CAA Provisional Statistics Update

[White Heather]

There is no evidence to show that LBA loses demand due to winter weather conditions. If it did, LBA pax would decrease in winter by a greater percentage than other comparable airports (ie those that have similar passenger types, predominantly leisure based). I doubt that there are many people who, when booking a flight, opt to fly from Manchester rather than Leeds, purely because they think their flights will be diverted or delayed. There is also a risk by doing that that they might have problems actually getting to or from other airports - particularly going over the pennines. The reduced demand at LBA is mirrored at other similar airports. As has been pointed out, there are more flights this winter than last and the major reason for the reduction in winter pax out of LBA in recent years is the rapid loss of scheduled services aimed at business, as well as leisure travel, which are less affected by seasonal variations. Any airport that is predominantly leisure based will suffer badly in winter. Doncaster, for example would have very few pax in winter were it not for the Wizz Air operation given their reliance on Thomson holiday flights.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

M O L announced at last months financial report standing an additional 30 aircraft this winter, obviously Ryanair prepared to stand aircraft rather then drop below a 85% capacity loading.
cant see where the routes are for winter, LBA passenger number as so strong for leisure flights.
Your into the long hall Australia etc market, not accessible with the standard low cost aircraft fleet.
Where else apart from the canary islands can low cost go to in winter?
All the city breaks and ski resorts are covered, always used to fly out to Palma/Ibiza etc in march/april, payloads were so poor, less then a 12 on our last three flights no wonder the routes pulled.
Unfortunately can see the growth for summer at the present rate, however, winter will just chug on. In business this famine/feast is a problem we all have to contend with, LBA no different to many other business's, mine included, you must accept and maximise the peaks and massage the troughs.

 

[Aviador]

Firstly I need to make things clear. I am not trying to pick an argument and I have no doubt the LBA management team will be doing their up-most to get airlines to serve new flights and destinations. I'm merely looking at the reasons why LBA has such abysmal winter traffic compared with other similar sized airports. Clearly there are so many factors to consider but I don't think I will be on my own in thinking LBA significantly under performs during the winter period.

I had to use Aberdeen as the example because they have the closest passenger totals to LBA, I could have said London City but they are clearly predominantly used by business passengers. Traffic to the oil rigs will be fairly stable throughout the year so I don't find that a reasonable reason not to use Aberdeen as an example.

Here's another example: During June LBA handled more passengers than Liverpool. It is clear that Liverpool maintains a higher level of flights during the winter months despite the close proximity of Manchester airport up the road. In fact 240,167 passengers passed through the doors at Liverpool airport during January this year, nearly double that of Leeds Bradford airport which handled only 124,039 during the same period. (source CAA)

So what are the reasons? Consumer apathy; Social & economic; Poor weather perception; Airline availability; Actual poor weather record; Other?

 

[a300boy]

I am with Aviador on this one ! I know of several large businesses in the Leeds area who have a no fly from Lbia in the winter policy and also several family and friend who have had winter weather experiences at Lbia [ Crosswinds or low visibility ] and use Manchester as a result. The trains from Leeds to Manchester Airport dont have many problems getting back and forward. I wish it was not the case but again we have the problems of a short runway, poor weather landing aids on one runway with a limited movement area airport. Even the massive delays we sometimes have on a morning when we are in low visibility conditions which are specific to Lbia would cause mayhem if we had more departures than we have during the winter months. These are often 45 mins to 1 hour delays to push back times as a result of our limited operational area for taxying and protection of the Cat 3 sensative areas etc.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Whilst accepting a300 points, I travel rail Leeds to manchester, not airport on a frequent basis. delays last winter would make Thomson LBA summer delays look wonderful. My sister does not drive and is dependant on the train or bus. In winter 2010 the number of train cancellations went through the roof, this last winter she spent one whole night on the train.
have to say only a very small business, but we would never use manchester in stead of LBA. Certainly all long haul is now via B A and heathrow, getting to Manchester for a 9/10am flight you need to be leaving at 3am, crazy. The M62 to Manchester is now a car park from 6.30am passed the M606 in both directions.
Gave up in the mid 90's trying to catch the morning direct C X flight to Hong Kong, my nerves were shredded just trying to get across the M62, 18 years on the traffic now awful.
Best of luck those going to Manchester I would rather take a chance on leeds, I would never send my staff there, their too valuable to treat them like that. (they may be reading this)

 

[White Heather]

The reason LPL carries so many pax in the winter is that they are a major base for Easyjet, who until now at least have continued to operate a larger programme through the winter. They have operated from LPL for many years and are well established. Jet2, our major operator, has for the most part chosen not to operate as big a programme in the winter. It is a reasonable assumption that the gap between the two will narrow this winter. Lets just remember that LBA is playing catch up and doing a good job of it - but it isn't going to happen overnight. The very fact that in some summer months this year we have carried more pax than LPL is in itself a remarkable turn around. We now have Monarch and BA and Ryanair, and a bigger programme from Jet2.

As far as airport closures are concerned, LPL has a considerable advantage over LBA and many other airports in that snow is a rarity in that area, being at low level, adjacent to the water and in a low risk area for snowfall, well away from the Pennines. I would suggest that NCL or EMA are a better comparison, but both are years ahead of LBA in terms of being established and airport development. LPL actually tends to gain pax in the winter, picking up diverts not only from LBA but on occasions, a significant number if MAN is affected by bad weather.

As I said previously, there is no evidence to show that the demand from LBA is reduced because of perceived weather or airfield issues. There may be a number of companies who have a policy of using MAN - but there will be just as many companies now who are using LBA for the first time because of the LHR link. You only have to look at the passenger change stats for airports around the country to see that LBA is doing remarkably well and the economy has not improved to the point where operators such as Thomson, Thomas Cook or even our own based operators are going to take the financial risk of significantly increasing operations where the industry demand is still surpressed.

 

[a300boy]

We can only do the best we can with what we have so lets hope we get what we all want which is a continued rise in passenger numbers and more routes despite our many operational problems. We also might see some more diverts from Manchester if we are now the number 1 alternate for Monarch which was posted on here some time ago.

 

[airforced]

I think White Heather has hit an important nail on the head when trying to establish why LBA does so poorly when comparing it with other 'similar' airports. The fact is - you can't compare chalk with cheese (unless you are in France of course where most cheese tastes like chalk) and finding an airport where you can at least make a stab at comparing like with like choosing Liverpool was a good choice in my view. Going on then and citing Easyjet as being the difference between the two airports wasn't too far off the mark. If Easy could be persuaded to expand their presence at LBA I'm sure we would see vastly different results for LBA in the winter.


I've long been an Easy fan and have just flown with them to/from Vienna/Budapest (from Gatwick of course) and can vouch that their service, punctuality etc etc haven't diminished one bit from the days when I used to use then for business and pleasure out of Luton multiple times every year. Get Easy on board and we'll soon be up to 4 million.

 

[whoshotjimmi]

I suppose the moral of the story is that each airport must find its own profile and recruit airlines to serve them accordingly. Clearly, Liverpool made a great leap forward in the past due to the emergence of the No Frills operators. To begin with, Easyjet had a base in the south (Luton) and a base in the North (Liverpool). The airports were chosen due to their proximity to the large cities (London, Manchester) and the fact that the traditionally full service airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester) were not priced in such a way that Locos could operate from them profitably.

Over the course of time, the likes of Easyjet and Ryanair have been able to force Manchester to lower their fees substantially enough to allow them to operate within their own financial capability. As a result, Manchester has seen considerable expansion and Liverpool has seen considerable contraction. Furthermore, once Easyjet got a foothold in Gatwick, it became their largest base almost overnight. Indeed, Easyjet are now the largest operator at Gatwick overall. In the same time, passenger numbers contracted at Luton until the introduction of Wizzair, who are now not a million miles away from catching Easyjet. The same thing happened, to some extent, with Birmingham/East Midlands, though BHX has now apparently completely redefined itself.

Ryanair are unlikely to now ditch Stansted as their main base, considering how important it is to them. However, it is clear that LBA were used as a pawn in their game with Manchester. Now they are back in there, expansion has been far greater than it has, or ever will be, at LBA. Indeed, I suspect a lack of innovation from Ryanair at LBA is as a direct result of their Manchester operation.

Whichever way we look at it, all airlines prefer to use Manchester in the North. It has the most facilities and the most connectivity and is the obvious place to be. That is not to say that LBA cannot expand - it must just work harder to do so. LBA lost its biggest asset over time - British Midland/BMI. With their slow decline, LBA lost the one thing it could boast about that Liverpool/East Midlands/Luton/Stansted could not - a thriving business offering. That is probably long gone now. However, there are still some excellent selling points: a BA link to LHR, a KLM link to Amsterdam, a PIA service to Pakistan - all things that the likes of LPL and EMA do not - and never will - have.

I would personally like to see LBA steal Wizz from DSA as the next logical step toward year round services. That could buff up passenger numbers to around 3.5 million without basing any further aircraft.

 

[a300boy]

whoshotjimmy !!
We think alike Manchester is the obvious place to be and I believe Ryaniar used Lbia to squeeze a better deal out of them. Ryanair will expand and base more aircraft there in the future and also start new routes.
Lets hope thy stay with us and in time expand but as I have said i suspect we are sadly a long way down the pecking order for expansion now.

 

[752]

I do think Wizz would be the next best airline to start operations in to Leeds & I would much rather have Jet2, Ryanair, BA, PIA, KLM, Thomson & Monarch at the airport then just Ryanair and Easyjet at LPL

 

[Bigman]

September stats are out. Up 16.9% (393,746) Rolling year up 8.7% (3,228,579)

And LHR was up to 11,893.

 

[White Heather]

Thanks Bigman. 16.9% is a seriously big jump over last year and as forecast by LBA management. I will be surprised if October isn't also a big jump given there are more flights this year operating through to the end of the summer season.

11,893 LHR pax would equate to an average of about 65 per flight across the month. As we know that numbers on the BA1345 are usually low, that suggests other flights are carrying reasonably healthy loads. Let's hope it continues through the winter.

 

[ridgeback]

Would have been nice if it had carried on into October at least but the loads are right back where they were before September sadly.

September IMHO is exactly where the route shd be. The flights were very busy albeit not packed (though some were indeed full) with lots of connectivity. t's tailed off very quickly disappointingly and the flights are once again too quiet and I don't know why.

 

[Moo2009]

With LBA having a great 2013 where do we see the increase for 2014

 

[lbaspotter]

September 2013 Belfast City figures now out: Flybe carried 12,780 +40%

 

[Aviador]

With LBA having a great 2013 where do we see the increase for 2014

Eastern end of the apron by all accounts.

Sorry....thought we were talking about concrete.

 

[lbaspotter]

The CAA provisional passenger stats are now out for October 2013 http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid ... fld=201310

Good news: LBA handled 32,2089 pax in Oct 2013 which is up +18% on the same month last year. The Year Rolling figure stands at 3,277,707 which is up +10.2% on the same time last year.

Here a little break down on the most popular business routes wise. British Airways carried 11,381 on the London Heathrow route. The flybe's Belfast City route figures continue to rise with 13,072 been carried, which is up 37%. Meanwhile KLM & Jet2 carried 20,219 passengers on the Amsterdam route.

 

[Aviador]

Already posted but here are the CAA passenger figures for comparison with other local airports.

LBA - OCT 322,089 - UP 18% - ROLLING YR - 3,277,707 - UP 10.2%
MAN - OCT 1,873,451 - UP 6.7% - ROLLING YR - 20,590,418 - UP 5.7%
EMA - OCT 430,539 - UP 18.6% - ROLLING YR - 4,312,959 - UP 5.1%
HUY - OCT 19,075 - UP 6% - ROLLING YR - 232,251 - UP 0.1%
LPL - OCT 393,837 - DOWN 3.2% - ROLLING YR - 4,187,327 - DOWN 7.9%
DTV - OCT 13,471 - DOWN 2.3% - ROLLING YR - 162,816 - DOWN 1.1%
DSA - OCT 65,351 - DOWN 2.4% - ROLLING YR - 686,557 - DOWN 1.5%

 

[dmrodgers]

Another set of excellent growth figures. Lets hope now we don't stagnate in 2014 or even drop back due to lack of aircraft parking spaces and small reductions in some schedules. The market is there but it is being held back now as it is difficult to attract new airlines due to the lack of aircraft stands which needs urgent action by the Airport.