[Panda01]

United recently announced they will stop flying to Northern Ireland,leaving the country without a long haul flight. This makes me wonder, how will the country attract airlines? City has better success but they both have their issues.

[icenspice]

Hello Panda01

I was just about to start a similar thread!

I was very disappointed to read the news:

United to withdraw from Belfast-New York route

But I am in two minds about the Brussels ruling. Why continue to pump state aid into a route that was not performing?

At the same time, saying it gave UA an ‘unfair advantage’ is complete nonsense IMO. We are talking about a daily B757 service.

I only flew the route once. The service was lousy, the flight was full and my economy ticket was not exactly cheap.

Looking on the bright side, BFS can do better. The door has been left wide open. Which airline is brave enough to move in? Norwegian?

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=773331]Hello Panda01

At the same time, saying it gave UA an ‘unfair advantage’ is complete nonsense IMO. We are talking about a daily B757 service.

[/quote]

Under EU state aid laws, it looks dodgy to me on first sight, would have to look deeper to have a better view.

Bottom line, Belfast is too small a catchment area to justfiy long haul flights, on a commercial basis.

One can get to Dublin quite easily, have a range of flights and enjoy pre-clearance, too. That must dilute the demand.

[onajetplane]

Sadly the fact that you can easily avoid the APD when you fly out of Dublin (and it only being a short drive down the road) then I struggle to see anyone opting to run regular long-haul out of BFS over DUB. I realise United was exempt from this tax, yet their fares rarely reflected this (at least in Summer).

Icenspice +1 re. the lousy service on the route – I have flown it a few times.

I have often thought that UA or AA might run a service to the US via Shannon from BFS. 1) They would avoid the higher APD tax bracket, 2) they could merge demand with Shannon pax (in a similar way to many previous ex-Dublin flights to the US making a stop in Shannon), 3) Bonus of Immigration pre-clearance at Shannon for BFS pax. But that is optimistic, as I just don’t think the demand is there.

It also doesn’t help that BFS is nothing short of a dump. Horrible place/horrible lounge.

[Panda01]

What about city airport? It has been renovated (departure side), has attracted new airlines and Aer Lingus has added more destinations (ableit seasonally). Both airports have the issue though.
The question really is, is it the airport themselves that is the issue or is it something bigger than the airports?

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=773363]…is it something bigger than the airports?

[/quote]

I believe that onajetplane and I have already defined the problem.

[Panda01]

Well at least there’s always the flights to heathrow…

[icenspice]

Lol Panda

The fact is that there is still demand for direct flights from both Belfast airports.

http://www.belfastcityairport.com/News/CITY-AIRPORT-SMASHES-INTERNATIONAL-PASSENGER-RECOR

And no doubt Ryanair is proving very popular at BFS.

The catchment area may have a small population but covers a large chunk of the island, namely Ulster. And my opinion is that the International will be able to sustain routes to NY and Toronto again, and hopefully to one of the Persian Gulf hubs.

Why should the island’s second city not have any longhaul flights? I’m sure people in the Cork area ask the same question, but at least Norwegian has plans there??

onajetplane, you will have a fit when you read this but give me BFS anytime over BHD!!

[TominScotland]

A sad market reality, I am afraid, Panda01.

I was in the North over the weekend for the first time for a couple of years as we drove to Dublin rather than our normal air routing. The ferries appear to have been downgraded from the former high-speed operations.

On the return, we stayed overnight in the North and revisited some of the places where we lived and frequented back in the late 70s, early 80s. This was real time-warp territory, with the murials (sic) and flags/ bunting suggesting that the Good Friday Agreement had never been signed – both Loyalist and Republican, btw. What was clear from the former was that there remains a solid body of bigoted opinion in the North who would not head down to Dublin for their flights, even for better prices.

That said, the declining value of the Pound against the Euro combined with the threat of a return of border controls between Newry and Dundalk may boost the prospects of direct long-haul Belfast flights.

[FDOS_UK]

From the Manchester Airport Group website, quoting # of pax in catchment areas

25 MILLION – Within a 2 hour drive time of London Stansted Airport
21.5 MILLION – Within a 2 hour drive time of Manchester Airport
8 MILLION – Within a 1 hour drive time of East Midlands Airport
2 MILLION – Within a 1 hour drive time of Bournemouth Airport

What’s the number for Belfast? 500,000 – 25% the size of Bournemouth – that’s the problem.

There should be a reasonable market for short haul flights.

[travelworld]

FDOS is spot on. It’s why there are no long haul flights from (say)Norwich. In Northern Ireland, unless you can persuade passengers from the south to drive north- and why would they-there will never be sufficient catchment.

[icenspice]

I suppose most travellers would welcome longhaul flights from their backyards (except for certain West London residents).

To compare England (its huge population and number of airports) with Ireland is ridiculous.

In point of fact, Shannon appears to do well to the US and at one point it had EI B747s flying from BFS en route to NY. I wonder what its catchment area population is?

You are all making me think too much and I feel a headache coming on ?

[MrMichael]

Unless a significant price reason to do so I cannot see myself connecting through Belfast to reach the USA. The reason Dublin has so many flights is the number of people transiting from across the UK using EI or Ryanair. Dublin (and to an extent Shannon) are natural change points to many points in the US, easy transit and likely save a few bob too. Belfast could not compete, so is reliant on point to point. As others have said, not enough people in the catchment area to make point to point profitable on long haul.

Icenspice, hope this did not make your headache worse 🙂

[icenspice]

MrMichael, you never give me a headache ?

One thing I forgot to mention:

http://www.routesonline.com/news/29/breaking-news/268867/routes-europe-bound-for-outward-looking-belfast-in-2017/

Perhaps some exciting developments will come out with this event.

[AMcWhirter]

A further challenge to the devel0pment of long-haul flights ex-BFS is the number of bus firms which operate between Belfast and Dublin airport.

There are regular departures, journey time is 1 hour 50 mins and the one-way fare can be as low as £8.

[Author]

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