[PegasusAir]

SimonS1 – Probably true and of course the moment frequency increases on a route the long layovers begin to disappear which you can see happening with the ME carriers on major routes.

[rferguson]

I think the difference with the ME carriers leaving their aircraft on the ground is that it only occurs to accommodate their own timetabling desires, or perhaps the curfews at destination airports. For example the late arriving EK flight into SYD has to overnight at the airport as a small delay inbound would put a same evening departure inside the SYD night curfew resulting in massive fines. But fortunately for them they do not also have to factor in curfews at their home hubs which operate on a 24/7 basis.

Where it could unravel for the likes of EK is if countries tear up open skies/bi-lateral agreements with the UAE. Which other airline in the world orders masses of aircraft first (and A380’s at that) to then find where they can fly them to? For most airlines it’s the case of the opposite – we would like to fly to X, Y or Z but they don’t have the aircraft to do it.

Not that it’s likely to ever happen but take the UK as an example. If the UK was to tear up a bi-lateral agreement with the UAE Emirates would forgo 5 x daily A380 flights to LHR, as well as multiple flights to LGW, BHX, MAN, NCL, GLA. Etihad as well. What would the UK carriers lose if the UAE were to retaliate? They would have more to gain by no Emirates than they would lose by the loss of flights to the UAE.

Although the UK government is not protectionist of it’s airlines some other countries are. India for example (which has so far banned A380’s). Canada, Germany and France have all put some restrictions or conditions on Emirates expansion.

And Emirates knows that it is at this disadvantage. Look at the most recent airshow where the ME3 placed massive orders of both Boeing and Airbus aircraft – providing hundreds of thousands of jobs directly or indirectly in North America and europe. Emirates plays this card to it’s advantage. A quote from the Emirate CEO ‘Countries should really open up to other airlines. If they don’t allow us in, they can take their planes back’. Kind of sums it up really. The ME3 are keeping aircraft manufacturing in business – in exchange for flying the super jumbos into anywhere and everywhere they can.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-17/airbus-to-boeing-cash-in-on-desert-outpost-made-field-of-dreams.html

[SimonS1]

Indeed Pegasus – several times I have taken the 02.50 flight DXB to LGW, ideally timed to arrive when the airport has opened. Dubai on the other hand never closes, handy to have a hub with 24 hour opening.

[SimonS1]

AnthonyDunn – 20/12/2013 13:35 GMT

Sorry to hear you have had family issues Anthony. Difficult at the best of times.

It’s just that it’s about 6 weeks now since you made the observation and accused me of pointing out “manifest failings” in BA management. You have after all been quite active on here in that time.

[MarcusUK]

I agree that the European Airlines need to up their game, if they are to stand any chance with the low cost carriers. If you can think every hub that Easyjet and Ryanair have gone into, sometimes overnight (Ryanair stationed 6 planes in Budapest when Malev went bust), Easyjet taking 3.4 million passengers from Italy and similarly in spain from two main hubs!

I see here that BA plan to equip most of the European planes Airbus fleet, with 30″ seating even in Club Europe! So, we are all getting less space and more seats on each plane, wherever in Europe, and whoever you fly.

I also strongly agree with the comments on KLM from many BT forum members. They have really strived from a few years ago, and renewed nearly all of their fleet especially within Europe with only Fokker 70’s plying secondary routes. Brand new 737 /8/9’s ply with the new Embraer’s through Europe, and the aircraft are immaculate, and as mentioned, crew rather enthusiastic and clearly happy and enjoying their work.

I flew on a saturday from AMS to LHR few weeks ago with 4 flights in 2 hrs, so my 737-700 was sparkling new with 21 passengers on.
The crew were all laughing as we boarded as we were the last and they said we were going to have a party, and spent so much time with everyone, offering lots more to drink and the whole aircraft was in a great mood.
I wrote a complimentary email, and had a telephone call from Customer relations this week to thank me, and they would pass the comments through to those staff.
KLM are extremely responsive to customer relations.
their move to create KLM Cityhopper for ALL European flights is a sensible one, and over a 5 yr period.
But their services on board, food not an issue LHR-AMS, is simply superb, and you get off feeling happy and having had a great flight.

I get to use the Skyteam Lounge at T4 which is a long haul standard with superb environment and meals and wines, bar etc.

I also agree re Etihad, more than Emirates as a good example. Their strength is in investment and gaining Board influence to extend its influence. EK come in and merely want to compete and push other Airlines out. I think EY has a very clever strategy.

I flew them from their inception 10 years ago, and have chosen them to fly to Australia ex LHR beginning of 2014. They had the best Business return fare next to Malaysian at £2,750 return each for two travelling, complete with chauffeur cars each side. As we chose to stop in AUH each way, the first night was complimentary, and every other night half price. 5 * hotels (eg Yas Viceroy, Etihad Towers, for around £60 for each additional night!!!!
they also then provide the limousine to and from AUH and yr stopover hotel, up to 50 miles and even to Dubai.

A La Carte superb menus, when you want on the AUH-SYD 15 hr sector, flat seats and terrific lounges with fast track everywhere.
They are superb. The extras are giving us over £1,000 of value.
In this one trip, you earn enough miles to become a silver member of the FF program.

But in Europe, we sadly are getting used to less and less, bus services. So maybe we should merely pay the economy or low cost fares if thats all we are getting. If you have FFP cards and get the lounges and other perks, why travel business class anymore, with 30″ BA seating on the way?!

[TominScotland]

This thread is a brilliant debate and not a million miles from the thoughts I had when initiating the “What can we realistically expect…..” thread.

The big issue for me with respect to the ME hubs (and one I have flagged before) is really the elephant in the room and has nothing to do with financing etc of ME airlines. It relates to security and the vulnerability of all the region’s airlines to any terrorist incident. God forbid, this will not happen but in a volatile region it could and I suspect that most of the 80 per cent transfer traffic of all regional airlines would evaporate over night. That is their vulnerability even more so than protectionism.

[MarcusUK]

I recently was discussing this with colleagues, and pointed out that “ME” with all the political turmoil, countries considered to be in The Middle East now, is too generalistic.

If i talk about Qatar, Emirates, Etihad, etc i just refer to “The Emirate Airlines”, as i think we need now to differentiate the more troubled areas.

We currently have problems in Asia too, with Korea and that region not being the most stable, Ukraine, Thailand boiling up, North and central African hubs, in centres where there are political, terrorist threats, or civil unrest & problems. We even had severe disruptions in civil terms in Europe in many cities only a year ago.

I agree, but think there are probably more areas to avoid for travel than in many years, even transit at this time, in the current state of the world. The planet’s population is not happy these days, sadly!

[SimonS1]

Marcus – I think most people use the term ‘Gulf Airlines’. That would encompass Oman, UAE (EK and EY), Qatar and Bahrain. (Plus technically Saudi and Kuwait, neither of whom have shown much interest in the aviation stakes).

I wouldn’t say any if the first 4 are particularly high risk from a travel perspective.

[TominScotland]

SimonS1 – I certainly agree that the Gulf airlines do not pose high risk from a travel perspective. but I think you miss my point. I am not talking about the airlines themselves but more about airports and destinations in general. Gulf airlines are highly dependent on transfer traffic which is discretionary – most people fly through the Gulf because it is cheap and convenient, probably in equal measure. Pose any threat to those routings and a fair few people will exercise other options for their travel and this will unravel the business model of the Gulf airlines because they do not have a home market to fall back on. Many posters have commented on the perfunctory security regime in certain Gulf airports, therefore the potential for a major incident targeted at transfer passengers is certainly there. If that happened, the consequences for consumer consequences would, IMO, be immense. This would impact upon the whole region because geography is probably not the strongest point of most travellers transitting in the Gulf. Hopefully, this scenario will never happen but it certainly could.

[SimonS1]

You’re right – any incident would have a massive impact. On the other hand I think in the last 30 years I can think of very few incidents in that area that would have impacted the Gulf airlines.

On the same basis you could argue any major incident at LHR would have a major impact, with the airport operating at 98% of capacity. Take one of the terminals out of action for a few months and a few airlines there would feel the pressure.

[capetonianm]

“most people fly through the Gulf because it is cheap and convenient, ………… Pose any threat to those routings and a fair few people will exercise other options for their travel and this will unravel the business model of the Gulf airlines because they do not have a home market to fall back on.”

This sums up the underlying weakness of the strategy. There are other factors. Travelling between Europe and the Far East, Indian subcontinent, and Oceania, there is no time penalty in travelling via the Gulf, and for the price sensitive market who are prepared to put up with the unpleasantness of DXB and the other Gulf airports (matter of opinion of course, I think they are ghastly places) then the formula works.

For routings to Southern Africa, for example, there is time penalty and only the most price sensitive market segment will choose the routing. Remove or reduce the gap sufficiently and you start to lose traffic. I think TK will be taking a lot of the Gulf carriers’ business, with competitive fares and increasingly good service levels.

I have friends who travel between Europe and China and between Europe and SA each twice a year. For years they’ve used EK because of the lower fares and the higher baggage allowance. Last year they said never again to SA as the time penalty was not worth the saving. This year, on route to China, they missed a connection, no fault of the airline, but were then subjected to the reality of EK’s appalling ground service and having to spend 16 hours at DXB airport, no hotel offered, just a couple of food vouchers which they couldn’t use due to the overcrowding at the facilties where they were valid.

I suspect that people are starting to see through the glitter and hype of travelling via the Gulf.

[AMcWhirter]

What an interesting topic.

Just wanted to add my comments.

Hello rferguson

Re EK and the Sydney curfew. In fact EK did attempt to turn around its planes before the curfew but failed on a number of occasions. Its planes now overnight but that means a really early morning departure from Sydney.

As you say, Sydney imposes a strict curfew with heavy fines for those airlines who do not meet it. Each breach of the curfew makes an airline liable to a A$550,000 fine.

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/emirates-charged-with-breaching-overnight-curfew-at-sydney-airport-20131105-2wyqj.html

Hello TominScotland

Valid point. Think back to the days of the Gulf War of 1991. Although the Gulf airports functioned during this time, the airlines could only access the Gulf by taking circuitous routings via Egypt and to the south of Saudi Arabia.

These southerly routings added hours to the flight time. At that time there was no EY or QR and EK was only a tiddler so the impact was manageable. But it would be a different situation today because the number of flights into and out of the Gulf has grown by leaps and bounds so connections would have to be replanned.

Indeed it was such a problem securing flight paths that the Taiwanese airlines abandoned their European services altogether in 1991. For political reasons China Airlines (EVA Air did not serve Europe then) was unable to secure Russian overflying rights.

Hello capetonian

The Gulf airlines have been savvy in opening up services to cities the length and breadth of Europe. And they are now moving into Scandinavia, E Europe and Russia.

So although there is a time penalty flying to SA or China from a major European city (although perhaps not to Durban as no European carrier flies there) the penalty is minimal or non-existent should you be departing a secondary city. Or departing from a city whose national airline does not serve SA or China.

Based here in the UK, as I wrote in the New World Order feature (Business Traveller, December 2010), we forget that the Gulf airlines are not just about flying Europeans via the Gulf to SA, Asia and Australasia.

Much of their new business has come from carrying passengers who, in the old days, would have transitted Europe in the absence of direct flights.

For example, flying Chinese business people and workers to SA and S America, flying African merchants to China, taking passengers between the Indian subcontinent and N America (that is a huge market which Europe is steadily losing), flying Russians to Africa, S America, Asia etc.

Indeed one of our readers, a US-expat, has taken EK for himself and family between San Francisco and Addis Ababa via DXB. So that illustrates the scope of the Gulf hubs.

[Author]

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