Archive Route Development & Rumours

[Dobbo]

Looking forward to the confirmation. Lots more to come in 2017...

 

[Scottie Dog]

LAX_LHR has reported on Pprune that.....

6 weekly Amsterdam from by Vueling from 28th March.

VY8054 AMS 1820 MAN 1850
VY8055 MAN 1930 AMS 2155

Daily except Saturday with A320

 

[Aceshigh]

Based on previous data Lax can be relied on so must be correct despite it being an odd route.

 

[Dobbo]

January 17, 2017 shaping up to be quite a day.

1. SQ switch the SIN/IAH services to the A350.
2. EK switch the morning flight to permanent A380, at which point all three daily MAN flights will be on the A380.

 

[Aceshigh]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...ork-cheap-flight-56-summer-2017-a7500451.html

I would have thought Manchester flights would have been announced sametime?

 

[Land23R]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...ork-cheap-flight-56-summer-2017-a7500451.html

I would have thought Manchester flights would have been announced sametime?

That was my reaction too. There may well be a separate announcement re MAN expansion, but it has been known for airlines to revise their plans, even if information originally obtained was correct at the time.

 

[IanFarquharson]

Norwegian have never actually said they are starting 737MAX flight from MAN.
They have announced EDI and looking at DUB, ORK & SNN.
They did however hint a 788 flights to Fort Lauderdale in 2018
So probably misreported on this site !

 

[Scottie Dog]

Personally I would rather see Norwegian delay until 2018. Let's see our current carriers consolidate this year to ensure that they succeed during get what might be hard year (due to the Brexit fears).

 

[Land23R]

Norwegian have never actually said they are starting 737MAX flight from MAN.
They have announced EDI and looking at DUB, ORK & SNN.
They did however hint a 788 flights to Fort Lauderdale in 2018
So probably misreported on this site !

There may not have been direct quotes from Norwegian Ian but the story did appear in Travel Weekly on Dec 7th.
http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/artic...unch-us-flights-from-edinburgh-and-manchester

I'd be surprised if they had not checked it out even if the original source of the information was not the airline directly. It is of course possible the journalist got wires crossed but in that case wouldn't the story have been retracted or corrected?

To me it is quite conceivable that Norwegian have had second thoughts or may have decided to defer the MAN routes.
On the other hand, it may simply be a case of a separate announcement.

The only slightly odd aspect of what was reported was that EDI would be have 2 based a/c but only that the airline would fly out of MAN to the US.

 

[David_itl]

Here's some odd news:

"Flights to almost every destination from Keflavik airport are cheaper now than they were a month ago, the biggest drops are in prices of flights to New York, Boston and Barcelona. The big exception is Manchester. The price on flights there has raised 4%."

You do wonder if there's room for more expansion from the likes of Monarch, Jet2 or Wow Air ?

http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/n...29/flights_to_and_from_iceland_never_cheaper/

 

[Scottie Dog]

I have been requested by a previous and well known poster to say that Norwegian are still coming to Manchester as announced by Thomas Rahmdahl at the end of November. Apparently there are a number of articles out there.

Keep the faith!

 

[Aceshigh]

Do we know if Ukraine ever managed to draw up an open skies agreement with the EU. Ryanair were certainly after Lviv flights and with a large Ukrainian population in Manchester I would have thought this would be a nailed on service for 2017.

 

[ethanegcc]

What are the largest diaspora groups in Manchester and the surrounding area, out of interest, if anyone can tell me? Or is there a website that I can get that information from? Any reply would be very appreciated.

I know there is a large Jewish population so that should be able to justify a possible El Al to Tel Aviv, really and I know other user's have mentioned this.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

The MAN-TLV route is currently serviced by some 900+ return seats per week. Monarch flies the route 3x weekly, EasyJet 2x weekly. Both offer very competitive fares. El Al would have to muscle in as the third carrier on a relative niche-route against two established operators with a low cost base. That is a tough proposition. We can't simply presume that an El Al service would succeed purely because there is a Jewish population in the region. They have competitive MAN-TLV travel options already.

 

[ethanegcc]

Yes, I understand this but surely there is a market for more than 5 weekly A320 services, no? I am in no means saying that El Al are perfectly placed to open a service and that is not really the point of my initial post.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

How large do you estimate the MAN-TLV market to be? Friends who flew the route recently told me there were (unfortunately) alot of empty seats aboard.

 

[ethanegcc]

I honestly have no idea, although realise it can be seasonal/day related as to loads as there are certain days when the Jewish VFR traffic does not travel etc. but, as I have mentioned, my post was mainly enquiring about the largest diaspora in Manchester.

 

[rutamkrd]

A significant proportion of the orthodox and ultra orthodox Jewish diaspora will only travel on El-AL.

They were somewhat put out when El-AL terminated the bi-weekly service some years back. They now continue to commute to either Luton or Heathrow,

Neither Monarch , Easy or Jet2 have a hope with these customers to be honest.

There certainly is a demand and customer base that EL-AL/Sun d'or/UP could target here if they see fit.

BTW Manchester has had a small Jewish population is the 16th century supplemented by further unsurprising German and East European migrants in the 20th century.

 

[EGCC_MAN]

I wonder what percentage of the NW Jewish community would be classified as ultra-orthodox? Would it be just the Hasidic sub-sect, and are these numbered in the hundreds or in the thousands? If so, they wouldn't offer sufficient volume to support regular B738's MAN-TLV without a significant number of other customers being lured back from EZY / MON as well. And these include travellers who buy on price. I suspect that if El Al did become third carrier on MAN-TLV the route would quickly retrench back to two operators, though perhaps EL Al wouldn't be the one to exit. Though El Al would surely assess the route opportunity from the perspective of profit potential rather than scrapping for volume by means of below-cost tariffs?

A friend married into a Jewish family a couple of years back. He and his wife reside in Israel but travel to Manchester regularly - back again later this month. Many members of the Jewish family flew over for the wedding and I discussed with some of them the reports that a high proportion of Jews would only fly with El Al. They seemed surprised by this suggestion and had never considered flying with any carrier which didn't offer TLV-MAN. On EasyJet and Monarch travellers are only offered food for purchase anyway. There is no pressure to buy if they don't trust that it is kosher. And of course, they can always bring along refreshments which they have prepared themselves at home or purchased from a known kosher supplier. Having met both EasyJet and Monarch TLV flights at MAN, I can confirm that arriving passengers wearing the full Jewish attire are a familiar sight.

On the seperate question of MAN's largest ethnic diasporas, I would suggest Ireland, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Wikipedia suggests (yes, I know) that 1% of Greater Manchester's population is of Chinese ethnicity.

 

[Aceshigh]

I have scoured the net but no joy re demographic split. I know the Indian population is actually pretty high if you add in South Yorkshire. The Jewish population is 2nd highest after London but not sure what the split is.

Over Christmas it was remarkable to see numerous EL AL wide bodies and 737s going into Heathrow and Luton multiple times a day.