USPC is installed because the route clearly didn't perform that badly as it ran for 6years.

Where can I see expansion? ORD - possibly UA, DTW - DL, they were extremely close this year, if the 'uncertainty' doesn't change into next year we may well see this service in S18.

LAX - VS should almost certainly launch this route to offer some premium cabin uptake and give DL some connections on the west coast and BA have been said to be looking into this, if it took over from AA.

SFO - VS should make this year round, even if on a reduced frequency

SEA - VS, again, Delta hub, tech industries and links between our two city's

MIA - VS, again.


No more expansion is really needed on NY markets, BOS markets, PHL. The only place I can see is now UA putting a 763/4 on the EWR route to fill the void from IAD or put their code on SQ's MAN-IAH.

I don't know how we can turn the present routes into year round, though. SFO should be year round as it has business contracts and VS said one of the major motives was to link the North with the Silicon Valley so why then it would be summer seasonal remains to be seen.

AA to ORD operates for the majority of the year except Jan/Feb, maybe this could be a contender to go fully year round.

DL could also possibly try to make MAN-JFK all 763 in W17, as a 333 to a 763 to a 752 is quite a drop.

 

[Aceshigh]

But is there not a significant number of pax rtg via the East coast who are flying onward already?

They would be lost to those services if you then offer additional flights elsewhere?

Either you eat into pax perhaps using Heathrow (and not sure there us much latitude left there) or you generate additition demand to fill the capacity via price etc.

Not sure either is possible!

 

[Dobbo]

I've been pondering the future development of Westbound long haul vis a vis Eastbound long haul.

The Eastbound market has been helped immensely in recent years by the ME3 operating reasonably high frequencies of flights into MAN over a sector length roughly the same as MAN-JFK. The volume of traffic aggregated together has proven fairly large markets that has paved the way for direct flights to places like Hong Kong and Beijing, with the likes of Shanghai, Bangkok, to follow and hopefully India and Tokyo to follow.

Westbound, it seems harder to see how a major hub could prove the markets to places like LA without making more of a leap of faith. Having large flows to the likes of New York is fine, but if that is fragmented across a number of carriers it makes it harder for a single carrier to take that leap of faith to more exotic routes. Plus, there are so many competing hubs on the east coast that the market feels more fragmented. I think a by product of this is marginal routes like IAD will come and go, but hopefully the overall market will continue to grow with passengers transferring in the USA rather than Europe.

 

[Coathanger16]

Westbound, it seems harder to see how a major hub could prove the markets to places like LA without making more of a leap of faith. Having large flows to the likes of New York is fine, but if that is fragmented across a number of carriers it makes it harder for a single carrier to take that leap of faith to more exotic routes. Plus, there are so many competing hubs on the east coast that the market feels more fragmented. I think a by product of this is marginal routes like IAD will come and go, but hopefully the overall market will continue to grow with passengers transferring in the USA rather than Europe.

Another part of it could be that of the airlines that would fly from MAN to the West Coast, they already fly from MAN to the East Coast. As such, they feel that any service they launch to the West Coast would have an impact on their East Coast flights. Whats better for say United? Launching a direct MAN - SFO flights, or routing those pax through their Newark Hub?

 

[Dobbo]

That may be true.

I think we all expect USPC to significantly increase MAN-USA flying. However, that may not manifest itself in more destinations.

For example, if it suddenly becomes easier for VS/DL to funnel passengers through JFK arriving as domestic that may be what they do.

Who knows - most likely the airlines will come up with their own different solutions to the problems.

 

[Coathanger16]

Just as a side point, what do people think is better for an airport (not necessarily more impressive)?

Increasing frequency on an existing route from say 4 weekly to daily (or seasonally to all year round).

Or

Keeping the same frequency on an existing route (say 4x weekly), but launching a new (say 3x weekly) service to a new destination.

When it comes to long haul flights from MAN, a lot of people talk about what new destinations could be launched. Might it be better for MAN going forwards (considering Brexit and other things), to hold off somewhat on launching new routes and instead focus on developing existing routes. What TCX has done at Manchester is great, but should the focus be on adding more destinations, or increasing frequency on the destinations they already serve?

Of course if Manchester wants to become more of a hub they will need to do both.

 

[User001]

I personally feel settling n what we have is most important.

This way, it is more attractive to Passengers both in business and leisure as they know they can get flights on a day that suits them.

This then increases demand and therefore makes new routes more attractive.

Success breeds success. For example, I would bet a bottom dollar that Norwegian only switched to MAN long haul after omitting MAN for months due to the success of other carriers.

 

[Dobbo]

I think generating and retaining business traffic is key. That requires certainty that:

• You can fly on pretty much any day of the week, and in some cases pick the time of day you fly.
• Irrespective of the time of year.
• On a reliable and good quality carrier.
• Sensible journey times and connections, ideally no more than one stop.

I think most of this is covered. Going East for sure, by the MEB3 and an increasing number of direct options. Going west is more difficult, and a larger range of west coast connection options, frequency, and year round service would be the main objective for me.