SAS launch LBA-Copenhagen

[pug]

I don't see why it would be in the airports interests to get SAS back after last time. Its obviously a very niche route I at all and like has been said, it would be better suited to Eastern should they ever see enough demand for it.

[kirmingtonuser]

The September 2014 passenger total was 363, which is an average of 20.2 or 22.9%. This is despite the fact that they were offering return fares of £96 (about half the cheapest ever offered from HUY) at one point. Before the route was ditched,they had even been talking of scaling up to an A319 from April 2015. The other forum contains such comments as 'half-hearted' , 'stop-start service', 'insulting' , 'no good for business' ,
'wrong aircraft, times, frequency and pricing' and 'bit of a joke'.
SAS have scaled down to a Cimber Air CRJ200 from 27th October to 1st December. They have terminated their contract with Cimber from April 2015 and there are about 150 potential redundancies.
With the ending of the SAS relationship with Cimber Air, it is difficult to see them coming back to HUY as they do not have aircraft small enough to meet the requirements of what would be a thin, developing route. It will be interesting to see if their Newcastle and Palanga routes can grow into a larger aircraft.
I would echo most of the comments which have been made on this thread. With the combination of the oil, gas and wind turbine industry demand, I think there is potential for a route from Humberside to the Jutland area of Denmark. The HUY to Esbjerg route was sustained for almost ten years. An alternative route to Billund would allow more connectivity than Esbjerg and could even hook in to the British Airways network.

[pug]

BA partner Sun Air Scandinavia may be a point of contact for the airport if the demand increases. They use the DO328 jet I believe and have quite an established operation at Billund.

[kirmingtonuser]

The LBA/CPH passenger number for October 2014 is a total of 379. With the two month-end rotations performed by a CRJ200, the capacity was 1432 and the load factor was 26.5%.

[kirmingtonuser]

The LBA/CPH passenger total for November 2014 is 381. The average number of passengers per flight is 24 as against 21 in October. The route has thus shown an improvement just as the axe falls (in the same way that the HUY/CPH route did). The use of the smaller CR2 for a full month has improved the load factor to 47.6%. The fact that the route produced its best performance in the month of November suggests that most of the passengers were traveling on business. The fares had been aimed at tourists when the larger aircraft was used. Presumably they were raised when the CR2 was introduced, but they may not have been achieving the high yields which they demanded at HUY. It would be interesting to know where their LBA passengers originate.They may include a fair proportion from the Humber region. It raises the question of whether viable loads and yields could be achieved on the HUY/CPH route if it was re-started with just two or three rotations per week.