KLM

[TheLocalYokel]

Acknowledgements to planenut for his comprehensive list of next summer's departures, and I note that next summer one of the daily KLM Cityhopper rotations from AMS to CWL will be operated by an Embraer 190.

Should improve reliability a bit, though in fairness the Fokkers seem to have performed much better than last year, and the added comfort of this new aircraft will be welcomed by passengers.

 

[Aviador]

Apparently Cardiff received it's first ever KLM E190 today.

 

[backtrack]

Apparently Cardiff received it's first ever KLM E190 today.

Didnt LBA also...does this mean anything significant do you think for UK regional airports ?

 

[Aviador]

WYIA is the one to be asking but I'm not sure if he's been online.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I hadn't realised how quiet the CWL KLM thread was - no posts for nearly five years! The reason no doubt is that nothing has changed much in those five years with the three daily rotations (summer and winter) operating with F 70s.

However, this winter one of the three daily rotations is E 190 operated. The 190 also flew one of the daily rotations for the last six weeks of the previous winter before reverting to an all F 70 line-up for summer 2014.

It's now clear that the 190 will continue to operate one of the daily rotations through summer 2015 with the other two currently still shown as F 70 equipment.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

With more E190s on the route the CWL-AMS figures are rising steadily with nearly 12,000 passengers in March, an increase of 9% on March 2015.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

http://www.cardiff-airport.com/news/2016/04/27/klm-announces-new-connections-from-cardiff/

With passenger numbers rising on CWL-AMS I think it won't be be too long before a fourth daily rotation is added, at least for the summer months.

I can remember when Cityhopper used the F 50s on the route there were five daily rotations some years with one serving both CWL and BRS, operating AMS-BRS-CWL-AMS. I used this flight just after it had been upgraded to the F 70 - 15 years or more ago - to fly AMS-BRS.

In fact, it wasn't uncommon for charter flights to serve both CWL and BRS in double drops until around the Millennium.

The CWL based airline Inter European (owned by the Welsh based Asprou family of Aspro Travel with both travel company and airline later absorbed into Airtours, now by a circuitous route, Thomas Cook), and decades before that the likes of Dan Air and Cambrian did the same with scheduled flights. I wonder if it's still economically viable for a bit of that sort of thing to be re-introduced.

I think the last airline to serve both airports with one flight was Helvetic, operating ZRH-BRS-CWL-BRS-ZRH.

 

[CraigW92]

http://www.cardiff-airport.com/news/2016/04/27/klm-announces-new-connections-from-cardiff/

With passenger numbers rising on CWL-AMS I think it won't be be too long before a fourth daily rotation is added, at least for the summer months.

I can remember when Cityhopper used the F 50s on the route there were five daily rotations some years with one serving both CWL and BRS, operating AMS-BRS-CWL-AMS. I used this flight just after it had been upgraded to the F 70 - 15 years or more ago - to fly AMS-BRS.

In fact, it wasn't uncommon for charter flights to serve both CWL and BRS in double drops until around the Millennium.

The CWL based airline Inter European (owned by the Welsh based Asprou family of Aspro Travel with both travel company and airline later absorbed into Airtours, now by a circuitous route, Thomas Cook), and decades before that the likes of Dan Air and Cambrian did the same with scheduled flights. I wonder if it's still economically viable for a bit of that sort of thing to be re-introduced.

I think the last airline to serve both airports with one flight was Helvetic, operating ZRH-BRS-CWL-BRS-ZRH.

I imagine a 4th daily would atleast be considered, numbers on the route have been gradually Improving for quite a few months now, quite surprised BE didn't look at this this rather than double up on Glasgow

 

[Tinkerman]

I imagine a 4th daily would atleast be considered, numbers on the route have been gradually Improving for quite a few months now, quite surprised BE didn't look at this this rather than double up on Glasgow

More like years Craig ! I can't honestly remember the last time AMS was negative in the CAA statistics. Room for Jet2 to come aboard on that one ...

 

[CraigW92]

More like years Craig ! I can't honestly remember the last time AMS was negative in the CAA statistics. Room for Jet2 to come aboard on that one ...

Very true, certainly the last month or two have been extremely promising, of course the extra frequencies with the E190 have helped, 10,659 in Feb, 11,176 in March which is very pleasing, with the Fokker 70 being phased out over the next coming years, the E175 is an option for CWL rotations.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

CAA shows the following annual passenger totals for CWL-AMS:

2004 163,000 303,000
2005 166,000 265,000
2006 219,000 271,000
2007 225,000 283,000
2008 194,000 244,000
2009 135,000 230,000
2010 125,000 224,000
2011 122,000 289,000
2012 112,000 310,000
2013 117,000 321,000
2014 123,000 350,000
2015 129,000 384,000

These figures can almost be taken as a microcosm of CWL over the past decade or so. The influence of a second carrier can be seen clearly.

Addendum

As an afterthought I looked at the BRS-AMS figures to see if there was an obvious correlation between that airport's AMS performance and CWL's best years and worst years but there doesn't seem to be a pattern emerging other than BRS suffering a big fall (relatively) in 2009 and 2010 as CWL did - obviously recession-related at both. I appended the BRS figures in red.

However, if you take CWL's percentage of the Severnside AMS market each year a pattern does begin to emerge.

The following is CWL's percentage share from 2004 to 2015 respectively:

35, 38.5, 44.7, 44.3, 44.3, 37, 35.8, 29.7, 26.5, 26.7, 26, 25.1

 

[CraigW92]

CAA shows the following annual passenger totals for CWL-AMS:

2004 163,000 303,000
2005 166,000 265,000
2006 219,000 271,000
2007 225,000 283,000
2008 194,000 244,000
2009 135,000 230,000
2010 125,000 224,000
2011 122,000 289,000
2012 112,000 310,000
2013 117,000 321,000
2014 123,000 350,000
2015 129,000 384,000

These figures can almost be taken as a microcosm of CWL over the past decade or so. The influence of a second carrier can be seen clearly.

Addendum

As an afterthought I looked at the BRS-AMS figures to see if there was an obvious correlation between that airport's AMS performance and CWL's best years and worst years but there doesn't seem to be a pattern emerging other than BRS suffering a big fall (relatively) in 2009 and 2010 as CWL did - obviously recession-related at both. I appended the BRS figures in red.

Many thanks for that Yokel, even if it was a few times weekly for leisure purposes I think an additional carrier could do well, Kl will always do well with regards to business and onward connections, always found them quite expensive if your not traveling on anywhere, Do EZY take a mix of both ?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Many thanks for that Yokel, even if it was a few times weekly for leisure purposes I think an additional carrier could do well, Kl will always do well with regards to business and onward connections, always found them quite expensive if your not traveling on anywhere, Do EZY take a mix of both ?

Do you mean a mix of business and leisure? If so, yes but there is obviously no onward connecting with easyJet's point to point service.

It would be a risk to book separate flights with easyJet to AMS then KLM from AMS to, say, a long haul destination because the easyJet flight might be cancelled or severely delayed meaning the customer would have no comeback for missing the long haul flight. Some people might do so for all that.

AMS is booming at the moment as is instanced by the CWL figures. BRS has 28 KLM rotations per week (4 each day, E 190) and easyJet has eleven (daily with second rotations on M, Th, F and Su). The next seven easyJet outbound BRS-AMS sectors are sold out: Sat, Sun (2), Mon (2), Tues and Wed so there appears to be a significant market for point to point travel on this route which a carrier would note if thinking of operating CWL-AMS against KLM.

 

[CraigW92]

Do you mean a mix of business and leisure? If so, yes but there is obviously no onward connecting with easyJet's point to point service.

It would be a risk to book separate flights with easyJet to AMS then KLM from AMS to, say, a long haul destination because the easyJet flight might be cancelled or severely delayed meaning the customer would have no comeback for missing the long haul flight. Some people might do so for all that.

AMS is booming at the moment as is instanced by the CWL figures. BRS has 28 KLM rotations per week (4 each day, E 190) and easyJet has eleven (daily with second rotations on M, Th, F and Su). The next seven easyJet outbound BRS-AMS sectors are sold out: Sat, Sun (2), Mon (2), Tues and Wed so there appears to be a significant market for point to point travel on this route which a carrier would note if thinking of operating CWL-AMS against KLM.

Apologies, I didn't make that very clear, although I imagine Easyjet fares are rather more cheaper than KLMs

I've always said if I was travelling towards the Middle East/Asia I would use KLM, if it was America for example I would use Aer Lingus, both have extremely strong connecting figures from Cardiff, always good to see sold out flights, I was really amazed that Glasgow has been upgraded to double daily from the winter, I thought a Flybe perhaps 4/5 weekly Amsterdam route would have been far better, I imagine if the Glasgow doesn't doesn't pick up then this could be in for consideration.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Yes, easyJet's fares are usually a bit cheaper than KLM's point to point at BRS although not always. My wife and I used KLM (from BRS) regularly in the 1990s to travel to both the USA and Canada via AMS. I'm not sure it would have taken less time had a North American route via Dublin been available then. Part of the equation is the length of time spent on the ground at AMS or DUB.

Incidentally, that's also part of the calculation if a NYC scheduled service began at CWL. It's fine for people flying to or from the NYC area but further afield in the USA and you may have a lengthy wait at EWR or NYC (whichever US airport is used) for a connecting flight. Our son, who was based in the Bristol area, used to fly regularly to the USA on business when Continental operated BRS-EWR. He did use CO on occasions but often found it a better use of his time to drive to LHR and catch a non-stop flight from there to a different city in the USA rather than wait at EWR for a connecting flight.

I thought that GLA was an oddity with Flybe at one rotation per day and not every day of the week at that. From November the 2 x daily will provide the opportunity for (mainly) business people to have a full day in Glasgow (or in Cardiff). The only possible reservation is whether the E195 is too big but the agreement between CWL and Flybe has undoubtedly factored this in.

When Flybe operated CWL-GLA with Q400s they typically carried around 40-50 per flight on average through a month. Timings weren't so good for northbound passengers and fares were generally higher than Flybe charges now on many of its CWL flights.

If GLA did go back to single daily its usefulness for travellers would reduce considerably.

 

[Jerry]

Going to be using KLM tomorrow. Off to visit my girlfriend in Portland via AMS and SFO. Not sure but it may be my last time flying on a Fokker 70 and was wondering when the E170's takeover? next trip is xmas time so wondering if it'll be all E170 by then?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Have a great trip, Jerry. Don't know the answer to the E170 question.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Jerry

A member is asking in the Humberside section what snacks they serve on KLM Cityhopper. There might not be anyone who reads the HUY thread who has recent experience of this airline. I wonder if you could let us know what they served on your recent CWL-AMS flight. At least it would give the enquirer some idea.

Many thanks.

 

[Jerry]

KLM Schedule Winter 2016

Monday to Friday Saturday Sunday
CWL-AMS 06.00-08.25 CWL-AMS 06.00-08.25 CWL-AMS 06.00-08.25
AMS-CWL 09.30-09.50 AMS-CWL 09.30-09.50 AMS-CWL 09.30-09.50
CWL-AMS 10.20-12.40 CWL-AMS 10.20-12.40 CWL-AMS 10.20-12.40
AMS-CWL 16.45-17.05 AMS-CWL 21.10-21.30 AMS-CWL 16.45-17.05
CWL-AMS 17.35-19.55 CWL-AMS 17.35-19.55
AMS-CWL 21.10-21.30 AMS-CWL 21.10-21.30

Between Monday 26th December and Friday 30th there is no night stopper and on Wednesday 4th January Thursday 5th there is no evening rotation.
Between the 1st of November and 6th January KLM will operate Monday-Friday and Sunday 2 E175 rotations on being the night stopper and 1 Fokker 70 rotation which will be the mid morning one. Saturday is all E175.
From 7th January until Saturday 4th February all rotations are Fokker 70 apart from the Sunday evening rotation which is E175. Then it goes back to the same rotations as before in November and December.

 

[Jerry]

KLM July 2016 AMS Statisitics were 12,086.