[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=825180]You are missing my point. If you fly from Manchester-New York, you are attracting people in Manchester’s catchment who want to fly to New York, and people in NY’s catchment who want to fly to Manchester.

IF you fly a plane from Heathrow to New York, you are attracting people who want to fly from New York – London, but also people who want to fly from Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Vienna, Basel, in addition to Manchester, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Belfast customers who are happy to make the connection.

Emirates couldn’t fill three planes a day from Dubai to Manchester as you well know, they fill them with connections. These is exactly what BA are doing too, only via London. It simply does not make sense for BA to send its planes to regional airports where they are not going to get the volume of connecting traffic that make it viable.

[/quote]

Do you really have so little idea about the range of connections at MAN?

It is BA who choose to operate as London Airways and I don’t believe thay have ability to compete at a hub like MAN, where it is a level playing field.

[bluemooner]

FDOS_UK In some respects whilst it is sad that BA operate as London Airways, in reality it means that we here in the North can use other airlines which provide better service.
Given all the moaning about the deteriorating service that BA provides, as repeatedly advised by BT correspondents, perhaps we should be eternally thankful!
From a selfish point of view, I would like to see direct flights from MAN to South Africa. It does not have to be BA. Virgin SAA Thomas Cook or someone else would get my custom.

[FDOS_UK]

Blue and red is in agreement 🙂

[rferguson]

BA operates pretty much just the same as the other legacy carriers that serve MAN – they feed their hubs. BA has only two hubs – LHR and LGW. Perhaps BA are missing out on making MAN a ‘hub’ airport – as LH does with MUC. But as it stands I can’t think of any of the long haul airlines serving MAN that does not fly to one of its hub airports same for the overwhelming majority of the legacy shorthaul carriers.
Aegean – ATH. Aer Lingus – DUB. Air France – CDG. AA – PHL. Austrian – VIE. BA – LHR. Brussels Airlines – BRU. Finnair – HEL. Iberia – MAD. KLM – AMS. Lufthansa – FRA & MUC. Scandinavian – Bergen. OSL, CPH, ARN. Swiss – ZRH. TAP – LIS. Turkish – IST.
Of all the short haul carriers above apart from MAN-Bergen there isn’t a single route that isn’t to one of its hubs. No AF MAN-NCE or LH MAN-DUS or EI MAN – ORK or LX MAN – GVA. They leave the point to point flying to the newer generation of loco’s and focus on feeding their hubs.

The long haul airlines are no different:
AA – PHL. Cathay – HKG. EK – DXB. EY – AUH. Hainan – PEK. Oman Air – MCT. QR – DOH. Saudia – JED. SQ – IST/IAH. UA – EWR.

Virgin Atlantic is an exception. And people have asked why, if VS can make it work why can’t BA? The reason is each company wants the biggest return they can get on their resources (specifically aircraft and crews). Virgin is slot restricted at LHR. It can not operate more flights even if it wanted to. So with it’s excess aircraft/resources it looks for other opportunities to use them and gain a return. BA is not slot restricted at LHR – after acquiring the ex BMI slots it has plenty to launch new longhaul routes ex LHR or additional frequencies on existing routes. This is where its priority is and where it believes it can get the best return on its resources. It has never said it could not make a longhaul flight profitable from MAN – just that they can make it MORE profitable from LHR.

Of course this completely negates whether BA deserves the right to call itself the defacto flag carrier or indeed British Airways. I’ll leave that one to the brits to argue! 🙂

[tjl11]

Manchester airport has just as many European destinations as Heathrow and is not slot-constrained.

[openfly]

@bluemooner South Africa from MAN is a dead duck. It was trialled about 10 years ago for two seasons by a small operator and was a financial disaster.
When BA pulled the JFK out of MAN they pointed to the fact that “people in the north did not support their local market”. So be it.

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=825236] @bluemooner South Africa from MAN is a dead duck. It was trialled about 10 years ago for two seasons by a small operator and was a financial disaster.
When BA pulled the JFK out of MAN they pointed to the fact that “people in the north did not support their local market”. So be it.

[/quote]

Given the massive increase in services from Manchester, the above statement is not too credible.

[openfly]

@FDOS I wasn’t referring to the short-haul hen/stag party flights. Sure there’s been a massive increase in the bucket and spaders, I agree, but long haul from the north has proved to be hard work. For all their hard work, BA and others couldn’t/can’t make it work.

[bluemooner]

Openfly – The trial from MAN to SA (Cape Town to be precise) was with Globespan. I flew on it. As a small airline operator, I don’t think it had the resources to do well. The aircraft was not the best, but the convenience of avoiding 1 or 2 stops was worth it. 10 years is long time, not to give something another try. No new runway required!! and an acknowledgement that the population away from the South East who want to use more convenient direct flights are there.

rferguson – I agree the Flag carriers tend to operate to a single hub. This is why I think there is scope for Virgin, Thomas Cook or someone else. SA could/should be a winter route Nov – Apr to take advantage of summer in the Southern Hemisphere. I would have expected there to be some aircraft availability in this period. Given the high prices charged for Xmas and Easter holidays, this would add to the profitability.

There are enough passengers who could make Manchester a “connection” airport simply because they don’t want the cost and inconvenience of travel to/via London.

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=825258]@FDOS I wasn’t referring to the short-haul hen/stag party flights. Sure there’s been a massive increase in the bucket and spaders, I agree, but long haul from the north has proved to be hard work. For all their hard work, BA and others couldn’t/can’t make it work.

[/quote]

Neither was I. There are a whole raft of long haul flights operating successfully out of Manchester, including Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, Singapore, Cathay, Saudia, Air Canada, Amercian, Delta, Hainain Airlines, Oman Airways, United and Virgin. Adding to this, there are also Thomas Cook and Thomson serving long haul markets.

BA couldn’t make it work, others could.

[Speedbird1994]

I don’t know if you are being deliberately obstinate, or just missing the point, but I increasingly suspect the former. There are dozens of successful long-haul flights out of MAN, but they are all to hubs, just as rfurgeson so accurately said. This is exactly what BA are doing too, flying passengers through their hub at LHR when they can offer flights to all the corners of the world, just as Emirates are doing, Etihad, KLM, Air France or any of the others you want to pick. It simply doesn’t make sense for BA to connect a flight from Manchester to New York for the relatively small market that wants to fly that route (after all, AA have dropped it). Look to any major airline in Europe and you will see exactly the same system (Air France – Paris, Lufthansa – Frankfurt/Munich, Iberia – Madrid, KLM – Amsterdam).

[PeterCoultas]

Soon life won’t be so easy…..home airport to hub; hub to hub; hub to somewhere interesting….2 annoying connections. Unless, of course your home airport is a hub….damn!

[capetonianm]

Globespan operation was a disaster and there was talk of fraud. The fact that it failed was not due to the unsuitability of the route but rather to Globespan’s inability to operate a decent reliable service.

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=825264]I don’t know if you are being deliberately obstinate, or just missing the point, but I increasingly suspect the former. There are dozens of successful long-haul flights out of MAN, but they are all to hubs, just as rfurgeson so accurately said. This is exactly what BA are doing too, flying passengers through their hub at LHR when they can offer flights to all the corners of the world, just as Emirates are doing, Etihad, KLM, Air France or any of the others you want to pick. It simply doesn’t make sense for BA to connect a flight from Manchester to New York for the relatively small market that wants to fly that route (after all, AA have dropped it). Look to any major airline in Europe and you will see exactly the same system (Air France – Paris, Lufthansa – Frankfurt/Munich, Iberia – Madrid, KLM – Amsterdam).

[/quote]

The hub and spoke model is starting to unravel with the introduction of more efficient aircraft/new airlines and sticking to it is like a general fighting the last war. The model was introduced for the convenience of legacy airlines, not the consumer and the world of the future is defined by business reference models, efficient architecture and cost optimisation (by which I don’t mean withdrawing F&B).

Of course, there will still be hubs in the future, but the trend to fly point to point to is growing, as passengers would usually prefer a direct flight, when available – why do you think IAG is so concerned about the growth of Norwegian? Because they know they do not have a cost base to compete with a new generation of long haul carriers starting from a blank sheet of industrial relations, without extremely heavy pension fund commitments etc..

The smarter legacy airlines in Europe have already introduced competitive obstacles, such as Lufthansa with its expansion of Eurowings on long haul.

[cheshirecat]

The Globespan a/c continually had to stop in LPA for fuel as it didn’t have the range for JNB/MAN

Back in the 80’s SAA did MAN/ORY/JNB on a 747 SP a few times a week ..!

[Author]

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