Another one (or two) bite the dust...
 

....I have just read on the PPrune board that BD will drop Heathrow - Madrid in October and the route may be taken over by baby from Gatwick and that the Glasgow - Knock service was cancelled twice in one week and that on another flight there was only 2 paxs. Not good indeed.

Yep. Hardly a surprise, though. With LHR-MAD down to one frequency, the writing was on the wall.
Not good at all that there will not be a single direct *A flight between two major European capitals. From the UK, the Iberian peninsula is an OW or no frills preserve (OK. There is still the LHR-PMI flight, but that connects to nothing).
Presumably Spanair have no plans to takeover the route?
And why on earth does bmibaby want to compete head to head with Easyjet? Not to mention that IB and BA often have no-frills level fares to Spanish destinations.

Couldn't agree more. LIN is also down to a single daily flight (used to be 3 daily), making it impossible to use BD both ways for business. I might be prepared to fly LH via FRA on my own time, but there's no way a client would tolerate it. CDG, BRU and STR are now the only genuine European business destinations served by BD from LHR, and I for one find it very sad that BD are turning themselves into a long haul domestic feeder carrier rather than genuinely trying to compete for business traffic.

Er, DUB too?

I agree -they've made their bed, and now they have to sleep in it.

Let's be a little clearer here.

First, here's a link to p2 of the PPRuNe thread (which is actually about cancelled flights on WW). Even though such a move would not come as a surprise, the comment is made by poster who has been wrong about BD route decisions before. Flights are still showing bookable in Galileo throughout winter.

Assuming it is true, why doesn't BD hand the route over to JK (slots permitting) who could make a much better job and offer connections to other Spanish destinations (seamless JK/BD ticketing is very hard to find). Yields are not spectacular on LHR-MAD and loads are surprisingly crap but it does raise questions about BD's schizophrenic route strategy. Dropping MAD to once daily was a silly move if you're in the market for business travellers. Can they really be getting higher yields out of INV and NAP than MAD or LIN?

However, if you think about it from Virgin's point of view...if you were taking over BD and wanted to create a simple short haul feeder operation into your long haul route, which destinations would you drop? ;)

Not to mention poor schedule coordination. Been trying a LHR-MAD-IBZ itinerary on BD/JK. In theory, they have reasonable (although not spectacularly cheap) fares but this would result in a 10 hour wait in MAD on the way out and a 4 hour wait on the way back.

JK are clearly not that interested in the UK/Ireland market. Look at their website: even though they have DUB flights this summer, you can book flights to DUB but not from DUB.

mmm... and where do the INV and NAP routes fit into this?
And do these attact better yields and loads than MAD?

Where else have BD dropped in Europe in recent years? I remember Rome (a lot of TV advertising... last flight in from the UK) and Prague during the 'airline for Europe' period, was there routes to Scandinavia and a handful in Germany?

BD used to serve Zurich (again back in the old 'airline for europe' days). Sadly, no longer. INV and NAP (not to mention VCE) obviously being major business destinations.

Barcelona and Bergen come to mind. Prague, Rome and Barcelona were attractive redemption options, which I used and miss.

Oops - sorry about that!

As for JK, if they could get the LHR slots one would assume they would jump at the chance. They already serve a number of the main Star hubs (FRA and ARN come to mind).

I've tried to book through tickets on JK/BD before now (my sister lives in SCQ - Santiago de Compostela) and I never get a competitive fare, even though the timetable works. Unlike the main cities, the competition to many regional Spanish airports (Seville and the aforementioned SCQ for instance) is non existent and IB get away with extortion in the summer months. JK have a decent network within Spain yet seem more interested in selling domestic EUR69 return fares than exploiting their alliance connections.

It will be interesting to see the extent to which BD cooperates with TP if it joins Star (they are knocking at the door). They have a decent presence at LHR but perhaps BD might make use of another nifty Scottish Executive grant and start EDI-LIS? It makes rather more sense than GLA-NOC or flying to Groningen. It would also open up one-stop connections to Brazil and North Africa.

They don't attract better yields - a point I raised in the paragraph above. But potentially they attract better loads, especially INV for transfer traffic, if you're just playing a simple bums on seats game. It would appear they are going for thin southern European routes that can be served by a single daily rotation, handled by cheap 3rd parties and abandoned overnight in the event of a major restructuring. (cf a 'proper' 2/3 times daily). If would seem C class is only being kept to screw more cash out of the high density routes, where you can gamble with the moving curtain and C class schedules to pick up the seriously expensive traffic. I'm guessing that operations such as MAD are stuck between these categories.

All this assumes that there is a plan at BD at all. They blamed the competition when Barcelona and Rome ended, which was odd for BD. When an airline that prides itself on taking on the big guys in commercial aviation and offering a niche product starts running away from competition then something has gone badly wrong. Even Bishop appears to have lost the energy for LHR fights these days - leaving it to Branson to spearhead the legal action over T5 fees.

Clearly BD is unlikely to be around in its current form for much longer. Enjoy what's left while it lasts...

The view from Donnington Hall?
 

Seems like we're not the only ones noticing the brand confusion at BD - see the comments allegedly made by BD's commercial director, Adrian Parkes, to a travel trade conference:

"We’ve seen a massive shift from the front cabin to the back and yields are even more horrific”

“We have a perception problem that we are expensive, when we are often as cheap as low cost market and we have to be."

“We’re not making money anywhere. (Ryanair chairman) Michael O’Leary is predicting a mother and father of all price wars, so that’s another thing to look forward to.

“We’re now the fourth of fifth place airline after being in 2nd or 3rd place. We have a problem with the brand. People know what they’re getting with Virgin and Ryanair, but they don’t know what they’re getting with us.”


http://www.travelmole.com/news_detai...84fdcc5f3630cf

Nah. EDI-OSL/MUC first ;) ;)

On a similar theme...
When will air cash gamble pay off?
Flight team flies off

The JK site is baffling. Is there a technical reason why you can't buy fares ex LHR or DUB or is it just incompetence? Finding consolidated fares for JK isn't easy, as earlier threads have mentioned.

Interesting articles. But is the Scotsman trustworthy, given the folk behind it... :D Oh mon petit, what glorious publicity indeed... :D ;)

Maybe I'll start actually buying the Scotsman now. Or wait, didn't you promise to provide a free subscription to a leading 'educational' publication sometime between the 5th and 9th beer at the 'london Do'... Or am I confusing things with some other publication... :D :p

So you did. I should get my eyesight checked and probably a pair of glasses. ah, vanity... ;)