[Johnnyg]

If Routes Online is correct then Manchester is in line for another Chinese airline. Are BA missing a trick here? Or will lack of feeder traffic still be an issue.

Shanghai-based carrier Juneyao Airlines has requested permission to fly three times per week between Shanghai and Manchester, as well as a three-weekly service between Shanghai and Athens. It hopes to start both services in March 2020 using its Boeing 787-9 aircraft.

Manchester currently has one connection to mainland China, with Hainan Airlines operating four weekly flights to Beijing Capital.

A report released in September 2018 found that passenger numbers reached 90,000 in the first year of the Beijing flight, up 15 percent on pre-launch estimates. It added that the service has generated a visitor spend of £138.8m and boosted export value from Northern England by 265 percent to £200m per month.

[AMcWhirter]

Other than a few seasonal and short-haul routes BA operates no international flights from regional airports.

In this case it would be a lack of feeder traffic at both ends of the route.

Manchester-Shanghai is already served indirectly by a number of sixth-freedom airlines.

[bluemooner]

[quote quote=939440]There is no way BA would be able to generate plane loads of people from Manchester to the likes of Chicago, Johannesburg and Sydney. The demand isn’t there and other carriers have this sewn up.[/quote]

Given that the population of the UK from Birmingham northwards exceeds the population of the South/South East, I would be most surprised if a British airline couldn’t fill these aircraft. Various American and ME carriers would take a hit – who cares! 8 flights from Manchester to ME daily, and Emirates are using A380s shows the scant disregard BA have for people North of Watford.

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=939492]

SimonS1 wrote:

There is no way BA would be able to generate plane loads of people from Manchester to the likes of Chicago, Johannesburg and Sydney. The demand isn’t there and other carriers have this sewn up.

Given that the population of the UK from Birmingham northwards exceeds the population of the South/South East, I would be most surprised if a British airline couldn’t fill these aircraft. Various American and ME carriers would take a hit – who cares! 8 flights from Manchester to ME daily, and Emirates are using A380s shows the scant disregard BA have for people North of Watford.[/quote]

I think you are confusing different things. Emirates are funelling people into a hub and on to dozens of different destinations. So are the US carriers.

Just like BA partly fill their flights from Heathrow with connecting traffic.

I’m afraid you are kidding yourself if you really think there are 300 people in the Manchester area each day who want to be in Johannesburg, Chicago etc.

Look at it another way. BA is a business run for profit. If they could run those routes profitably they would. There is no anti northern bias, just that the numbers don’t stack up.

[bluemooner]

[quote quote=939508]I’m afraid you are kidding yourself if you really think there are 300 people in the Manchester area each day who want to be in Johannesburg, Chicago etc.[/quote]

We are not talking just Manchester, but Manchester Area, Liverpool Area, Sheffield Area, Leeds Area, Derby/Nottingham/Leicester Area, Birmingham Area.That’s a huge population.
OK then – let’s suppose there are not 300 people from a line North of Birmingham wanting to go to Johannesburg. Are there 300 every 2 days or every 3 days. Surely there are.
Nobody is saying it has to be a daily service. Then you have 2 or 3 services to Cape Town.
Perhaps 2 to 3 services to NY same to Boston LA Chicago.

In other words you build regular services. Then you start to build another hub outside of London. Then BA becomes something other than London Airways.
Lufthansa have international flights other than from Frankfurt. I am flying to Tbilisi from Munich later this year on LH.
Give the rest of the country a service – and the country will support you and not the ME American and Other none UK carriers.

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Johnnyg

[capetonianm]

As said before, it’s not about filling the seats, it’s about filling them with high revenue passengers.

Services which are not daily do not offer the flexibility which high revenue pax require and will rarely if ever be profitable.

In this case there is another factor working against BA, which is that their offerings are bettered by most of their competitors on most routes.

[tomwjsimpson]

[quote quote=939535]Lufthansa have international flights other than from Frankfurt. I am flying to Tbilisi from Munich later this year on LH[/quote]

LH have a large feed into both FRA and MUC – something BA would not have at MAN, EDI etc – they feed to LHR and to a lesser extent LGW, that’s their model and I can’t see that changing. Regional airports have many links to other airlines offering one stop flights, which generally link with their respective hubs.

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=939535]

SimonS1 wrote:

I’m afraid you are kidding yourself if you really think there are 300 people in the Manchester area each day who want to be in Johannesburg, Chicago etc.

We are not talking just Manchester, but Manchester Area, Liverpool Area, Sheffield Area, Leeds Area, Derby/Nottingham/Leicester Area, Birmingham Area.That’s a huge population.

OK then – let’s suppose there are not 300 people from a line North of Birmingham wanting to go to Johannesburg. Are there 300 every 2 days or every 3 days. Surely there are.

Nobody is saying it has to be a daily service. Then you have 2 or 3 services to Cape Town.

Perhaps 2 to 3 services to NY same to Boston LA Chicago.

In other words you build regular services. Then you start to build another hub outside of London. Then BA becomes something other than London Airways.

Lufthansa have international flights other than from Frankfurt. I am flying to Tbilisi from Munich later this year on LH.

Give the rest of the country a service – and the country will support you and not the ME American and Other none UK carriers.[/quote]

LH is probably the exception as they have 2 hubs. Plus it’s not about supporting the ME carriers, just the practicalities. For example 3 flights a day to Dubai and one stop connections to many other places.

Many of the people you mention in Leeds, Newcastle etc are already connecting at LHR, they are not going to start driving to Manchester for a 3x a week flight to Johannesburg. Particularly with the HS rail link also likely to make it more easy to get to LHR.

How many business people do you think would be interested in a 3x weekly service to Chicago or Johannesburg when you can get there daily or more often via a hub?

As I said before if BA could do it profitably (and without cannibalising London traffic) it would. It may indeed be ‘London Airways’ but it is a business, not a social service.

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openfly

[AMcWhirter]

[quote quote=939535]Lufthansa have international flights other than from Frankfurt. I am flying to Tbilisi from Munich later this year on LH.[/quote]

As I have reported before Lufthansa is unhappy with the management at FRA (also its congestion) and is expanding long-haul services out of MUC. It is now developing its short-haul feeder network at MUC.

And depending on location Austrian travellers may find MUC more convenient than Vienna.

Other than these two hubs Lufthansa is as guilty as BA in not operating international (Lufthansa mainline) flights from regional airports.

Regional travellers wanting to take LH mainline have no choice but to route via FRA or MUC.

People are surprised there are no LH mainline services (short- or long-haul) from Germany’s capital city.

Lufthansa to axe Berlin-New York route

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openfly

[miningguy]

Between my family and I, we’ve had quite a lot of flights to Kiev this year with BA. None of them were very full in economy. Business by and large was full. Worth noting that Ryanair now fly from KBP to London and Manchester – so our assumption is they have hoovered up quite a bit of the demand. It will be interesting to see how the other legacy carriers (LH, Swiss) respond in the coming months.

Having flown the route for many years, I’m pretty sad about it – the Ukraine has significant trade potential. I do hope that BA will revisit this decision when the economy does eventually pick.

[miningguy]

[quote quote=939537]As said before, it’s not about filling the seats, it’s about filling them with high revenue passengers.

Services which are not daily do not offer the flexibility which high revenue pax require and will rarely if ever be profitable.

In this case there is another factor working against BA, which is that their offerings are bettered by most of their competitors on most routes.[/quote]

I’m inclined to agree with you here and also the comments that likely BA would fly these routes if they could make them profitable (as frustrating a situation as this is for us northerners). One thing that does baffle me is how few flights they operate from MAN to LHR. I’ve had a number of instances recently when I’ve wanted to fly from MAN via LHR and found myself unable to do so due to full shuttle flights. They are very rarely empty so I do wonder if there is an opportunity for larger aircraft or higher frequencies.

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=939639]

capetonianm wrote:

As said before, it’s not about filling the seats, it’s about filling them with high revenue passengers.

Services which are not daily do not offer the flexibility which high revenue pax require and will rarely if ever be profitable.

In this case there is another factor working against BA, which is that their offerings are bettered by most of their competitors on most routes.

I’m inclined to agree with you here and also the comments that likely BA would fly these routes if they could make them profitable (as frustrating a situation as this is for us northerners). One thing that does baffle me is how few flights they operate from MAN to LHR. I’ve had a number of instances recently when I’ve wanted to fly from MAN via LHR and found myself unable to do so due to full shuttle flights. They are very rarely empty so I do wonder if there is an opportunity for larger aircraft or higher frequencies.[/quote]

Higher frequencies is a non starter as there are no slots at LHR.

Larger aircraft – BA doesnt have the fleet and short haul routes are a notoriously inefficient use of aircraft (time on ground v time in air) so no chance of acquiring extra planes for that purpose.

The LGW – MAN route was always full but dropped several years ago as unprofitable. Largely because competition from rail has driven down fares.

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miningguy

[AMcWhirter]

[quote quote=939639]One thing that does baffle me is how few flights they operate from MAN to LHR. I’ve had a number of instances recently when I’ve wanted to fly from MAN via LHR and found myself unable to do so due to full shuttle flights. They are very rarely empty so I do wonder if there is an opportunity for larger aircraft or higher frequencies.[/quote]

Interestingly to boost capacity I hear that BA has revised its A320/A321 orders.

It will now be acquiring more A321neos but fewer A320neos. This equates to a capacity boost of up to 40 seats.

I find it surprising that a MAN-LHR flight would be full in *both* classes. You didn’t say whether your final destination was LHR or if you were continuing elsewhere.

I say that because wouldn’t your travel agent help ?

If it were a long-haul premium class flight I would have thought (and certainly it’s something I myself used to do many years ago) your agent would have contacted BA and explained matters.

[openfly]

Errrr SimonS1…there is no competition on the rails to the NW from anywhere south of Euston, especially LGW. LGW to north of Luton is highly laborious. FlyBe??

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=939683]

miningguy wrote:

One thing that does baffle me is how few flights they operate from MAN to LHR. I’ve had a number of instances recently when I’ve wanted to fly from MAN via LHR and found myself unable to do so due to full shuttle flights. They are very rarely empty so I do wonder if there is an opportunity for larger aircraft or higher frequencies.

Interestingly to boost capacity I hear that BA has revised its A320/A321 orders.

It will now be acquiring more A321neos but fewer A320neos. This equates to a capacity boost of up to 40 seats.

I find it surprising that a MAN-LHR flight would be full in *both* classes. You didn’t say whether your final destination was LHR or if you were continuing elsewhere.

I say that because wouldn’t your travel agent help ?

If it were a long-haul premium class flight I would have thought (and certainly it’s something I myself used to do many years ago) your agent would have contacted BA and explained matters.[/quote]

Many people don’t use travel agents these days – I can’t remember the last time I used a TA to book a flight.

Also how would contacting BA help – you mean pressuring them to bump someone else? I can’t see how that would work.

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