orbitmic

Lovely to see AF40 take off a few minutes ago (even 2hrs+ late!!). This A359 is flying nonstop from NCE to LAX undoubtedly full of people returning from the Cannes Festival and the Monte Carlo Grand Prix (flight was sold out at least in J within a few days of being put on sale by AF! (I know because I wanted to book it and couldn’t!)

Here is to hoping that AF occasionally flies a few long haul from major regional airports in the same way they have restored a few quirky European routes (was stunned to see AF open NCE-JTR for the peak summer season but stunned in a good way!)

i know it’s only very specific flights (they flew a few nonstop nce-jfk last year too and again they were sold out in J within days!) but I sure feel like encouraging them! And if any fter made it on the lax flight today (or the recent Lax-nce in the past few weeks) please give us a trip report!

brunos

It seems that it does not make business sense for a local airline to fly longhaul from its regional airports.
There are some exceptions when a country has a couple (or more) "megapoles", huge cities with large local market.
But France does not meet that criterion.
Typically foreign airlines fly to more local destinations than national airlines.
The DL flight to Nice is just one more outstation for DL (same for AC). QR is starting flights to NCE, LYS, TLS.
If AF was to fly longhaul from NCE, it would need to have a longhaul base there. I cannot foresee that in the future.

orbitmic

To be honest, I'm not sure the argument is any different for long haul and short haul,and whilst your argument is indeed the classic view to regional flights by national airlines, rightly or wrongly, has decided to experiment with such regional departures to Europe during peak summer season when some destinations attract a high demand and high fares (whilst traditional business travel is lower).

Now to be honest, my argument was not necessarily about encouraging something that regular, but since you mention it, I could actually imagine a July-August nonstop LAX-NCE 2-3- times a week paying for itself. Travel is booming (DL as you point out fly nonstop from both JFK and ATL, UA from EWR as does La Compagnie, AC and TS to YUL) and is very premium heavy (hence the La Compagnie flight which is all-J).

There is of course plenty of connecting traffic, but obviously, offering a nonstop route is an advantage compared to connecting, AF and DL are both strong on US-France routes, both have strong but non-hub (which makes DL not much more likely an operator than AF here) presence at LAX, and in July and August I could imagine that paying, especially as new aircrafts are more economical than before and offer greater granularity in terms of size.

It actually doesn't require the opening of a base either. A few years ago, AF kept flying nonstop LHR-LAX for a while without a base there (though they ended up giving up in the face of fierce competition from BA, VS, UA, AA, DL, etc!) They were using their Paris based crew but some rotations would work as CDG-LAX-LHR-LAX-CDG over a 48 hour cycle and I expect that if AF ever opened a lax-nce route, they would do the same, or perhaps using their lax-based crew which served (not sure they still do!) the PPT route.

I personally don't think it's likely in the immediate future either, but if AF and DL agreed, I could imagine them trying that at some point in coming years if traffic continues to grow as fast as now (for instance, as an extra frequency to LAX in peak summer which could be to NCE three days a week and to CDG or even ORY the other 4). It's a long shot, but not an unthinkable one.

PS: You are right in terms of going East although there, I really can't imagine AF stepping in! QR have already restarted NCE and have in fact just upped the initial 788 equipment into a 359 instead, EK are daily but permanently switching to a 388 from Thursday, GF, KU, SV among others are all flying nonstop.

brunos

I am not sure I follow your first paragraph.
But I believe the case is stronger for shorthaul than longhaul.
AF has experimented on and off with regional bases for shorthaul (sorry cannot get used to AF terminology). SO, no need to discuss it again.

But longhaul is quite different. The cockpit crew (even cabin crew) and planes are different from AF shorhauls typically flying to regional airports.
The rotation planning for CDG/LHR/ LAX/CDG was an expensive nightmare.

On TATL, it is much easier to have DL do those flights than AF As you mentioned, Eastward is hopeless.
But maybe the A321LR will change that.

orbitmic

Of course, short haul and long haul use different planes, crew, etc. but I guess it's not obvious to me why the issues would be different or more to the point why specific long haul from regional airports should be a bigger challenge than short haul from regional airports.

You are right that AF has chosen to do some short haul from regional airports but no long haul, but then conversely, till recently, BA had made the opposite choice, flying transatlantic from MAN but not within Europe (the routes have now been taken over by AA as they are to AA hubs). It seems to me that the issues are largely similar in both cases: it's hard to launch a route without hub feeding (which national airlines typically do not have from regional airports), it is hard to operate routes without a base for crew and planes, etc. but that applies to routes whether they are long haul or European (or even transversal national routes for that matter, with AF operating a few of those too).

(ignore this paragraph: as noted below, LAX is in fact a DL hub which I didn't know) [Again, for LAX, I'm not clear why it would be much easier for DL than AF. JFK and ATL yes of course as those are DL hubs, in the same way that flights from CDG to DL non-hub cities are easier for AF, but NCE-LAX would be between two major but non-hub airports for the two airlines. Both would be able to get some limited connecting traffic on both ends (AF from LHR, ATH, etc) but would be banking primarily on o/d if such a route was launched. I do think that the one thing that makes it easier for DL is that they have a fleet of 767, whilst AF is hopelessly short on smaller frames but that is a much bigger and more general problem for AF and is not specific to that route.]

I fully agree with you however that the 321LR is really what could make a difference on such routes though and that until then, it is not very likely any such routes will open with AF. And also agree that eastwards is hopeless as AF is generally unable to compete with the ME3 and the likes anyway for a range of reasons (even from CDG, let alone from other airports) though I do hope a route to China might reopen in due time (It was Air China to PEK till covid, but if it were one of AF's skyteam partners instead, they will hopefully add a codeshare which would be a start!)

Digicola

LAX is a DL hub.

orbitmic

Oh thanks - my bad. I was only looking at what I know as their "main hubs", but I saw that they actually also list LAX, BOS, SEA and LGA which I didn't know!! Well, I sure hope they end up adding a seasonal NCE in due time then!

San Gottardo

A lovely armchair route planner topic And by the nature of it one that will produce longer posts than a question about, e.g., opening hours of lounges or closest parking to terminal XX… But that‘s fun.

Would it be nice to have Air France fly long haul from regional airports? Yes.

Are there examples of airlines doing long haul flights from cities that aren’t hubs, and without having a long haul base there? Yes again. AA or DL from RDU to Europe. LX from GVA to JFK. SK from Aalborg and Göteborg to New York. Arguably TP flights from/to OPO fall into that category. And in the past there were things like NRT-VCE on Alitalia, SAS from Bergen to Tokyo. And so on. If we go back really far in the past (late 80s-1990s, we were all adults but still it’s >30 years ago), we see things like BA from places like Manchester or Glasgow to the US and Canada. On Lufthansa, Berlin via Hamburg to EWR, and Berlin to Washington on LH a bit later. Swiss between Basle and EWR. And even Air France from French regional airports to New York! In 1989, AF used A310 to fly Strasbourg-Lyon-JFK (2x week) and Mulhouse-Lille-JFK (1x week). In 1990, they then had Toulouse-Nantes-JFK, Marseille-Lyon-JFK, Montpellier-Bordeaux-JFK.

Is the A321LR and -XLR a game changer? Sure. Look at the number of non-hub routes that are being opened (the above-mentioned routes by Scandinavian airlines are an example).

Does that mean that it would make sense for AF to do that today? Unlikely. The above examples show how the logic for the above mentioned flights does not apply to Air France to link any of the „Province“ destinations to long haul destinations::

• GVA and RDU are the perfect examples of routes that work because there is both strong outgoing and incoming traffic, with lots of business traffic. GVA has international organisations, a lot of industry (especially pharma/medtech, some financial services, but not only), and on top of it is a tourist destination. RDU has health care and tech industry. BSL-EWR in the past was one such route as well, based on a contract with Novartis. None of the French regional destinations fulfill these criteria. They are strong incoming destinations, and the businesses based there are not the kind of multinationals or a cluster of travel-heavy smaller ones to be found in GVA and RDU.
• NRT-VCE, NRT-BGO: seasonal only flights to bring a very specific segment of tourists to Venice or the Norwegian fjords. But airlines figured that they could make more money by deploying their assets on more lucrative routes. That‘s why they died and why none of the European airlines flies such routes. In the same vein, no Air France flights from intercontinental destinations to NCE - with the noted exception of bringing a very specific segments of visitors to a specific event. Airlines from the US do/did have flights to places like Palma, Dubrovnik, etc. But they have been reduced, and these are done by airlines who link their hub to these spokes. For Air France, the analogy is to fly from Paris to places that are heavy incoming (=tourist) destinations - which they do! Havana, Cancun, Mauritius, Fortaleza, Maldives etc.(not sure the latter two are still part of the NS23 program though)
• The stuff from the past à la LIL-JFK: those happened in times when routes were developed by state-owned airlines in regulated environments. Routes were often opened for political reasons. Not happening today
• A321(X)LR: yes. But AF hasn‘t ordered any of these, or have they?

So the only thing that might be feasible is for AF to take over from DL to operate a route like JFK-NCE. But then it comes down to operational considerations: AF would have two options: operate a smaller plane like the A330-200 as a dedicated plane on NCE-JFK-NCE, but then the plane would operated away from its natural base which is Paris. Or it flies a W pattern with an A350 and does CDG-JFK-NCE-JFK-CDG. That means two nights away from base for staff, where for DL that is only one night away from base. And the B763 is probably super profitable to operate on that route, it is depreciated on DL‘s books and can just be run down despite higher fuel consumption.

But who knows. Maybe AF will free up an A330 or A350 or a B777-200ER and fly ORY-JFK-NCE-JFK-ORY for the summer months. Now that is a flight I would take often!

Hence, the French regional airports can be spokes in other airline‘s networks. But origin points for intercontinental routes by AF? Doubtful.

PS: the topic got me intrigued, I would love to have a similar discussion why LX/BA don‘t fly between London and Sion throughout the winter. Stuff the plane with bankers on their way to Verbier and Zermatt. Existed on a few Saturdays in the past, always booked out, but no longer. And heck, if the plane could land there, they could even fill an A330 on JFK-SIR in winter. Sorry, totally off-topic.

orbitmic

Well, exactly, and to be clear my thread intends to be no more than fun! As I said, I certainly don't expect them to open the routes in the near future, but I do think it is fun to discuss, and I also agree with much of your post.

Beyond the general discussion, I guess that there is a NCE-specific challenge which is of interest. NCE is a big airport by French standards, as well as much smaller than the other "second airports" in most European countries (MAN, MXP, BCN, MUC, etc are all much larger.) and it is a year round destination in some ways but also one with a high peak season in May-September and a true "super peak" season in July and August. In other words, demand for flights to NCE in July-August equates that of much larger airports during the same period, whilst NCE lags much behind them the rest of the year.

Even more interestingly, the demand for premium travel during that period is even more disproportionately high for NCE so that virtually all airlines fly their most premium-heavy configurations to/from NCE in May-September, at a time when business class travel is typically weaker than the rest of the world elsewhere.

That's notably true of transatlantic demand, and as mentioned, there are not that many secondary airports in Europe which can boast three airlines and three daily flights to New York every day including one full-J and the other two in the most premium-heavy configurations US airlines offer, all of that with load factors nearing 100%.

The question becomes whether airlines such as AF-DL have ways to and interest in respond(ing) to this unusual pattern or not. In a way, AF already has on specific dates, running about 3-5 ad hoc long hauls in each direction. Arguably, operationally, this is more of a nightmare than a seasonal route (because as a result, flights end up needing to position from CDG each time, which is a waste), but it is interesting that they have decided to do that in the first place, and to my knowledge, they never did till last year (notwithstanding San Gottardo's excellent point on all airlines doing such routes by the bucket in the 1970s and 1980s when you'd get random NCE-JNB or VCE-BOM, etc) . It's not a massive stretch to imagine them (as AF or DL) possibly considering ultra-peak seasonal routes in July-August, be they a NCE-LAX or a JFK-MRS etc that would only run for two months especially when smaller planes become more widely available, but that's very much meant as a "fun question" for now!

San Gottardo

I am of course much less of a NCE expert than orbitmic and brunos, so I put this as a question: we do agree that NCE is only airport in France that would be a candidate for such seasonal longhaul flights from a French regional airport? Not Lyon (what happened to the LYS-JFK on Delta?) as the second largest city, not Marseille as the other second largest city, and certainly not the others. Sure, they all have their share of visitors from abroad. Japanese to the Bordeaux vineyards, Americans discovering the Provence hinterland or the Var/Roussillon coast flying into MRS, etc. But not at all comparable to the traffic into NCE. So MRS and BOD justify lots of capacity from other Euro hubs, but not direct long haul flights. Or do I think about this the wrong way?

orbitmic

i actually did think of using super peak jfk-bod as an example in July- august, but let’s put it that way: 1) none of those comparable to nce for overall traffic potential and 2) none of us comparable to nce for premium and ultra premium traffic, which also means much higher yield. Nce has less departing volume than lys or mrs but it is higher yield (fun fact: Monaco is the country with the highest number of flights taken per inhabitant in the world, and that ain’t all y, sadly for the rest of us!!) and there is some traffic from Liguria too as goa is a poorly served airport.

i’d say Lys and mrs have good departure potential but a bit less arrival (which is certainly not to mean they haven’t got any but just less), and they both have good business travel potential too (as does nce with big conference traffic and high tech) but it’s year round in all three.

To be honest, NCE has probably more intl intercontinental traffic (I exclude Dom ton here) than all other province airports combined for a reason.

so yes, I’d say that nce is by far the most likely candidate, and the threshold for mrs, lys, or TPs would be yet a lot higher though I’m sure they are keen to get a tatl link and may bring in lots of subsidies to make this work (which historically nce hasn’t needed to do).