Primera Air

[route66]

When Primera receive their late aircraft, which they will not be using at BHX, what will they do with it?

 

[Ray Finkle]

When Primera receive their late aircraft, which they will not be using at BHX, what will they do with it?

That is the question, if they are to receive all 6 A321's then you would have thought that the last thing they'd want is for one to be sitting idle?

If another route is launched from London or Paris then I fear for the long term viability of Birmingham beyond NYC and Toronto, if we only see five aircraft flying then we have our answer.

The news is spreading far an wide, even Gloucester Live are running the story.

 

[Brum X]

If TATL from BHX was such a 'dead duck' for Primera, why did they just cancel Boston and not pull out altogether?



Well there's been plenty of comments on this forum from people supposedly in the know stating Primera were looking at adding more destinations from BHX. The article I posted from BT also had a quote from Primera stating that they were adding new destinations from BHX.



So has Boston been cancelled due to insufficient demand or aircraft delivery delay? Most likely the aircraft was going to be delivered late, so Primera knew they had to sacrifice something from BHX. It was suggested that the second aircraft would eventually arrive in September which is past peak season so no point in launching a service to Boston at that time - or any other TATL destination for that matter!

I wonder when Primera found out that the aircraft would be delivered late. If it's only been in the last week I'm not sure what else they could have done. Sure they might have handled the customer service badly - although it was only deemed bad as people we getting refunds and not being booked onto other services, although that does now seem to be happening so not sure, besides the delay, what the issue is - but what else could Primera have done?

Call me naive, but I still think Primera have just been very unfortunate here and that they could still be a major player at BHX. Also from the BT article:

"Furthermore, Birmingham airport by far is our biggest new base for 2018 regarding the number of flights"

I would like to think the reason the schedule hasn't been published past October is that Primera are being cautious with Airbus, have learnt their lesson and aren't announcing any new routes until they're positive the second aircraft will be delivered on time in September. Even then, now that they've cancelled Boston, they're likely having to devise a new schedule for where two aircraft will serve over the winter period. Having Newark as 4x weekly over summer then increasing it to daily and adding a new 4x weekly destination in September/October is unlikely to be very successful - for any airline. It may be the new A321NEO are used elsewhere in Primera's network over the winter period, but that isn't necessarily a bad indication of things to come. As I've said, any new route launches, at least TATL ones, aren't going to be very successful if launched in September.



I'm really not sure what could be going on here. Boston too had high fares before they cancelled it, so if this is an indication that Primera are going to cancel Newark on those dats, could they start Newark as 4x weekly instead of daily and start Toronto earlier?

Well we will see how important BHX is to them when and if they launch W18/19, if these flights turn out to be until October only, then its goodbye as far as im concerned. I hope im proved wrong but we will find out soon becouse why is STN/CDG now on sale for W18/19 and BHX nothing.

I know winter is not a good season for most routes but for BHX to have no flights to New york in the winter isnt worth having. Id rather them go and put all there effort in the other airports and stop treating BHX like a second hand car.

 

[Jerry]

I actually think that this may show they have their heads screwed on. It looks like they were going to be an aircraft short so instead of leasing an aircraft at great expense to cover a route that wasn't selling as well as they've hoped, they've

Well we will see how important BHX is to them when and if they launch W18/19, if these flights turn out to be until October only, then its goodbye as far as im concerned. I hope im proved wrong but we will find out soon becouse why is STN/CDG now on sale for W18/19 and BHX nothing.

They may just be working out the schedules and waiting on slots but STN and CDG will always get priority because they are the bigger markets.

 

[rollo]

Well we will see how important BHX is to them when and if they launch W18/19, if these flights turn out to be until October only, then its goodbye as far as im concerned. I hope im proved wrong but we will find out soon becouse why is STN/CDG now on sale for W18/19 and BHX nothing.

Well as STN/CDG are on sale into the winter and BHX isn't, looks a bit of a clue to me as much as I don't want to say it, hope I'm wrong.

 

[Ray Finkle]

We'll know for sure when the whole winter schedule is released but for me there are more questions than answers at the moment. As frustratingly as always, time will tell.

In other news

Meanwhile, Primera Travel Group has launched an online agency in the UK. Primera Holidays will offer hotels in Spain, Greece and Croatia, matching properties with flights from Primera Air plus Jet2.com, easyJet, Norwegian and British Airways from a variety of airports.

https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/news/birmingham-boston-budget-flight-axed-ahead-of-launch-13053

 

[Jerry]

Meanwhile, Primera Travel Group has launched an online agency in the UK. Primera Holidays will offer hotels in Spain, Greece and Croatia, matching properties with flights from Primera Air plus Jet2.com, easyJet, Norwegian and British Airways from a variety of airports.

Airports on offer apart from Stansted and Birmingham are Liverpool, Glasgow, Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Manchester and London City. With holidays to Spain, Greece and Croatia on offer but it varies at different airports. For Birmingham as well as Spain, Greece and Croatia are also on the drop down.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Crete, Majorca and the Costa Del Sol are using Primera's own flights with Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Costa Blanca on Jet2.

Dubrovnik is also on the drop down menu but currently has no departure dates, I'm assuming that it will eventually be on the Jet2 service, although the STN flights are showing on Easyjet.

 

[GliderPilot]

http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/pres...1lr-successfully-completes-maiden-flight.html

Is this not the type Primera have ordered?

 

[Jerry]

http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/pres...1lr-successfully-completes-maiden-flight.html

Is this not the type Primera have ordered?

They've ordered 6 A321neo and 2 A321neoLR i believe.

 

[Brum X]

http://www.airbus.com/newsroom/pres...1lr-successfully-completes-maiden-flight.html

Is this not the type Primera have ordered?

That looks a nice bird, loving the engines

 

[Coathanger16]

According to this article Airbus may only deliver 68 from a planned 200 A320NEO's this year due to delays in receiving engine parts from P&W. If true I'd be amazed if Primera get all that they planned to this year (with 10 A320NEO/LR aircraft on order/lease that would account for 15% of deliveries).

https://airlinegeeks.com/2018/01/02...tional-wet-lease-aircraft-from-qatar-airways/

 

[Coathanger16]

As @jfy1999 has posted on the Stansted thread Primera are launching 5x weekly Washington from Stansted as well as increasing Toronto from 3x to 5x weekly from the end of August when IAD launches.

As of the Primera Air website, I make it:

STN 3x based A321NEO
CDG 2x based A321NEO
BHX 1x based A321NEO

Altogether 6 however Primera has 2 more A321NEO and 2 A321LR on order, so perhaps there is still hope for BHX. For now anyway it does appear that BHX has lost out to STN

 

[GliderPilot]

Just got a lot of grief on face book for making a similar point to coathanger16

F4A is so much less hostile

 

[IanFarquharson]

As of the Primera Air website, I make it:

STN 3x based A321NEO
CDG 2x based A321NEO
BHX 1x based A321NEO

This was my worst fear, so it is not entirely a/c deliveries more likely poor bookings.
Which is disappointing !

 

[thunderchild]

BHX losing out to MAG once again, at least it makes a change that it’s STN this time rather than MAN.

I just hope that United, Icelandair and Air Transat had decided to pull out before Primera came on the scene and that BHX management hasn’t seriously fecked all this up! Sadly we’ll never know.

Moving on....

 

[Aceshigh]

I still cannot believe that nobody seems to be able to make a go of BHX on an A321 even if it's just say 4 a week.
There has to be a market?

 

[Ray Finkle]

Well if there was any doubt before there certainly isn't any now. No surprise really.

Boston dropped well before it's even started.

New York cut well before it's even started and despite headlines of strong bookings the are rumours of otherwise.

One of the two aircraft now moved to London.

Nothing on sale past October despite being so from the other bases.

Lots of unhappy customers venting through social media.

The airlines name is now mud in the region, which doesn't exactly bode well for if they ever decided to try something else.

To top it all off we've lost United, Icelandair and Air Transat (they may or may not be related).

Even by Birmingham's standards this has all the hall marks of a major ***Please Read Forum Terms of Service*** up!

 

[thunderchild]

The sad thing is I saw all this coming. The big question is whether Primera will be back in 2019 with anything? There’s is a lot of competition from CDG and STN has a worse transatlantic record than BHX does.

 

[Ray Finkle]

The big question is whether Primera will be back in 2019 with anything?

Would anybody risk booking with them?

After this fiasco I certainly wouldn't?

If they are serious about Birmingham there will need to be quite an extensive hearts and minds campaign to get people back on side.