[Drumochter]

Faro, Valencia, Sevilla, spring to mind……. I’d be looking at destinations which were previously served direct from Heathrow but are no longer. Perhaps Egypt since Virgin Holidays has a presence here, destinations: Luxor, Hurghada or Sharm???

[rferguson]

Hmmmm the wide body option……dunno LeTigre.

If you are talking about say 12 cities that’s a lot of wide bodies you need with downtime @ LHR. And I reckon there would be two or three euro cities tops that would fill a daily A330 say with decenlty yielding transfer traffic.

Also if you need to fill each of those wide bodies on their once daily flight from XXX-LHR with transfer traffic you are going to have some serious waits in transit @ LHR for some onward destinations – unlikely to be very attractive for many of the less cost conscious traveller.

VS should have focused more on jointing Star or Skyteam than launching their own feeder flights IMHO. I can’t think of another example where a long haul carrier has launched their own short haul carrier to feed it in recent times. Short haul carriers dipping their toe into the big wide world and flying further afield, yes. But the other way around – airlines codeshare or join alliances.

[sparkyflier]

The sooner VS join Skyteam the better. Business travellers will then have far more destinations in order to earn miles and tier points, and thus choose Virgin more.

As I said in a discussion I started last year, Skyteam brings opportunities with Delta, Aeromexico, GOL in Brazil (not Skyteam yet but part Delta owned), Kenya Airways for east, central and southern africa as well as Indian ocean, MEA & Saudia for Middle East/Gulf markets, and a bucket of Chinese carriers. As well as Europe options!

Also they should have invested in the business product similar to DL/LX, AY etc, not the herringbone facing away from the window etc.
Being aprt of skyteam will help both Virgin long haul and Little Red.

[LeTigre]

BA 767s on short haul have around 250 seats (admittedly mostly Y) and VS A330s have 266. Yields could be an issue but I guess that premium economy would do well and might even stimulate the market. But you might need a few more aircraft.

[ZKSmith]

I can’t say I’m surprised by the low transfer loads on Little Red flights, for two reasons that have affected me personally.

Firstly, anyone who booked long haul flights out of Heathrow many months ago (in my case an Air New Zealand flight next month) with a domestic transfer will have been put on a BA flight. When I made the booking Little Red was not an option, and I’m not going to now pay to change my domestic connections from BA to VS. I’m sure there are many other passengers who also made reservations many months in advance, prior to VS becoming an option.

Secondly, while BMI had connections to all Star Alliance members, as well as several other carriers at Heathrow, VS has comparatively few code share partners just now. None of United, US airways, or Air Canada have code share partnerships with VS via LHR (as I discovered at the weekend while trying to book a flight to America in December).

I’m sure connecting passenger numbers will increase on Little Red flights, but more codeshare agreements with Star Alliance or Sky Team carriers will be required.

[rferguson]

Thing is though LeTigre, BA’s use of 767’s has reduced dramatically on the European short hauls in the past 5-10 years. To think how many 767’s and 757’s were criss crossing the continent ten or so years ago…..

Many of the sectors the 767’s are used on was not so it could provide extra pax seats. BA used to run a rotation LHR-FRA where the last sector of the night LHR-FRA and first sector of the morning FRA-LHR were operated by the 767. But you never used to see more than a hundred bums on seats. It used the 767 because it had a mail contract, so it was all about cargo.

Finally, there isn’t a route (save LCA) where a 767 operated the sole flight of the day. There is little point operating a 767 say FRA – LHR at 10:00 am daily for feed if we have connecting flights departing from LHR to Asia, Australia etc much later in the night.

If VS joined Skyteam or Star surely they would have much more feed from their alliance partners onto Little Red? The problem is (as bmi discovered) the amount of a long haul fare (say TG BKK-LHR-MAN) that actually reach the coffers of the airline operating the LHR-MAN part is negligible.

Maybe the solution is the use of smaller aircraft, embraers or regional jets? VS could have had (or commence) talks with bmi regional who went it alone after the BA/BD merge.

[Speedbird_ABZ]

A couple of thoughts I had/have when these flights were first announced from an ABZ point of view.
BA have 8 (9 some days) ABZ/LHR flights which have a very high load factor. They have built up a lot of loyalty from here and they have good connections to the main oil centres which is what we need 90% of the time. Houston being the main one, Dubai, Singapore, Rio, Baku being the other major ones amongst others.
Virgin just doesn’t have the connectivity required from here on the whole – even if they have partners, they are not well advertised/known here.
Personally I tried to book a through ABZ/MIA for a holiday just before the route started and the website gave a stupid connection which was totally unreasonable, and even calling the call centre made no difference – they could not do a through ABZ/LHR/MIA return! I switched back to BA.
Teething troubles I’m sure, but as much as I tried to give them the business they basically turned me away.

[LeTigre]

Yeah, I see what you mean. The more destinations you have easier the connections are to generate. I think VS will certainly be tightening up on this with their partners. But the oil centres you mention…

Singapore- already have agreement with SQ so this might be improved
Houston- impending DL deal fixes this one
Dubai- VS operate this route already
Baku- perhaps they could interline?
Rio- I think they’ll launch this within 3 years before the Olympics, they are switched on enough to get the extra publicity.

[SimonS1]

I’d say the changing of airlines would place them at a disadvantage compared to a BA/BA or EK/EK connection.

Plus changing terminals is also a factor that works against them.

[tiggerbrown]

@canucklad – 21/05/2013 08:23 GMT
Don’t forget – back then the Channel Tunnel didn’t exist, neither did the LCCs which now ply the skies point to point.

[LuganoPirate]

If VS fly to ATH or MXP looking for feeder traffic for their long hauls, they will have to accept quite a cut in revenue as they compete with the other airlines and the ME ones in particular.

Fares ex both cities are considerably less than Virgin’s ex LHR. They’d have to fly ex ZRH or FRA if they want to keep revenue high.

[Author]

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