I think 10 aircraft will be the absolute max for the foreseeable.

That's because there are only 10 A330, with 2 of those being transferred over to a secondary AOC (Virgin International Airways) at Gatwick for Carribean ops (not sure why but I'm sure we will find out in time).

It's been said all 8 LHR A330 will eventually all make their way to Manchester, with 5.5 of those already doing so, and then the 2 B747/A350 for Orlando. (I say 5.5 as the A330 for LAS etc is only here peak summer so therefore not fully based yet).

Given we have 2 A330 moving up to Manchester next summer, it's not unreasonable to suggest the other 2.5 could follow in 2018 and the last 2 in 2019.
 
Do you think the seasonal imbalance of VS's operation will be rebalanced?

As things stand my understanding is that JFK, BOS, SFO and LAS operate S17 but may be suspended for the winter.

In adding the new aircraft to the MAN fleet, I would hope that the S17 additions could be maintained over the winter periods, with new routes/frequencies in S18 and S19. Does this seem reasonable in light of DL's decision to postpone/delay the launch of DTW?
 
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I am extremely confident that VS will do extremely well on the Boston route - I used the BA shuttle to connect onward from BOS to MAN and as our flight was delayed all passengers onto Manchester had to see a oneworld connection agent and there were at least twenty parties (some with 3+ people) connecting from Boston to Manchester and a fair balance between Brits and Americans. If the right advertising is done, I am sure the route can attract passengers from both sides of the pond and draw off of the BE feed. I think the seasonal imbalance is a problem. Perhaps, depending on whether the route is successful SFO will be continued twice weekly throughout winter? I would love to see a year round Boston service but as Massachusetts can be pretty horrifying in winter and a lot of the traffic will be pax travelling to summer orientated destinations such as Cape Cod and Rhode Island I can't see it happening, you can always hope though.

Is there a possibility that VS could be the ones to launch a Delhi or Shanghai flight from MAN to complement existing services from LHR? DL could even codeshare on the VS DEL flight to provide an effective one stop US-India routing?

It would be lovely to see expansion from VS elsewhere of the US?
 
I think we have to be wary of a "too much too soon approach", in some respects Detroit isn't bad news. we have seen how TCX has decimated the legacy carriers figures in the early part of the year who to be honest, had it too good for too long.

We have at least 2 destinations bedding in already, in what appears to be a finite market and 2 more already in situ for 2017.
 
I think the las two messages highlight the issue:

  1. To capture market share - particularly business passengers - an almost daily service is close to being an essential prerequisite; but
  2. There is a risk in launching any new route, and that is amplified as a daily frequency.
Quite how VS address this moving forward I don't know. User mentioned some time ago that consolidation was not on the agenda, but that was some time ago. A decision on SE runway capacity may have an impact but for MAN to continue the present growth surface leakage and/or via the LHR/AMS/FRA/CDG shuttles.
 
Surely for MAN then 4 daily routes to the US is quite achievable. JFK twice a day, LAX daily, Atlanta daily maybe twice in summer and Minneapolis daily on sat an A330 or 787 is achievable? All 4 are Delta hubs and with BE feeding MAN from the small regional airports and from around europe then those routes wouldn't just be drawing off MAN's catchment only. MAN needs to start to turn itself into a hub and in that way it may negate any effect of a 3rd LHR runway.
 
I think that most routes that operate out of MAN currently wouldn't be affected by LHR as Manchester is at a geographical advantage that it has it's own cachement area and can support it on its own. Yes, new airlines could be attracted to MAN because they can't go to London but surely this would affect BHX more? After all, Hainan, Cathay Pacific, Oman Air aren't at MAN because LHR is full.

I think 2 daily ATL isn't feasible. We have ATL at the right schedule for MAN. At most VS to JFK would increase to 10 weekly. What needs to be focused on more, I think more important to business travellers than daily service, is a year round service and this would be a great revelation for LAX or SFO.
 
As someone who travels to the US a couple of times a year MAN would be an attractive option for me to fly on. At the moment i've really only got KLM from CWL as the DUB flights mean i'd get an extremely long day. Hopefully one day BE will introduce a MAN flight from CWL to give me the option of using hopefully an expanded Delta and Virgin network.
 
If VS can assemble a fleet of 8-10 aircraft at MAN the network could quite easily be in the following lines:

  • ATL - daily (I don't see that more than daily works given the wider network).
  • JFK - daily (it is possible that more than daily works but I suspect a wider network can handle transfer traffic).
  • SFO - 5x weekly (I could see daily working here).
  • LAX - daily (as this is a DL hub it works better than SFO).
  • BOS - 4x weekly seasonal (I think 5x weekly in Summer with aircraft redeployed in winter and a 3x weekly in Winter).
  • MIA - 5x weekly seasonal as with BOS.
  • LAS - 4x weekly seasonal.
  • CPT - seasonal up to 4x weekly in the winter using redeployed aircraft.

I think the above could work with 6 aircraft. There would be the carribean aircraft operating those routes which take up the extra 2 aircraft.

I don't see chinese or indian routes from MAN by VS. Aside from the above Seattle might be in play.
 
If VS can assemble a fleet of 8-10 aircraft at MAN the network could quite easily be in the following lines:

  • ATL - daily (I don't see that more than daily works given the wider network).
  • JFK - daily (it is possible that more than daily works but I suspect a wider network can handle transfer traffic).
  • SFO - 5x weekly (I could see daily working here).
  • LAX - daily (as this is a DL hub it works better than SFO).
  • BOS - 4x weekly seasonal (I think 5x weekly in Summer with aircraft redeployed in winter and a 3x weekly in Winter).
  • MIA - 5x weekly seasonal as with BOS.
  • LAS - 4x weekly seasonal.
  • CPT - seasonal up to 4x weekly in the winter using redeployed aircraft.

I think the above could work with 6 aircraft. There would be the carribean aircraft operating those routes which take up the extra 2 aircraft.

I don't see chinese or indian routes from MAN by VS. Aside from the above Seattle might be in play.
I agree completely with this, although I don't know whether Virgin would take SFO up to 5 weekly year round. BOS should be 5x weekly summer (effetively making BOS 'daily' with TCX) and 3x weekly in Winter.

What aircraft would VS operate to CPT? Surely it is beyond 333 range and if it can be done it will certainly be the longest 333 route I know of and the 789s won't be based at MAN.
 
I'd guess there would be seasonal variation, but I'd like to see this smoothed out.

For example, if frequency in the USA is reduced in winter, it should be replaced with capacity elsewhere (e.g. South Africa).
 
The Airbus blurb states this:

"A further enhancement of the A330 comes with Airbus’ launch of an increased maximum takeoff weight capability to 242 metric tonnes. With this improvement, the A330-300 benefits from up to 500 nautical miles of extra range, to 6,350 nautical miles (11,750 km.) – with 277 passengers, and carries nearly five tonnes more payload than the previous 235-tonne aircraft. In operational terms, the increased takeoff weight A330-300 is able to connect to the following new city pairs: London to Tokyo; Frankfurt to Cape Town; Beijing to Melbourne; Beijing to San Francisco; Kuala Lumpur to Paris; and Los Angeles to Dublin. "

KUL-CDG is around 10,500 km.
MAN-CPT comes in at 9,900 km

The extra range boost it talks about is roughly 925km so taking that off 11,750km makes an older version around 10,825km so CPT should be doable unless it takes a greater than 925km deviation from the great circle map route. It would also be good to see the range quoted in terms of 350 passengers.
 
Now the extra Boston is bookable, I decided to have a run over the schedules for Virgin next summer.

It looks very healthy indeed, and with 6 based aircraft peak summer, there are only 3 gaps in the schedule.

There are 2 gaps on the part based A330, on a Monday and Wednesday. I would like to hope that those gaps can be filled now they seem happy to do so with the extra BGI/BOS, but, it's not loss if they don't fill the gaps.

The 3rd gap in the schedules is a strange one.
Back when JFK was announced, MCO was down to be a full 2 daily (14 weekly) schedule, all on the B747 thanks to BGI going full year A330 and LAS getting its usual run on the A330.

Now however, the 2nd flight on Fridays during the summer peak has been removed from the schedule, and Friday's was one of the more popular travel days for MCO, as seen from it running so on this years schedule.

Now, I cannot find where this B747 goes on Fridays. It doesn't go to GLA as that's a Thu-Mon based aircraft from Gatters. It doesn't go to Gatters as their schedule fits what's based, and BFS doesn't run on the Friday dates I'm trying to view.

The B747 fleet is more heavily utilised so can't imagine it will be sat around doing nothing on such a busy day for VS, so, will be interesting to see what happens with the gap?
 
If you look in June the the 73/74 may operate only once or twice a week. Very strange
 
Given the amount of based aircraft it is sensible to have a degree of slack in the schedule in case one goes tech?
 
Last year and this year the 2nd 747 used on the 73/74 was fully used throughout the week. For some reason in June 2017 this will not be the case and it will not have anything to do with slack in the system. I think it is because June is a quieter month to MCO and there are more aircraft to operate an expanded schedule and in anticipation of lower bookings to MCO.
 
Further to the above do we know why Virgin are cutting back considerably on MCO.

Over the Winter the flight (certainly in the new year) only operates 5 or 6 times a week.
In April in goes back to its usual 12 per week. Then for most of May, June and July it operates only 9 or 10 per week before going back to 14 at the end of July
 
Then for most of May, June and July it operates only 9 or 10 per week

I take it ATL & JFK are daily during that period. If that is the case, how do the LAS and BGI schedules look?
It would appear, for that period at least, that 5 based a/c could accommodate the overall program including the new SFO and BOS with perhaps a couple of spare slots. A 6th a/c would only be required on certain days for that short peak summer period, unless schedules are subject to further change.
 

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