[cwoodward]

BOTP- What please is that good reason ?

Its a good while since I have been there but it does have 16.5 million foreign visitors a year (3rd most popular tourist destination in India) and as others mention no direct competition.
It must be worth a very close look as it is the softest entry and truly a ‘new’ destination for middle class Brits.

[AMcWhirter]

onajetplane wrote:

I wonder would they consider Riyadh? High paying pax, anytime I’ve taken BA it’s been full… Saudi really trying to open up with easier visas etc… Saudia being Skyteam… lots of potential for US transfer pax (particularly LAX)… and if I’m not mistaken, is Riyadh not one of the ex-BMI routes that gets a slot benefit for any new airline taking it on?

Riyadh is one of the ‘remedy’ slots. After the demise of Flybe these slots have been returned to BA but are open for use by another UK airline.

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sparkyflier, onajetplane

[cwoodward]

Will be interesting to see how nimble the UK players are as my feeling is that they need to get well set on Indian routes before the coming onslaught by Air India. Brit tourists love new aircraft plus cheap fares and subsidised hotels and at some point Air India will offer all three I believe

[MarkivJ]

If it’s a 3rd dest in India, as I’d predicted itll be BLR. DL has AF and KL dailies already but could benefit from an LHR connection as well.

[MarkivJ]

cwoodward wrote:

Will be interesting to see how nimble the UK players are as my feeling is that they need to get well set on Indian routes before the coming onslaught by Air India. Brit tourists love new aircraft plus cheap fares and subsidised hotels and at some point Air India will offer all three I believe

If the Tata Group can’t save AI, nobody will! Completely trust them to steer AI in the right direction but there are things they can’t control as well, like macro economic conditions and price sensitivity of a market as large and disparate as India.

I think the problem really comes down to the nature of Indian market – its a mass/high density market over price. So, no way any airline (including AI) wants to have a boutique’y style seat config……because next thing you know, the MEB3 are throwing lucrative deals and tempting them away. That’s why so many boutique carriers like Kingfisher failed. Density and “squeeze them in like sardines” is the way to go to make money from long haul Indian market (I’m Indian and still visit 2x a year to BLR to meet my parents and PILs). AI will be foolish to create a Q-suite offering, may want to stick to a TK or EK (772, 77W) style config.

So back to BA: Sure, they can up their frequencies to india, perhaps throw in a destination or 2…but they can only make their profit by high density aircraft. So, again, MEB3 will still win with a more luxurious offering.

[cwoodward]

MJ I hope that mojor airline players show more imagination and that you are wrong. but…….

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MarkivJ

[MarkivJ]

Back to the VS topic: Do we ever think DL will let them have back the 2nd LHR-SEA slot that DL operates now?

Edit: Yes, I’m aware DL was flying the route till 2016 when they gave it to VS

[AMcWhirter]

onajetplane wrote:

I wonder would they consider Riyadh?

Too late now I would think.

Saudia has secured a slot for a third daily LHR-RUH flight for this summer.

Bookings opened today.

Unclear how Saudia obtained this LHR slot.

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onajetplane

[onajetplane]

Interesting! Appreciate not to divert away from the main topic of conversation – but does surprise me Saudia runs a direct flight to Neom. Would be fascinating to know who is on that flight, or is it more of an expensive PR/accept the loss-making move?

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AMcWhirter, sparkyflier

[MarkivJ]

AMcWhirter wrote:

onajetplane wrote:

I wonder would they consider Riyadh?

Too late now I would think.

Saudia has secured a slot for a third daily LHR-RUH flight for this summer.

Bookings opened today.

Unclear how Saudia obtained this LHR slot.

I think we all know how they got the slot 😉

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AMcWhirter, cwoodward

[AMcWhirter]

*Breaking*

VS has been approved to code-share with Korean Air between LHR and ICN.

It’s part of the deal for Korean to merge with Asiana.

In a media statement VS says “… this merger will facilitate our entry into Seoul. … we will confirm our next steps in relation to a route start-up in due course.”

Korean Air will provide VS with slots at both LHR and ICN.

But the route may not launch as soon as you might think.

Start date must be within 12 months of merger completion or during the Summer 2024 flying season.

In which case there is time for other route(s) to be launched.

So will Bangalore be next ?

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tomwjsimpson, sparkyflier

[sparkyflier]

The key takeaway for me about this KE/ICN route when it eventually starts is that it will be using one of the slots already owned/operated by Korean/Asiana, as opposed to VS needing to use one of their own allocation.
Currently the slots leaving LHR are 18:50 (KE) and 20:10 (OZ). My guess is VS will operate the latter.

So that means the evening slots VS have spare having pulled HK and Pakistan have arguably not yet been allocated (except Maldives in the Autumn) so in the short term I reckon there will be a BLR 4 times a week and a CPT 3 times a week. Plus maybe something else.. well VS join Skyteam tomorrow/today depending on when you read this, so guess some announcements will need to go with that.

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tomwjsimpson

[cwoodward]

It is strongly rumoured here that VA is going to resume Hong Kong -seems plausible.

[MarkivJ]

cwoodward wrote:

It is strongly rumoured here that VA is going to resume Hong Kong -seems plausible.

Good luck to them. Between BA and CX and their gazillion frequencies, they’ll have VS for breakfast in less than 5 minutes. Pre-pandemic, at least, they had a bit of additional traffic with their Virgin Australia collab but even that’s not there now.

[MarkivJ]

If indeed VS starts BLR flights, they’ll strike gold only if they can schedule a departure from LHR like 10a’ish which is probably the most challenging slot.

Currently, BA’s BLR timings serves a niche set of passengers flying to the USA (and a big bulk is). It works great for places that have afternoon flights to the USA, but a lot of the rich Indian-diaspora cities in the USA miss out because of the timings (such as ATL, Austin, etc.).

[Author]

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