[Anonymous]

[TerryBuchanan]

Whilst a Dubai-Aberdeen-Houston making more sense, it seems Manchester has been given much thought ?

CASE STUDY UK-US RIGHTS FOR A MIDDLE EASTERN AIRLINE

A Dubai-Manchester-Houston service by Emirates

This study considers the possible way in which a Middle East airline might use fifth-freedom rights from a UK regional airport to the US and assumes that Emirates might wish to mount a service from Dubai via Manchester to Houston.
Such a route would directly affect the markets between:

• Dubai and Houston;
• Manchester and Houston;
• Manchester and Dubai;
• Manchester and destinations beyond Dubai.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/589/regionalfifths_casestudy1.pdf

[PMWelsh]

Manchester has the advantage of:

2 runways
24 hour flights
A380 experience with Emirates
On site and nearby hotels
Very good to excellent transport links
More connections to other UK and IRL airports
A history of Asia – UK – US routing such as Pakistan International
Airlines such as Qatar, Etihad, Singapore and Saudia using MAN as an alternative
Historical routes with Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Malaysian, Air India, South African, Syrianair, Mahan and Air Blue (Pakistan).

However……

Rather than buying up Stansted and other airports – may I suggest Manchester Airports Group demolish the whole airport and start again – get in the architects and builders that design Tesco Metro stores and have a gleaming brand new terminal to accommodate all the airlines – to eliminate duplication – with brand new spanking arrivals, departures, palm trees, high ceilings, LED lighting, airside hotels, waterfalls to enhance the passenger experience. Aside from all of the positives listed above, Manchester could become a major 24 hour transit hub – taking advantage of its location, pretty views of the Peak District and transport links.

It is sad that BA vacated Manchester direct routing to all the destinations it once served – some 40 odd. The only advantage of this is the transfer to T5. BA should recover its position at Manchester.

[MarkivJ]

Agree. With the Delta- Virgin and US Airways strengthening oneworld, time for the uK and US airlines to show some much needed love to MAN.

[TerryBuchanan]

PMWelsh you make very great points and it is nice to read your enthusiastic and detailed reply.It was also nice that you mentioned that BA had it’s 3rd hub at Manchester.

How wee walsh believes as below that Manchester has a tiny fraction of premium traffic is therefore laughable when SQ and EK offer First Class out of Manchester :

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/2014/04/11/47636/virgins-little-red-is-costing-a-forture-says-walsh.html

[TerryBuchanan]

Whilst hardly groundbreaking news ” Dan Sath ” ( down south ), the launch of Miami and JFK from Manchester on Thomas Cook Airlines is surely further sign that people do travel globally North of Watford….
Didn’t Emirates once apply to do Heathrow-JFK and rights were instead transferred to Manchester ?

[skywards]

I’d love to see Dubai-Newcastle-New York…we need a direct route to New York from the north east part of England.

[MarkivJ]

skywards, hadn’t AA tried that for a while and then stopped? Do we know why they stopped? I find it hard to believe that US airlines don’t find non-London UK routes non-profitable.

[Bath_VIP]

MarkivJ,

AA pulled the NCL-JFK route just before it was due to start.

However, I do think we have to rely on the US airlines for transatlantic routes from the regions just as the US relies on BA for transatlantic routes from the secondary cities. The logic of this is that each airline is then feeding its main hubs. As a result there are quite a few regional routes to the US. From memory, these include the following:

UA:, GLA, EDI, MAN, BHX, BFS
AA: MAN
US: MAN, GLA
DL, MAN
VS: MAN, GLA & EDI(?)

In the past Continental used to fly from BRS but they pulled that a few years which was a great shame. I would say there is potential for transatlantic routes still from BRS, NCL & ABZ so hopefully one of the airlines will be encouraged to start these services soon.

BTW, MAN-IAH with Emirates would be very interesting for me personally. I will keep an eye on that.

[Bath_VIP]

Hang on a minute, this report is way out of date! It refers to data from 2004 and even talks about when BA code shared with Emirates from MAN.

Suspect this won’t be happening.

[canucklad]

Well spotted Bath_VIP
Bringing it up to date, Being Abu Dhabi based, I’d have thought Etihad would be a better fit for this particular route. And more so if they base one of their Darwin aircraft at Manchester to link with the lucrative Aberdeen traffic.

In full agreement with everybody else though, BA really are at risk of losing market share if the long haul growth in the regions continue. CX flying direct to HK from Manchester appeals to me as I can now hop on a train in Edinburgh and have non-stop access rather than faffing about in LHR.

[GreenScot]

Ah but canucklad you would have to suffer the Transpennine Express with their toy trains and a sore bottom after 3.5+ hours on their hard seats.

[canucklad]

So GreenScot, definitely not a recommendation then ! And I’ve noticed they’re a First company….probably not a good sign : (

[AMcWhirter]

To the best of my knowledge, EK never applied for LHR-NYC. Maybe TerryBuchanan is thinking of the former Bmi who was refused permission to fly LHR-NYC and, instead, operated transatlantic from MAN.

Many years ago, SQ also wished to fly LHR-JFK but was also turned down. Instead it opted to operate tranatlantic service from AMS (susequently withdrawn) and FRA.

I would imagine AerLingus attracts a fair number of passengers via its DUB hub. In fact the convenient timings via DUB would be competitive with a non-stop NCL-NYC flight because US C+I is pre-cleared at DUB.

[TerryBuchanan]

I never stated the report is current,but merely that it existed. I had to chuckle at AMcwhirter implying I can’t tell the difference between Emirates and bmi ?????????????!!!!!!!!!

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