Flybe

[Bigman]

is it my imagination or is the FlyBe website showing that Aberdeen and Southampton flights will be 3 x daily on both Saturdays and Sundays next Summer??

 

[lbaspotter]

is it my imagination or is the FlyBe website showing that Aberdeen and Southampton flights will be 3 x daily on both Saturdays and Sundays next Summer??

You correct, I noticed it a few weeks back as well that both routes are showing 3x daily 7 days a week.

PS: It looks like the impending big route announcement should be tomorrow.

 

[Bigman]

...still waiting!!!!

 

[lbaspotter]

...still waiting!!!!

Might be waiting a long time then. but don't hold you breath waiting for it!

 

[lbaspotter]

If anyone is interested it would seem Flybe have a flash sale on today with One-way fares starting from £15 on selected routes in January and February. Good news it dose include the Leeds/Bradford-Aberdeen route. Be quick as I understand the sale finishes at midnight tonight.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Interesting reading todays latest financial figures, not good news for those of us who seek lower prices due to falling fuel costs.
According to these figures it will be 18 months before the current hedging contacts on both the $ and Oil price pass through and therefore the company is stuck and not able to take advantage of lower oil prices.
Overall whilst passenger numbers have fallen quarter on quarter, this is in line with route changes and both yield and price ticket has increased.

 

[lbaspotter]

Interesting reading todays latest financial figures, not good news for those of us who seek lower prices due to falling fuel costs.
According to these figures it will be 18 months before the current hedging contacts on both the $ and Oil price pass through and therefore the company is stuck and not able to take advantage of lower oil prices.
Overall whilst passenger numbers have fallen quarter on quarter, this is in line with route changes and both yield and price ticket has increased.

I also worth noting the following statement in the Q3 2014/15 Trading update

Source: http://otp.investis.com/clients/uk/flyb ... sid=473911

Saad Hammad, Chief Executive Officer, said: Flybe Shuttle, our new multi-stop "hop-on, hop-off" service linking Aberdeen, Leeds Bradford, Southampton and Jersey launched successfully, and since launch 20% of passengers are using more than one leg of the journey. We continue to monitor this unique service proposition and early performance is very promising.

So it looks like flybe are quite happy with the "flyshuttle" initial performance, which of course is good news.

 

[markietg]

A friend of mine flew on this service last night, the 20.40 service, on his way home to Aberdeen. He said there were around 50 getting on the flight with him at LBA and the flight was totally full when everyone was onboard.

 

[Seasider]

I am using it to go to Jersey next month, will let you know how I go on.

 

[Seasider]

Our trip on the Flybe "Shuttle" to Jersey was excellent. All flights were on time/early and fairly full. LBA-SOU was about 55 southbound, 60 northbound (both flights middle of the day). SOU-JER were practically full both ways.
The senior steward made an ambiguous statement on the arrival at SOU which led to some LBA-JER passengers deplaning but one commented "at least I had a cig"
Coming back it was a bit of a pain having to deplane but it was a short walk to & from the Terminal so not too bad. I even managed to see the second half of Bargain Hunt!

I am now looking forward to a day trip to Aberdeen in May.

 

[752]

Looks like the Flybe Shuttle has been a flop, with Aberdeen no longer bookable after the 28th March. This might be a reason to why Eastern decided to go back X3 daily.

Southampton still bookable.

 

[User0001]

Aberdeen is having a major headache at the moment.

North Sea oil is in a state of collapse, so, passenger figures are plumitting and yield dropping. There have been. few airline cutbacks, namely from flybe but also bmi regional is cutting ABZ-MAN and BA reducing LHR-ABZ.

 

[lbaspotter]

I am now looking forward to a day trip to Aberdeen in May.

Seasider I guess you'll be flying with Eastern Airways now? Hope you get it rebooked fairly soon before they have chance to stick there fares back up to the normal prices...

Good news is that Southampton route remains operated 3x daily whilst the Jersey connection continues to operate 2x daily. Shame about Aberdeen but it was never going to work once Eastern Airways reduced its one-way fares and also due to the collapse in price of fuel.

Mondays to Fridays
BE0171 = SOU 07:00 – LBA 08:05
BE7001 = LBA 08:45 – SOU 09:50 / SOU 10:15 – JER 11:00
BE7004 = JER 11:45 – SOU 12:30 / SOU 13:10 – LBA 14:15
BE7003 = LBA 15:00 – SOU 16:10 / SOU 16:35 – JER 17:20
BE7006 = JER 17:50 – SOU 18:35 / SOU 19:15 – LBA 20:20
BE0176 = LBA 20:45 – SOU 21:55
Saturdays
BE0171 = SOU 07:00 – LBA 08:05
BE7001 = LBA 08:45 – SOU 09:50 / SOU 10:15 – JER 11:00
Sundays
BE7004 = JER 11:45 – SOU 12:30 / SOU 13:10 – LBA 14:15
BE7003 = LBA 15:00 – SOU 16:10 / SOU 16:35 – JER 17:20
BE7006 = JER 17:50 – SOU 18:35 / SOU 19:15 – LBA 20:20
BE0176 = LBA 20:45 – SOU 21:55

 

[Bigman]

When at you look at the monthly stats for Aberdeen over the last year, I always wondered how it could sustain 2 operators. The sadder aspect is that looks as if the FlyBe 'Shuttle' experiment hasn't worked, which presumably means that they would be less likely to try something else on the same lines.

 

[White Heather]

Well it appears not to have worked as far as ABZ is concerned, but they are presumably quite happy that it is working between JER, SOU and LBA, so as long as they pick the correct routes, there is no reason why it cannot work. Pity they can't do something like LGW - LBA - EDI or CWL - LBA - CPH

 

[Aviador]

Or even LBA - SOU - FRA to test the water for a future point to point?

 

[rmac]

I have often thought of LBA as a midway point in the country allowing a change of aircraft from south to north and vice versa to continue to various points. For instance to build on the JER SOU LBA ABZ service another service could operate such as EXE LBA INV or similar, passengers being able to change at LBA, hence someone could fly EXE LBA/LBA ABZ for example. That's all out the window now of course. But imagine services from SOU, CWL BHD GLA EXE flying into LBA with services to points not served by these places, ie Berlin, CPH etc.
I have done something similar in the US with a change of plane at for example Philadelphia and onwards to White Plains (NY) getting us closer to our final destination for no extra cost.

 

[airforced]

Well it appears not to have worked as far as ABZ is concerned, but they are presumably quite happy that it is working between JER, SOU and LBA, so as long as they pick the correct routes, there is no reason why it cannot work. Pity they can't do something like LGW - LBA - EDI or CWL - LBA - CPH

Totally with you on this one White Heather particularly the LGW route. I ended up using Gatwick a couple of years ago and was quite amazed at the growth there in recent years. The amount and variety of flights to Europe is superb these days. Both BA and EasyJet cover virtually any destination you might want to travel to and whilst we might have flights to LHR, LGW is totally ignored for some reason.

I believe that we did have flights to LGW once upon a time but there were dropped. With the volume and scope of flights from there now there surely is a case for them to be re-instated.

So Flybe and BA (and dare I say EasyJet) put your thinking caps on as there has got to be a market there.

 

[whoshotjimmi]

A number of points to be made here:

Rmac - You talk of a central hub where passengers can hop on and off. This is precisely what is available at Manchester - with codesharing onto Middle Eastern flights too. Zero demand for that sort of operation at Leeds as it is comprehensively covered over the hill.

The fact that Flybe started up on the route after pulling out originally was always an iffy one. This is now the second time that Eastern have run them off the route.

Airforced - Flybe very publicly pulled out of Gatwick due to rising costs which made their flights unprofitable. They will not return any time soon. Flybe operated LBA - LGW. It was the very first casualty of those rising costs as it was the worst performing route. Easyjet are pulling their NEW - LGW route as of this month due to dropping passenger numbers. Even BA pulled out of MAN - LGW last year due to passenger numbers. There is simply not enough demand in Britain for domestic flights to LGW any more. Most of the low cost operations are duplicated from other airports across Britain - indeed, Manchester has long had the largest number of destinations of any airport in Europe and there is barely anything available from LGW that is not available from Manchester/Liverpool/Leeds/East Midlands.

Finally, the Flybe shuttle operation may not have worked but, having used the late BA southbound a number of times this winter, there have always been a decent number of Scottish businesspeople waiting for that last flight back to Aberdeen. They will definitely miss it and will now be forced elsewhere.

 

[airforced]

whoshotjimmi - you are probably quite right as to why Flybe pulled the LGW route and who can blame them if they weren't making any money on it. Maybe their frequencies or timings weren't right. Maybe they were close to going belly up at the time and had to slash their outgoings. I don't know the answer to that one but something of that sort is probably quite near the mark.

I do however challenge your assertion that MAN has the largest number of European flights of any airport particularly with the growth in recent years of EasyJet at LGW. They are now the largest operator there having overtaken BA with the number of aircraft based there and the number of routes they serve to Europe. I haven't done a full count of those routes but MAN has about 40, LPL has less then 20 (some of them overlapping) while LGW serves nearly 120 European routes from there.

The point I was making was that with the growth in routes from LGW now might be the time for someone to look again at feeder services to LGW. Flybe probably wouldn't be the ones to make a go of it given their dubious record but someone else could possibly make it work. Just thinking out loud so to speak. After all who would want to fly LBA - LHR and then get on a coach round to Gatwick. No-one in their right mind but a direct flight would certainly interest me because after all LBA is never going to provide the number of routes LGW does.