- Moderator
- #621
Jet2 do seem very keen on keeping aircraft around for standby, in which case I could see it being 3 MAN (2 flying, 1 standby) and 2 STN (1 flying, 1 standby).
That doesn't make econominc sense to me, having 40% of the fleet sat on the ground paying parking fees.
Most modern airliners have a 97%+ dispatch reliability rate, so buying (or leasing) 2 aircraft to cover for 3 doesn't add up. It would also require more flight and cabin crew on standby (imagine if an aircraft went tech at a destination 8 to 10 hours away and all of the reserve aircraft and crew are at home bases).
Far cheaper to lease in cover for the rare occasion that an aircraft goes tech.
It's a different case if an airline has a 100 aircraft fleet and 3 are on standby (97% of the fleet operating and 3 reserves - that covers the <3% dispatch unreliability).
MAN already has a lot of the (Western) leisure long haul routes covered, so either Jet2 would look to other airports (cue BHX) or go into MAN and try to outmaneuver the competition there. Is there enough demand for Jet2 to fly long haul from MAN as well?
I would like to think that BHX would see Jet2 operations with A330's (if Jet2 are getting them), even if we don't get a based aircraft. This could be with 'W' rotations on short haul routes or positioning flights from other UK airports for a one or two weekly long haul.
MAN is not a bottomless pit for pax numbers and I suspect that many westbound leisure routes must be approaching saturation.
Would another airline try and muscle in on these routes amongst stiff competion? If so, would this result in a price war until one of them blinked?
There is a very large market from the West Midlands to US leisure destinations. Would a new entrant be better to start services from BHX with no competition (other than via long surface journeys to other UK airports), with the prospect of clawing back these lost PAX to BHX? I beleive this will eventually happen (I have cousins who live in Wolverhampton who have flown several times from MAN to Orlando - they would much prefer to use BHX). Monarch seemed to be on the verge of this (although I do wonder if it was a management ploy to keep staff until the fateful day). Could Jet2 be the airline to deliver?
Kevin