Aviation Discussion

[stut]

Similarly, closing short haul airports such as Liverpool and moving those flights to Manchester will create more transfer traffic in Manchester and make it more of a hub. That will also help.

90%+ of LPL's traffic is on point-to-point LCCs, who don't do hub operations, or even interlining. That's going to do nothing for Manchester's transfer traffic.

 

[fowler9]

I'm not necessarily in favour of closing airports in the north. But if you want more long haul flights from Manchester, it needs enough critical mass. Airports such as Leeds just suck passengers from Manchester and make it easier for people to go via Heathrow. Closing other airports in the north will force more people to use Manchester, and this may create more opportunities for airlines to offer long haul flights.

Similarly, closing short haul airports such as Liverpool and moving those flights to Manchester will create more transfer traffic in Manchester and make it more of a hub. That will also help.

Another option is to ban or heavily tax flights between Manchester and Heathrow, and maybe other major hubs such as Schiphol. That might also create more demand for long haul flights from Manchester.

Any other ideas?

Closing Liverpool would have no impact at all on Manchesters long haul traffic or flights connecting to long haul ones. Perhaps a couple of dozen people using Aer Lingus or Flybe to connect at Dublin or Schipol. You would basically just be filling Manchesters available slots with the Easyjet and Ryanair flights that go from Liverpool. Crazy idea. Also just putting more people on the M56 from Runcorn to Manchester, it is already a car park at rush hour.

 

[anme]

Closing Liverpool would have no impact at all on Manchesters long haul traffic or flights connecting to long haul ones. Perhaps a couple of dozen people using Aer Lingus or Flybe to connect at Dublin or Schipol. You would basically just be filling Manchesters available slots with the Easyjet and Ryanair flights that go from Liverpool. Crazy idea. Also just putting more people on the M56 from Runcorn to Manchester, it is already a car park at rush hour.

It's hard to square this assessment with claims (not made by you ) that Manchester could support more long haul flights.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Did you miss the bit where I said Liverpool and LBA are bucket-and-spade LCC airports for people going to Tenerife?

Liverpool and Leeds don't do long haul and don't affect long haul from Manchester, just as slots at Stansted apparently don't affect the need to expand Heathrow.

 

[fowler9]

Did you miss the bit where I said Liverpool and LBA are bucket-and-spade LCC airports for people going to Tenerife?

Liverpool and Leeds don't do long haul and don't affect long haul from Manchester, just as slots at Stansted apparently don't affect the need to expand Heathrow.

Can I just point out that I am flying to Poland from Liverpool for the 6th time in November and don't intend to take a bucket and spade.

 

[Bald Rick]

The Gatwick option purports to require less, or no taxpayer funding for public transport infrastructure, but I personally believe that rather underplays the amount of money that would be really be required to provide adequate rail capacity and to address the impact on the M23, M25 and other trunk roads.

e.g. Upgrades to the BML will not provide anywhere near the extra capacity

I'll agree with you on the motorways, but the BML bit is not correct. The plan for the BML in the next Control Period provides enough capacity for Gatwick expansion and general growth. Even if Gatwick were to reach the same passenger numbers as Heathrow has today with 2 runways, and assuming the same proportion of people using the train as now for trips to London, the extra traffic could all easily fit on a couple of 12 coach trains.

That's assuming they didn't use all the empty seats in the existing Gatwick Express services.

At peak times, Gatwick is a relatively small proportion of BML traffic.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Heathrow has been at near capacity for a while
Gatwick is at capacity!

Gatwick takes 43M people on one runway which is amazing. If it did have a 2nd runway that could be used independently is there any reason they couldn't handle 86M? Other than other transport improvements?

I must admit I don't know how it works but is there any reason Heathrow couldn't handle an extra 10M now? (Well once T2 is finished)

With two runways at Gatwick there then becomes the issue of flightpaths, but if that can be sorted, then in theory capacity could double if the runways were used independently.

Heathrow could easily handle another 10m. Only today I watched 2 flights from Frankfurt come in approx 4 mins apart, one BA and one LH. Both A320s. Put the pax on an A350, one slot released

 

[WatcherZero]

40% of Heathrow traffic is freight, more than pretty much all the other airports in the country combined there is room there for more passengers if airlines could be persuaded to move it to other regional freight specialised airports.

But thats one of the main reason why Gatwick has far more passengers per runway, along with the economy traffic Gatwick specialises in usually having higher loads.

 

[anme]

40% of Heathrow traffic is freight, more than pretty much all the other airports in the country combined there is room there for more passengers if airlines could be persuaded to move it to other regional freight specialised airports.

But thats one of the main reason why Gatwick has far more passengers per runway, along with the economy traffic Gatwick specialises in usually having higher loads.

Is that really true? I don't recall ever seeing a freighter aircraft at Heathrow and it's absolutely not true that 40% of aircraft movements at Heathrow are freighters. If there are freighter aircraft at Heathrow, they are a very small percentage of total flights.

Passenger planes also carry freight, of course. But except for combi planes (which don't operate to Heathrow either as far as I know, and certainly not in large numbers), there is little or no reduction in passenger numbers because of this.

 

[Bald Rick]

40% of Heathrow traffic is freight, more than pretty much all the other airports in the country combined there is room there for more passengers if airlines could be persuaded to move it to other regional freight specialised airports.

Heathrow handles 1.5 m tonnes of cargo a year, or put another way, rather less than what the UK rail network shifts in a week. I can't see how 1.5m tonnes equates to 40% of 75m pax, unless the average passenger is rather small. Incidentally, well over 90% of this cargo is in the holds of passenger aircraft.

There are some cargo only flights, but not many, around 10 a day (total movements). A few to Singapore, Dubai etc, and on some evenings there's a rather noisy A300 inbound from, err, Luton.

Nevertheless, LHR does handle around 65% of all airfreight in the UK, of which very little is domestic.

 

[freetoview33]

Aircraft Movements 2015

Gatwick: 267,760
Heathrow: 474,087

Bigger aircraft do mean more passengers. But then they need larger headways?

 

[tony_mac]

Closing Liverpool would have no impact at all on Manchesters long haul traffic or flights connecting to long haul ones. Perhaps a couple of dozen people using Aer Lingus or Flybe to connect at Dublin or Schipol.

Not even that, Flybe cancelled the route already. Not particularly surprising as the flights didn't codeshare (since being restarted), so booking any sort of connection was just stupidly expensive (I tried!).

They certainly aren't all holiday flights, I've used Easyjet a few times for business, flights to Geneva, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona. Belfast and IoM are also pretty popular. For short flights, like these, going to Manchester would make a huge difference to the overall journey time (mostly down to the contingency you need to add for possible train/motorway delays).

Leeds, at least, does offer BA connections, so they will be taking some business from Manchester.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

40% of Heathrow traffic is freight, more than pretty much all the other airports in the country combined there is room there for more passengers if airlines could be persuaded to move it to other regional freight specialised airports.

As others have said freight at Heathrow is overwhelmingly carried in the cargo bellies of passenger aircraft. In general terms airfreight is in the doldrums and has been for a number of years. Both FedEx and UPS cancelled their orders for A380 freighters because the volumes they envisaged simply didn't materialise. And pure freighters can be seen at a London airport: it's called Stansted.

As for persuading airlines to use regional airfreight facilities there is plenty of such activity at East Midlands, in particular a DHL hub. It's also the main hub for Royal Mail airborne movements.

 

[HSTEd]

I still think the best option in the long run would have been a [4-6 runway] Estuary Airport of some type - sure it costs £50bn-£100bn but it would have the capacity to swallow up all the London Airports traffic apart from maybe City's.
That would be a truly global hub airport.

 

[WatcherZero]

Dedicated freight flights is a bit of a misnomer, they are small in number usually carrying oversized cargoes and some aircraft are configured to carry more freight at the expense of passengers while still operating passenger routes. Many passenger flights do carry cargo and aircrafts passenger loads are limited by the weight of freight they carry. An aircraft cannot take off carrying maximum passengers and maximum cargo pallets or if so would have an extremely short range.

25% of UK exports to Brazil, Russia, India and China by weight are air freighted from Heathrow and it is the UK's largest port by value carrying 26% of all UK export by value. The airports strategy is to expand Heathrow freight to 3m tonnes by 2030. 5% of Heathrow flights are dedicated freight flights and if the airports capacity is 99% constrained there is room for another 5% increase in passenger flights even before new runway.

East Midlands airport and others have all the facilities to handle freight efficiently and theres no reason to cram them all in to Heathrow or to actively seek to expand freight activities at Heathrow.

http://www.heathrow.com/file_source/Company/Static/PDF/Partnersandsuppliers/heathrow-cargo.pdf

 

[jopsuk]

Aircraft Movements 2015

Gatwick: 267,760
Heathrow: 474,087

Bigger aircraft do mean more passengers. But then they need larger headways?

Heavy can follow Heavy pretty much at the same spacing as Light following Light, the problems are when you get smaller aircraft following larger ones. The issue is wake turbulence.

 

[Bald Rick]

25% of UK exports to Brazil, Russia, India and China by weight are air freighted from Heathrow and it is the UK's largest port by value carrying 26% of all UK export by value. The airports strategy is to expand Heathrow freight to 3m tonnes by 2030. 5% of Heathrow flights are dedicated freight flights and if the airports capacity is 99% constrained there is room for another 5% increase in passenger flights even before new runway.

Firstly, that just shows how little we export to the BRIC countries. Especially given that roughly half the 1.5m tonnes is imports.

Secondly I query the 5% figure. CAA datasets suggest that Heathrow had around 2000 air traffic movemeets that weren't passenger aircraft in 2015, out of a total of 470,000; I'd say it was nearer 0.5%. This tallies with my experience; 5% would suggest an average of 2 cargo flights an hour landing, and that clearly isn't the case.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Is that really true? I don't recall ever seeing a freighter aircraft at Heathrow and it's absolutely not true that 40% of aircraft movements at Heathrow are freighters.

Passenger planes also carry freight, of course.

Most air freight is carried in passenger planes. It's one of the reasons why Airbus dropped such a clanger with the A380, even though it is such a big passenger plane it doesn't have the freight payload of other planes. Even Emirates, the A380's biggest fan, still deliberately use their 777-300ERs on routes with the heaviest freight traffic, because the 777 can carry more freight than the A380 can.

 

[fowler9]

Not even that, Flybe cancelled the route already. Not particularly surprising as the flights didn't codeshare (since being restarted), so booking any sort of connection was just stupidly expensive (I tried!).

They certainly aren't all holiday flights, I've used Easyjet a few times for business, flights to Geneva, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona. Belfast and IoM are also pretty popular. For short flights, like these, going to Manchester would make a huge difference to the overall journey time (mostly down to the contingency you need to add for possible train/motorway delays).

Leeds, at least, does offer BA connections, so they will be taking some business from Manchester.

Cheers Tony, someone had told me that since KLM stopped flying from Liverpool you could now use codeshare agreements by flying out to Schipol with Flybe. Apologies for giving dud info if I was wrong, end of the day my point was that closing Liverpool wouldn't affect Manchester or any connections offered. If Flybe don't offer that from Liverpool then that narrow it down to Aer Lingus unless Czech, Veuling or Blue Air do which I am doubting.

 

[Butts]

Most air freight is carried in passenger planes. It's one of the reasons why Airbus dropped such a clanger with the A380, even though it is such a big passenger plane it doesn't have the freight payload of other planes. Even Emirates, the A380's biggest fan, still deliberately use their 777-300ERs on routes with the heaviest freight traffic, because the 777 can carry more freight than the A380 can.

In the UK the biggest user of Air Freight at Night is The Royal Mail from it's main hub at East Midlands going all over the Country.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Also the parcel and courier companies.
DHL, FedEx, UPS etc, have dozens of aircraft criss-crossing the UK and Europe every night, including long-haul links to freight hubs in the USA.

 

[Butts]

Also the parcel and courier companies.
DHL, FedEx, UPS etc, have dozens of aircraft criss-crossing the UK and Europe every night, including long-haul links to freight hubs in the USA.

None of them are as big as Royal Mail for UK Freight overnight.

 

[BananaRepublic]

None of them are as big as Royal Mail for UK Freight overnight.

There are a lot of mail flights.
Most of these are operated by a mixed collection of ATP turboprops, Saab 340, ATR42/72 and other small turboprops, as well as a number of B737's.

DHL, etc, fly a great number of A300's, B757's, B737's, B767's and even B777 freighters, carrying what must probably be 20+ times more freight by weight, but most of this to/from the UK to mainland Europe and N. America.
So yes, for totally internal traffic, Royal Mail are probably the busiest, but their numbers are overshadowed by the number of larger freight flights.


.

 

[darloscott]

There are a lot of mail flights.
Most of these are operated by a mixed collection of ATP turboprops, Saab 340, ATR42/72 and other small turboprops, as well as a number of B737's.

DHL, etc, fly a great number of A300's, B757's, B737's, B767's and even B777 freighters, carrying what must probably be 20+ times more freight by weight, but most of this to/from the UK to mainland Europe and N. America.
So yes, for totally internal traffic, Royal Mail are probably the busiest, but their numbers are overshadowed by the number of larger freight flights.


.

Royal Mail operate a large network of flights across the UK every night using everything from a Metro upto B737F size. West Atlantic have just won the new tender for the trunk network from next year. Everywhere from the Shetlands down to the Channel Islands is covered with the "Skynet" network. The trunk routes run with B737's and the smaller routes down to Let410 & Metro size.

DHL have their main UK hub at East Midlands and this is linked to the large hubs in Europe located at Brussels, Leipzig and Milan (Bergamo). They operate to Aberdeen, Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh, Isle of Man, and Shannon across the UK & Ireland.

Fedex operate flights to their hub in Paris from Belfast, Birmingham, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and Dublin, Cork and Shannon in the UK and Ireland. Smaller aircraft also link Glasgow & Manchester to Stansted for US bound parcels.

UPS operate to their hub in Cologne from Edinburgh, East Midlands, Stansted, Dublin, Belfast and Shannon using Star Air 767-200F aircraft and TNT's flying operations are now operated by ASL Airlines, flying to Liege in Belgium. They also fly from Edinburgh, East Midlands, Stansted, Dublin and Belfast to their hub.

A relative newcomer to the UK in terms of being an integrator is Amazon, who have a single ASL Airlines B734F running between Wroclaw, Kassel and Doncaster every day linking up some of their largest distribution hubs. Expect to see these expand into a larger network soon!

 

[me123]

Some of the more interesting and innovative Royal Mail flights are operated by Jet2 (the holiday company). They have a fleet of 737QC aircraft based mostly in Edinburgh that operate bucket-and-spade charters by day. At night, they take all the seats out, load 'em up with letters, and fly the mail to East Midlands and Stansted. The seats are then replaced for the next day of flying tourists to the Sun.

The video shows it happening (albeit for another airline) - I think it's a brilliant use of resources when the planes would otherwise be sitting doing nothing.

[youtube]ZjXKzhdtHe0[/youtube]

 

[jopsuk]

Interesting to see the QC in action like that- though must weight quite a bit more to have the QC floor/modular seating, not to mention the cargo door mechanism, compared to a standard 737 of the same size and seating configuration.

 

[fowler9]

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong but in the not too distant past the busiest airport in the UK at night was Liverpool with mail flights. This is of course no longer the case.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong but in the not too distant past the busiest airport in the UK at night was Liverpool with mail flights. This is of course no longer the case.

That was a long time ago.
East Midlands is much busier at night today, than Liverpool ever was in its Post Office heyday.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Interesting to see the QC in action like that- though must weight quite a bit more to have the QC floor/modular seating, not to mention the cargo door mechanism, compared to a standard 737 of the same size and seating configuration.

The QC concept on modern jet airliners appeared in the mid/late 1960's on B727's and later on some B737's.
The quick change idea mostly petered out in the 1970's. As you say the cost penalties of both weight and the time taken to change configuration, made it less popular. Most of the QC aircraft became pure freighters, with PAX kit removed.

Other operators have used the QC concept over the years (e.g. BAe 146/ Avro RJ)

More recent usage appears to be with mostly older cheaper aircraft.

 

[fowler9]

That was a long time ago.
East Midlands is much busier at night today, than Liverpool ever was in its Post Office heyday.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


The QC concept on modern jet airliners appeared in the mid/late 1960's on B727's and later on some B737's.
The quick change idea mostly petered out in the 1970's. As you say the cost penalties of both weight and the time taken to change configuration, made it less popular. Most of the QC aircraft became pure freighters, with PAX kit removed.

Other operators have used the QC concept over the years (e.g. BAe 146/ Avro RJ)

More recent usage appears to be with mostly older cheaper aircraft.

Hey mate, for some of us 20 to 30 years ago feels recent. Ha ha.

 

[WestCoast]

Well, well, well. I've heard suggestions over the years that easyJet or Norwegian would serve Frankfurt am Main Airport but Ryanair beat them to it .

Ryanair to open Frankfurt base

Ryanair has confirmed it is to open a new base at Frankfurt Main airport and will start four routes to leisure destinations from the German airport next summer.

The announcement further underlines the Irish carrier's move into more primary airports over recent years and Frankfurt Main - Europe's fourth biggest airport by passenger number in 2015 - will be the largest airport Ryanair serves.

Ryanair will operate services to Alicante, Faro, Malaga and Palma and base two aircraft at Frankfurt from March 2017. All four routes will be operated on a daily basis.

Ryanair estimates it will carry 400,000 passengers per year on the new services.

Fraport chief executive, Stefan Schulte said that the move “underscores the increasing importance of Frankfurt for low-cost traffic”.

The Irish carrier’s services to the German city have long operated to Frankfurt Hahn airport - it became the Irish carrier's second mainland Europe base in 2002. FlightGlobal schedules shows that Ryanair already operates services to Alicante, Faro, Malaga and Palma from its Hahn base.

The data shows that with the exception of Alicante, the other three routes are already operated by other carriers from Frankfurt. Lufthansa operates a service to Malaga, flights to Palma are operated by Lufthansa, TUIfly and Air Berlin. Faro flights are offered by TUIfly and Lufthansa.

Source: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/ryanair-to-open-frankfurt-base-431052/

 

[Butts]

Well, well, well. I've heard suggestions over the years that easyJet or Norwegian would serve Frankfurt am Main Airport but Ryanair beat them to it .

Could be handy for the Motor Show next year - any idea where they will be flying out of ?