Load factor Antwerp-Manchester

[Piperalfa]

Hoe gaat het met de nieuwe verbinding van Antwerpen naar Manchester? Op 14 november stonden er zelf 2 toestellen van BMI (reden?).
Men heeft na het verdwijnen van Cityjet op deze verbinding, op vrij korte tijd een nieuwe maatschappij kunnen binnenhalen. Blijft het bij deze ene nieuwe maatschappij of mogen wij nog iets nieuws verwachten?

How's the new connection from Antwerp to Manchester? On 14 November there were 2 planes of BMI (why?).
After the disappearance of Cityjet on this route, in relatively short time a new company got in. Will this one new company remain alone or should we expect anything new?

[saratoga]

Vraag ik me ook af. Ik hoop beter dan cityjet. Was vorige week in deurne. Kwam daar een vlucht binnen van london. Welgeteld 5 passagiers!!!! Zoiets kost toch massa's geld. Verbaast me dat cityjet daar blijft. Laten we hopen dat bmi het beter doet.

I also wonder. I hope better than CityJet. Was last week in deurne. There came a flight in from London. Exactly 5 passengers!! This costs lots of money anyway. I'm surprised that CityJet remains. Let's hope bmi does it better.

[teddybAIR]

Ik zit op dinsdag en donderdag regelmatig in Belair mijn soepke te drinken rond de tijd dat die bakken binnenkomen en ik zie daar toch dikwijls verbazend weinig volk afkomen. Ik snap momenteel niet goed hoe die route rendabel kan zijn voor BMI...

I sit on Tuesdays and Thursdays regularly at Belair drinking my soup around the time that these frames arrive and I see it often surprisingly few people come. I do not currently know how that route could be profitable for BMI ...

[Inquirer]

A colleague of mine living in A'pen has used the route once to go to our plant near Manchester and its running on very low pax numbers: not even 10 passengers, he said!!
Now I know it's just an small jet, but a loadfactor of not even 30% is not sustainable IMHO.
It seems people just don't go out to Antwerp Airport to take this flight: another colleague from Mechelen is going to BRU to take the Brussels Airlines flight to MAN like before: their flight is half as expensive as the BMI flight from Antwerp, so for somebody who's going to the UK at least once a week, that's a significiant difference on his personal travel budget, not to mention the miles collected are usable on other UK routes too, for instance BHX or BRS, which we go to much more often!
If this trend continues, I can't see them continue for long, unless the airport is subsidizing this route?

[teddybAIR]

The same goes for VLM if you ask me. I seldom witness high load factors on their F-50's and have always asked myself why they don't transition to aircraft with under 19 pax or less...

[Inquirer]

FWIW, tickets on antwerp - manchester are very expensive: we book ours at work less than a week ahead of travel date due to schedule constraints and they seem to be impossible to find for under 800euro return now that launch fares are no longer valid.
In comparison, you can normally book a comparible BRU-MAN for just 500 euro at Brussels Airlines, so needless to say even that colleague from Antwerp city is now driving to BRU to take the morning flight on Brussels Airlines: it's cheaper, its more comfortable, he collects miles (which we use for business trips too) AND he's at the plant earlier. Any more reasons needed not to use the bmi flight any longer?

[teddybAIR]

OMG! 800€ for a return trip to MAN?! At those rates you can indeed afford a low load factor although 5 or 10 passengers won't cut it, I presume

[Inquirer]

In their defence, I am of course talking about flexible fares, booked just 3 to 5 days in advance, so my company doesn't expect to see us fly out for just 99 euro return or anything, but we are having enough experience to know that a price range of 400 to 500 euro is 'industry standard' for this kind of tickets, yet bmi is charging a lot more for that indeed, and is pricing itself out of the market that way.
I suppose them using such a small plane is however the reason they have to charge that much? Another proof these little planes are no competition for an A319, even not if operating from a city airport like antwerp (and with BRU so nearby).

[teddybAIR]

Ah ok...I'm not knowledgeable on business fares of fares of tickets that provide higher re-booking flexibility. I only fly for leasure, so I'm used to more democratic fares

[Inquirer]

Ah ok...I'm not knowledgeable on business fares of fares of tickets that provide higher re-booking flexibility. I only fly for leasure, so I'm used to more democratic fares

No worries, so am I when I fly for holidays.

Mind you, it's not business, it's simply unrestricted economy.

However, the thing is that if they only have 10 passengers per flight and say 3 or so are indeed paying 400euro one way with the rest flying at discount rates because they booked months in advance (say 100euro one way), they'll have a hard time making ends meet with just 1900euro of revenues, I'd think.

I don't have a good idea how much it cost to operate a single flight, but I doubt it one can do it for this sum?

Anybody an idea about the average operating cost of such an embraer plane?

[sn26567]

I just simulated two reservations, one for departing from ANR tonight and coming back from MAN tomorrow night, the other for a similar trip in March 2013.

The respective prices are a whopping EUR 1,056.25 and a very reasonable EUR 129.01.

I also noticed that non-flex business class is cheaper than economy flex !

My advice: as for any airline, book well in advance !

[Inquirer]

I just simulated two reservations, one for departing from ANR tonight and coming back from MAN tomorrow night, the other for a similar trip in March 2013.

The respective prices are a whopping EUR 1,056.25 and a very reasonable EUR 129.01.

I also noticed that non-flex business class is cheaper than economy flex !

My advice: as for any airline, book well in advance !

Thank you for proving I am not talking out of my neck here.

FWIW, maybe you could do the same simulation on the Brussels Airlines flights for the same dates and then you'll see just what i am talking about: people like me are willing to pay a significant premium for full flexibility and when booking short notice, but the bmi flight from ANR is ridiculously overpriced in the light of the offer from BRU, hence its not very attractive to corporate customers, even from Antwerp city itself!

I am pretty sure your random simulation will proof my point.

[sn26567]

I just simulated two reservations, one for departing from ANR tonight and coming back from MAN tomorrow night, the other for a similar trip in March 2013.

The respective prices are a whopping EUR 1,056.25 and a very reasonable EUR 129.01.

I also noticed that non-flex business class is cheaper than economy flex !

My advice: as for any airline, book well in advance !

Thank you for proving I am not talking out of my neck here.

FWIW, maybe you could do the same simulation on the Brussels Airlines flights for the same dates and then you'll see just what i am talking about: people like me are willing to pay a significant premium for full flexibility and when booking short notice, but the bmi flight from ANR is ridiculously overpriced in the light of the offer from BRU, hence its not very attractive to corporate customers, even from Antwerp city itself!

I am pretty sure your random simulation will proof my point.

Simulation on SN:
Leaving tonight, return tomorrow: EUR 368,66
Same trip in March 2013: EUR 342,41

Conclusion: booking a long time in advance is cheaper with BM !

[skumfiduse]

I just simulated two reservations, one for departing from ANR tonight and coming back from MAN tomorrow night, the other for a similar trip in March 2013.

The respective prices are a whopping EUR 1,056.25 and a very reasonable EUR 129.01.

I also noticed that non-flex business class is cheaper than economy flex !

My advice: as for any airline, book well in advance !

Thank you for proving I am not talking out of my neck here.

FWIW, maybe you could do the same simulation on the Brussels Airlines flights for the same dates and then you'll see just what i am talking about: people like me are willing to pay a significant premium for full flexibility and when booking short notice, but the bmi flight from ANR is ridiculously overpriced in the light of the offer from BRU, hence its not very attractive to corporate customers, even from Antwerp city itself!

I am pretty sure your random simulation will proof my point.

Simulation on SN:
Leaving tonight, return tomorrow: EUR 368,66
Same trip in March 2013: EUR 342,41

Conclusion: booking a long time in advance is cheaper with BM !

Conclusion: SN's revenue management fails on this particular journey.

[Inquirer]

Voila, the BMI flight is ridiculously overpriced short notice in light of competition.

For a route that is aimed at corporate flyers like me, (who's going on a holiday to MAN?) it's pricing structure is pushing it out of the market! Not the way to do it!

Btw, I don't know which dates in March you've picked, but I see fares of 135euro for midweek flights with just 1 or 2 night stay?

[teddybAIR]

I'm obviously a rooky in airline pricing or yield management (I'm a marketeer in professional life:D). Just imagine the disbelief of a passenger who's paid 1.000€ for his return ticket ANR-MAN-ANR only to find 40 empty boarding seats when boarding the plane

[Bralo20]

I'm obviously a rooky in airline pricing or yield management (I'm a marketeer in professional life:D). Just imagine the disbelief of a passenger who's paid 1.000€ for his return ticket ANR-MAN-ANR only to find 40 empty boarding seats when boarding the plane

He will probably think: did I order a private jet?

[tolipanebas]

SN's revenue management fails on this particular journey.

Contrary to for instance a tourist destination like AGP, MAN is a corporate driven destination where the majority of passengers book only a few weeks prior to their flight (or later even), so it doesn't really matter much what the advertised fare is say 4 to 6 months in advance to most passengers.

By deliberately setting the fare at a relatively high price to start bookings off with, what SN does is push any early booking bargain hunters from the north of our country towards the competing bmi flight, which is operated with a very small plane.

If those passengers for whatever reason decide to fly SN nevertheless, that's obviously a good thing at those prices; but if they are lost to bmi because of the price however, then surprisingly enough that's in fact just as good really because what it means is that by the time the large group of higher yielding late booking passengers come to the market, the bmi flight from ANR potentially carries a significant portion of low yielding passengers already (especially taking into account the small size of the plane used to operate with) and thus bmi have no other option but to sell all of their remaining seats at very high prices in an effort to still break even (hence the price quote of 1,000+ euro for today/tomorrow), thus allowing SN to rake in the majority of those late booking higher yielding passengers at lucrative fares, albeit lower than what bmi charges.

Indeed, this topic is actually a very nice real world example of how operating a much larger plane than the competitor on a popular business route not only brings lower unit costs for the operating carrier itself, but also allows it to steer revenue management at its competitor and as we can learn from the above, it does influence a passenger's behaviour in the way that you would want to see it.

edit: spelling

[teddybAIR]

interesting!

[tolipanebas]

interesting!

Indeed, there's always more than meets the eye at first...

Revenue management is far more complicated than simply trying to undercut your competitor all the time, albeit with the smallest possible margin: that may very well be a good tactic on certain popular VFR routes like say Malaga for instance, but it also happens to be the only tactic most people understand because it fits the only kind of booking pattern and flying habbit they know themselves.

As shown above, there are other kind of passengers too and they happen to follow completely different booking patterns. Taking into account that on some routes those kind of passengers make up the majority even (MAN obviously being such a route), you obviously need a completely different revenue management tactic than on say a Malaga, and this is exactly what is being demonstrated here by SN, seemingly with the wanted result if one is to take these eye witness accounts about the empty bmi flight from ANR with last minute Y fares at €1,000+ as only reference.