Originally Posted by
avm2806
Yes - but the diaspora business from UK to India is quite low yield and already quite over supplied. A direct flight to MAN would hardly be able to survive if it charged a hefty premium over a 1-stop service.
ATQ-LHR is a good example of a route that failed - both 9W and AI were offering it and it failed. If I recall correctly there was also some sort of flight to Birmingham from northern India that did not last very long.
Now BD operates a thrice weekly ATQ-ALA-LHR vv (guess they are clubbing traffic, and that kind of frequency works - although after they merge with BA who knows if it will last).
Point being - while an India - MAN is theoretically a great route, the yields would not justify it even if the loads and demand would.
The diaspora business from London to India is well supplied, but not Manchester. 9W ATQ-LHR didn't itself fail, Jet dropped the route along with others at the start of the downturn so that it did not end up like IT and AI today. BHX-DEL by AI was unsuccessful because AI charged much more than it did from LHR for the flight and Birmingham is within a 100 min drive from Heathrow. Now, Indian Brummies either use a gulf connection from BHX or fly from LHR direct. Northern England's Indians however don't generally use Heathrow, their large population uses connections from MAN, unrelated to the price from LHR, unlike the Brummies. BHX-ATQ however survived as a charter flight until a few months ago, when the charter company itself collapsed. It was not well known, operated by an executive company charter and very difficult to book.
PIA operate daily flights from Manchester to Pakistan, and have a similar sized diaspora in Northern England, but don't have the business interest. Biman Bangladesh operate twice weekly to Dhaka and don't have business interest or a very large diaspora. In fact, PIA also operate to Birmingham and Leeds!
My last note is, that as you imply, if the prices are too high much of the diaspora will still prefer to pay for a connection, but I would say that roughly up to £50-80 per person extra compared to a Gulf connection and the flights would be very popular not only for diaspora and business interest to India, but also to SE Asia, Bangladesh and Nepal. So it does partially depend on the price, so they also need to get the aircraft flight. I'm not saying that daily flights to BOM and DEL would be the most successful, but 3/4 roundtrips a week for each to serve the large Gujarati and Northern Indian commmunities respectively would work out well, and the good connections from those airports.