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Post by pug on Oct 11, 2009 18:40:59 GMT
Our home based airline looks to be expanding at MME again. I know this region is hardly rich pickings for high frequency business destinations, with KLM serving most of them, but looking at the history of services it seems strange why some of them were never restarted, particularly as the market has grown significantly since they stopped.
Brussels was a very popular destination, with Sabena even taking code shares and eventualy even the livery of the Euro Direct Belgiee Jetstream 31. This was stopped due to the owner operator wanting to revert back to ad-hoc charters only to eventualy collapse a couple of years later..
Southampton and Belfast would work, remember Eastern only need a small load factor for a route to be sustainable, timed correctly i believe the flights could work....
I wonder if management ever talk to Eastern, especially now that aviation development is centred at EMA and away from Eastern themselves?
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Post by Humberside on Oct 11, 2009 19:51:59 GMT
To be honest Im not sure Eastern could make anything more than ABZ work, especially at the moment. Even without the recession, a few route specific comments
IMO Brussels would need to have an interline, or ideally a codeshare with Brussels Airlines. AFAIK EuroDirect always had a Sabena codeshare. We have seen how successful BRU routes are without an interline or codeshare. MME-BRU, CWL-BRU anyone?
Belfast - Even with Eastern's low load factors, I'm not sure they could make BHD or BFS work. Any non time sensitive traffic would use the far cheaper BE DSA service, and I dont think there would be enough daytrippers for 2xMon-Fri HUY-Belfast to be successful. Also what business ties are there between the Humber region and Belfast?
Once things pick up Southampton for example could maybe work. Maybe Glasgow too. However a sensible starting frequency would be 2xMon-Fri. But what does the plane do in the middle of the day? Sitting on the ground isn't very profitable. IIRC this was a problem Eastern faced when they tried MME-BRS and MME-BRU. They may well face this when trying to get the numbers to balance for their new MME-SOU service. A once daily SOU service, or a once daily CWL service for example isn't going to attract the high yielding business passengers. Maybe Scandinavia would work once daily, but Norway is well served via ABZ (and AMS with KLM). Esbjerg or Copenhagen possibly
Overall I don't think it would be easy for any new Eastern service to get established and be successful, though I hope I may get proved wrong one day. I would keep any eye on how well MME-SOU does, if it fails then (with MME and HUY being similar markets in many ways), I don't see new HUY routes anytime soon
And I would certainly hope MAG are talking to Eastern, but it does make you wonder sometimes (like with the website) how much effort is put into HUY. If effort is being put in, it's certainly not very visible
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Post by bmedboy on Oct 11, 2009 20:08:51 GMT
I would tend to agree that any Eastern growth at HUY is unlikely. I would only say that a HUY-Stavanger-Bergen, HUY-Southampton or HUY-Paris CDG would have a slight chance of succeeding. IMHO they should pursue an AF franchise deal for a Paris route, but then I suppose AF/KLM want to protect their AMS route. I personally think there is room for both, but I don't know the figures.
Regards
Mike
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Post by Humberside on Oct 11, 2009 20:17:06 GMT
With AMS going back to 3xDaily, can't see CDG with AF anytime soon. To be honest I doubt we will see CDG with AF in the medium term either. I expect they would prefer to build up AMS. There is probably more chance of CDG on Jet 2, and that doesn't appear to be hapenning anytime soon
Also Im not sure HUY-Norway could work. There are easy connections through AMS and ABZ already available, and is the traffic concentrated enough on one destination to make it work?Have say HUY-OSL and for a Bergen passenger there is no advantage over going through ABZ. Have HUY-BGO and Oslo passengers won't be interested.
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Post by pug on Oct 12, 2009 16:35:27 GMT
I agree with most of what you say. Something tells me that when Eastern run scheduled routes they rely on a number of companies for 'contracts' and sell the remaining seats to any takers. I believe thats how they find their niche as with the HUY-ABZ route. If so i suspect that any Esbjerg-Copenhagen service would require a regular user like Corus and one involved in the offshore work to make a route a success. Just a thought mind.
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Post by bmedboy on Feb 16, 2010 12:48:53 GMT
Just a little note, the Sunday evening ABZ is routing NWI-HUY-ABZ on the Saab2000.
Regards
Mike
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Post by Humberside on Apr 9, 2010 12:19:30 GMT
The early morning Friday service is dropped according to the Eastern online timetable. First Friday departure now at 1015
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Post by john2408 on Apr 9, 2010 19:30:32 GMT
The early morning flight has not departed for the last 3/4 weeks, Eastern have also dropped it from DTV.
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Post by pug on Oct 5, 2011 11:37:19 GMT
I wonder if, now that BHD seems to be stopping from DSA, HUY and T3 could look at running a service?
40,000 passengers a year have O&D's in the Humber region from Belfast apparantly.
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Post by watcher72 on Jun 27, 2012 22:05:49 GMT
What do we think are the chances of Eastern using Humberside as a hub airport for Europe ? They are aquiring more suitable aircraft for the Europe routes and their HQ is here. It might be why they are strongly rumoured to be investing in a share of the airport. I remember a recent post somewhere about the BD manager indicating potential routes to Dusseldorf, Brussels and Paris. Maybe Eastern now see the potential of the airport and its location in the renewable energy business and tourism sector.
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Post by pug on Jun 27, 2012 22:12:53 GMT
I think if it were to happen it would have happened by now. With Eastern being based here, they will know the local martket well, and with the possible exception of Dusseldorf, I dont believe there would be enough o&d support for Paris or Brussels. My personal opinion is if these routes do come to something then bmi regional will be behind them with as yet unannounced codeshares in place.
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bamf
Member
Posts: 2
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Post by bamf on Jan 5, 2016 16:44:50 GMT
There are rumours on PPRUNE surrounding Eastern introducing the E170.
Does anyone have anymore information regarding this?
Potential aircraft for sun routes from HUY?
I would expect they are being brought in for charters however.
Kind regards
BAMF
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Post by pug on Jan 5, 2016 19:37:35 GMT
I believe they are being brought in on wet lease due to new contracts with airbus, so it's unlikely they'll be in at HUY all that much..
Then again, I guess there's the (small) possibility off them being used on the odd weekend for the special charters they've got on sale. But it's not going to be anything big for HUY I dont think.
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Post by mrmoose on Jan 6, 2016 7:15:56 GMT
Not a chance for Summer 16 - bit late to announce anything new, and we are into peak booking period. The only possibility is them operating the Jetxtra programme instead of BACF but this seems unlikely, at least for this year. I am sure they will visit us occasionally though.
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Post by kirmingtonuser on Jun 7, 2017 15:19:59 GMT
Will the Flybe franchise arrangement lead to increased traffic on the HUY/ABZ route? The Eastern operating model relies on frequent full-service flights using smaller aircraft. This appeals to business passengers and generates higher fares. It enables Eastern routes to remain viable at lower load factors than on other airlines. Flybe operate more like a low-cost airline. Their fares are lower and they consequently require high load factors. Are they hoping that the use of Eastern's operating model will tighten up the market and improve the yields under the Flybe brand? The market expects lower fares under the Flybe brand, so can we expect a mid-range hybrid fare level to emerge? If so, this could be expected to attract price-sensitive and leisure passengers to the HUY/ABZ route in order to generate the necessary higher load factors.
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