Category Archives: Flybe

When flights to hub airports are still cheaper if you go indirect

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If you want to reach many destinations from regional airports like Birmingham, Manchester or Glasgow, you would expect to take a connecting flight through a major European hub airport.

But what about when you want flights to that hub itself? You would have thought that there would be enough capacity on the route for it to be cheaper to go direct with the airline which operates that hub facility. As it happens, the opposite is often the case, even when flights via that hub are cheaper than direct flights to the other hub.

Looking at flights to 10 hub airports served by direct and connecting flights from Birmingham, we found the following:

Hub airport
Airline
Direct £
Indirect £
Premium%
Airline
Via
Brussels Brussels Airlines 255 200 28 KLM AMS
Copenhagen SAS 208 151 57 KLM-AF AMS / CDG
Dubai Emirates 470 339 131 Swiss ZRH
Frankfurt Lufthansa 396 151 245 KLM AMS
Istanbul Turkish 183 161 22 KLM AMS
Munich Lufthansa 193 151 42 KLM AMS
New York Continental* 437 369 68 KLM-DL AMS
Zurich Swiss 193 161 32 KLM-AF AMS / CDG

Flight prices were searched using Expedia.co.uk for a 1 week trip (therefore including a Saturday night stay and often being cheaper), between 1st and 8th December. Only flights to Paris and Amsterdam were cheaper direct – hardly surprising considering how close they are, but Brussels still worked out more expensive to go direct.

Now these dates might be quite soon, but they are still before the mid-December Christmas rush. Looking forward to March next year, prices for direct flights to Brussels, Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich fell below the prices for flight connections.

This shows that the network carriers are still charging hefty premiums for direct flights. This seems to fly in the face of environmental concerns over short haul flights being the most polluting – and two short haul flights when one will often do being particularly bad for the environment.

The low cost airlines have shown that point to point routes are what the customers want, and that they shouldn’t need to pay for the privilege. Most low cost airlines actively shun transfer passengers, as if one flight is late, they don’t want to deal with missed connections, and their smallprint makes it clear that they are your problem, not theirs.

Yet, of the routes featured, none have a low cost alternative from Birmingham. At a push, you could fly to Paris with Flybe, and then take Thalys to Brussels, or if your dates were flexible, you could find a cheap flight to Geneva and then train it to Zurich.

So will the legacy airlines ever wake up to the idea that direct flights should be cheaper for them to operate, better for the environment, and therefore cheaper for the consumer? Not without a heft taxation penalty against them, and UK Air Passenger Duty is onerous enough as it is. In the meantime, they will continue to charge more for the convenience of a direct service, especially if there isn’t a realistic low cost alternative.

Notes:

  • *Continental dates were 2nd-9th December. No direct Continental flights found in March 2012.
  • AF = Air France, DL = Delta
  • AMS = Amsterdam, CDG = Paris CDG, ZRH = Zurich

Is Turku an alternative for flights to Helsinki?

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Whenever Ryanair start cheap flights to somewhere new, we always wonder whether or not they are also trying to appeal to passengers to use their new airport as an alternative to an existing major city airport.

Sometimes they will make a big song and dance about it (e.g. Memmingen for Munich), even when the alternative is ambitious at best. Yet sometimes, the opposite can be the case – Ryanair may not actively promote a destination as being an alternative, but passengers might still use it, especially if the main city airport is congested or expensive to fly into.

So, is Turku a realistic ‘Helsinki West’?

In many ways, even if it is, this is only in supplement to Ryanair’s long established flights to Tampere – with both cities being just under a 2 hours drive away from Helsinki. Although the train journey from Turku to Helsinki is also around 2 hours, the journey from Tampere is a faster run – taking just 90 minutes.

Despite these short distances, there are actually operational flight routes between Helsinki and both Turku and Tampere, operated by Flybe Nordic on behalf of Finnair. So this would be a rare case of a Ryanair alternative city actually being so far away from the other city that you can actually fly over the distance. Yet, on the face of it, these extremely short internal flights seem utterly pointless – a bit like Flybe operating flights from Birmingham to Gatwick, and exactly the sort of thing that would get Friends of the Earth hopping mad.

So is there really a big cost saving by taking ‘cheap’ flights to Tampere or Turku instead? Going on base prices, Ryanair offer little saving over fierce Nordic rivals Fly Norwegian, especially as the latter does not charge for hidden extras like debit car payments. Unfortunately, the market for budget flights to Helsinki is not as competitive as it has been, now that easyJet no longer offer any flights to Finland, and Blue1 just offer flights to Helsinki from Edinburgh.

Helsinki Airport lags behind its Scandinavian rivals in that Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm airports all have fast and direct rail links to their respective city centres. Yet, even on the slow bus, it is still far easier to get to the centre of Helsinki from Helsinki airport than from the other two.

In fact, the question should really be the other way round – to what extent is Helsinki airport still the best option for reaching Turku, Tampere and other cities in southern Finland which have airports? In the case of Tampere, you can even take a short (10-15 minute) bus or taxi ride to nearby Tikkurila station, from where the train to Tampere takes just 75 minutes.

As with any destination, it is always worth mixing and matching in and outbound flights, so you can see both cities for not much more (and sometimes even less) than the price of visiting one. Considering that Helsinki Vantaa Airport is a delightful icon of Finnish design, we would suggest flying into Turku or Tampere and out of Helsinki.

The end for Galway flights?

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Next Monday sees the last Aer Arran flights from Galway, as the airline says they are no longer competitive. This marks the death knell for the airport in terms of passenger flights, but unlike in the UK, airport bosses can’t blame air passenger duty for their own failings. It looks like improved road links between Galway and Dublin have a lot more to do with it.

Aer Arann flights had operated to Lorient in France, and Edinburgh, London Luton, London Southend and Manchester in the UK. Domestic flights to Waterford were also available.

Could Galway be rescued by Ryanair? This can’t happen, as the runway at Wateford, being just under 1,300m long, is too short to be able to handle Ryanair’s Boeing 737-800 jets. British regional airlines like Eastern and Flybe do have the right kind of aircaft to operate commercial flights from Galway, but they are unlikely to be interested in operating any of the routes Aer Arann have cancelled, as if they can’t work for them, they are unlikely to work for another airline. One possible exception might be London – Flybe have a well established operation at Gatwick, which is better connected to central London than either Southend or Luton. Flybe already operate a small selection of other flights to Ireland from their various UK regional bases. They might just be tempted to look at Gatwick to Galway flights, but don’t count on it.

Coventry Airport restarts freight, how about passenger flights?

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Coventry Airport has restarted freight flights, and still has stated ambitions to relaunch passenger flights.

Flightmapping MD Mark Avery was on BBC CWR, discussing the future of the airport.

One possible airline which might be interested in Coventry flights is Jet2, which has slowly been marching south from its well established network of bases in the north (including Scotland and Northern Ireland).

Another speculation would be that easyJet might be interested in starting flights from either Birmingham or Coventry, and that it would be seeking to squeeze the best deal out of whichever airport was most receptive to its demands.

Birmingham Airport might have spare capacity, but it already has a good offering from no-frills airlines, ranging from the bargain basement low cost flights offered by Ryanair, through to mid-market low cost airlines like bmibaby and Monarch, topped off by Flybe, who offer a strong network of domestic routes from Birmingham, together with some flights to key European business and leisure destinations.

  • So, is it time for Coventry to see a return of passenger flights?
  • If so, which airline would be most likely to operate them?

Liverpool to Belfast – Flybe yield to Easyjet

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So Flybe have said that they are pulling out of their Liverpool to Belfast flights, and have come out with the predictable line about high taxes being the reason for the route being axes.

Now even though we agree with Flybe on this issue, it should be perfectly clear that the axing of this route is a simple case of them yielding to fierce competition from a larger rival. Now larger isn’t just about the size (and therefore the marketing clout) of the airline – easyJet were able to operate larger aircraft on this route at much higher frequencies. Flybe can often still compete against airlines that use larger aircraft, as they can offer better timings and higher frequencies, but on the Belfast – Liverpool route, they were only doing 3 flights each day, compared to 7 daily flights from easyJet.

Easyjet use Belfast International Airport, whereas Flybe use Belfast City, but even if this is more convenient for access to and from the centre of Belfast, Easyjet make up for this by offering a better frequency. Easyjet also have a much more natural customer base at both ends of this route, whereas Flybe have always struggled at airports like Liverpool and Bristol.

 

New York flights tax has been cut, but the imbalance still exists.

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It looks like Continental Airlines have been successful in their lobbying over the extortionate taxes charged on their New York flights from Belfast International Airport. Yet, when looked at from any other perspective, this is a very strange intervention from the chancellor. Why pick out this one route, and why offer only partial devolution of air passenger duty to the Northern Ireland assembly?

Surely other regional airports, particularly in Edinburgh and Glasgow, which also have long haul flights, and are under a devolved government, will now start asking for exemptions. Should long haul flights be the top priority, considering that APD is still marketed as an environmental tax, and that these are the flights which cause the highest levels of pollution?

For us, the biggest imbalance still exists on domestic flights, and this is at its greatest in Northern Ireland, where alternative train services are not available. Just how important are New York flights from the Belfast economy? Surely the most important link is with London – yes these flights are taxed in both directions, even if at a lower rate. Business users can still absorb the cost. A family of four considering flights to Spain or flights to Exeter for a holiday in Devon are going to think twice about being taxed twice for the domestic holiday. This is what really shoots the British tourist economy in the foot.

Aberdeen flights – is Eastern’s gain also Flybe’s gain?

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News article – new Southampton to Aberdeen flights with Eastern

So Eastern are increasing their Aberdeen flights from Southampton up to a thrice-daily service. Every time this happens, we are left wondering ‘when will Flybe step in and offer competition on this route’?

This must be an eternal problem for Eastern’s managers, when their business model is based on operating thin routes which other airlines won’t touch as they won’t be able to fill their aircraft. Eastern have never positioned themselves as a low cost operator – and we don’t think they should. Flights from Southampton to Aberdeen are a relatively niche route, but there is also plenty of potential demand for leisure users, especially if reasonable prices combined with the convenience of using Southampton Airports compact terminal can attract people away from Gatwick or Heathrow flights.

Yet Flybe have been able to operate as a hybrid service offering both good value fares and a wide range of routes which are appealing to the business user, especially on UK domestic flights. So, the moment Eastern show that they are filling enough seats each day for Flybe to also be able to operate the route, it is surely just a matter of time before Flybe step in, especially as they are well established at both airports.

So who do you prefer to fly with – Eastern or Flybe?