KARFA

Very true. LBA never really worked for point to point and was heavily reliant on transfers, MAN does point to point bit more due to better transport links to the airport and better frequencies. HS2 is still a long way off going north of Birmingham though, and there have been recent comments about cost cutting and whether the spur to Leeds could be binned.

CirrusDesAigles

Absolutely.

LBA still at a huge disadvantage in that it is a complete pain in the M62 to get to. We live 22 miles from LBA but we would always fly from either MAN (40 miles) or LPL (57 miles) over LBA as once you leave the motorway, it's a torturous journey on poor roads and driving in Bradford is not for the faint hearted.

DYKWIA

That's a very London centric view...

Why would anyone at MAN want to get a train to LHR just to get an a BA plane? There are far better options direct, or via one stops that don't involve LHR.

ISTFlyer

Indeed, I'll agree with this comment.

MAN is a strategic airport and the LHR-MAN route would be feasible only with transfer passengers themselves.
In a situation where the ME3 and European carriers are flying multiple daily flights to MAN, BA would definitely lose customers heading to MAN.

If BA suspends this route and adds a codeshare train service instead, I doubt that people would use BA to/from MAN.
This is the same exact reason why Lufthansa is still operating FRA-DUS.

13901

Here's my 2p's worth: ante-Covid there were 7 flights a day to Manchester and MAN is, or at least was when I worked on the FLY migration, a high transfer volume station. One of the highest in the network, actually, both in terms of % of passengers and sheer number of people. The distance, as the crow flies, between the two cities is minor, less than 300 kilometres, half the distance between Rome and Milan for instance (and, one would argue, on less arduous terrain). It'd have been quite easy to put all those passengers on trains rather than planes, especially if done smartly (think like the baggage service on the HK Express, where you check in at Kowloon and never see the bag again until you reach your destination), and with integrated tickets like Lufthansa does in the Ruhr region. It'd have meant HS2 going through LHR and not through Old Oak common (or maybe partially), but it'd have removed a lot of planes and a lot of CO2 from the air, as well as increasing accessibility to intercontinental travel to other cities. It needn't be BA only, Virgin could finally have feeder to a lot of English cities and towns.

The Mancunian flier who wants to fly directly, or via AMS, or whatever could still do it. The Mancunian who wants to fly via LHR would hop on the train and the Mancunian who wants to go to London could still do the same. This would simply replace a lot of unnecessary, again in my view, planes from the air.

Jumbodriver

Air travel simply isn’t a big player between London and Manchester. By 0640 each morning Pre covid trains from Euston have already exceeded the whole days air capacity.

7 daily flights is about 1050 pax each way if every seat is filled. 1 HS2 train carries around 1000, and even existing Pendolinos carry 600. What frequency of service do you think could be justified between LHR and Manchester on that basis?

Are you really going to take the hourly path of a service from London to Liverpool to accommodate the at best 70 passengers per hour (16hr day) who want to travel between LHR and Manchester?

What is the energy efficiency of a high speed train carrying sub 10% of its capacity over an 80% full A320 anyway?

PGberkshire

Wait, you are saying we could have an integrated travel policy....and other countries do....shock!

NickB

I struggle to follow the logic of this. It seemed to be premised on running trains between Manchester and LHR exclusively for people flying onwards. But that is not how airports with train stations connected to long distance train services work. They serve the airport alongside other destinations, often including a more central station in the city the airport serves. That is how an integrated transport network works. So, the idea is not of trains running between Manchester and Heathrow to serve exclusively Heathrow passengers but trains between Manchester and London stopping at Heathrow as well. It may seem a strange idea to you but that is far from a strange idea in places like the Netherlands or Germany, among others.

13901

No, I'm not saying that.
What I was saying was that, instead of having the trains going out of Euston, through Old Oak Common and then up north, they could've gone through LHR and then progress up North. It could've been a full alternative to Old Oak common, or a different route, a bit like today Italo and Trenitalia can either stop at Milan Centrale or bypass it, stop at Rogoredo/Garibaldi and then continue using the urban "Passante". This would've allowed for further integration between plane and train but alas it seems that it wasn't required, much like it's not required to integrate between HS1 and HS2.
The Italian example, in this case, is quite enlightening in the wrong way: the local AV lines and airports are all in the wrong place because of, in some cases, orography (see FCO) but often because of lack of integrated vision and now there's a lot of faff going on trying to drive HS trains on busy commuter routes or pursuing pie-in-the-sky ideas like new lines. Which of course are expensive.

I know, shocker!

PGberkshire

the UK's 3 strategic transport assets (LHR, HS2, Crossrail) - terrible overlap/integration of these services

Hilarious

Jumbodriver

Old Oak Common provides an interchange with multiple cross city transport axes and long distance rail that will produce much more demand than Heathrow. Moving Old Oak to Heathrow will make the route longer and make say Canary Wharf, Richmond, Bristol or Abbey Wood further from HS2 and its national connectivity. That’s why HS2 expect nearly 50% of passengers to get off at Old Oak Common and not Euston. That simply wouldn’t be the case at Heathrow.

The only air passengers HS2 stands to lose by going via the Old Oak Common route is the tiny number of MAN to LHR pax who are actually travelling to the environs of LHR. Connecting pax will mostly stick with air (if available) and for everyone else HS2 to Old Oak provides more journey opportunities.

Heathrow cannot be made into a public transport hub, there simply isn’t space.

13901

It's all academic now because the decision has been made, but... it's not just Manchester. There could've been an effective (and, if done properly, almost seamless, including direct ticketing) transfer from the world to Birmingham, Liverpool, Crewe, Wigan, Sheffield, Leeds, York and further on, while freeing up capacity for more international services. It just feels like a missed opportunity, a one-chance to properly explore intermodality wasted; we'll have the main airport in the UK and the main HS service within 10 miles from one another... bit of a shame.

Jumbodriver

The Heathrow HS2 station was never going to be within the current airport footprint, so there was always going to be some form of rail transfer from the terminals.

The only thing that is different is that the interchange is now Elizabeth Line/HEX via Old Old Common not a people mover to a new station by the M4.

It will still be infinitely more convenient post HS2 to get the train from Heathrow to Wigan than fly. It will also be much much better than the driving/taxi option that many people take at the moment to avoid crossing London from Euston/Kings Cross to LHR.

BAeuro

The main reason LBA underperformed was because it was nearly 100% reliant on connections. Unlike most other destinations, there was no leisure/tourism traffic, no VFR and no real demand for P2P when trains are an easy substitute. Plus, MAN is not that far down the road.

I remember looking at the fares on the route in its last year of operation, and they were really quite cheap. I know this isn’t a true indicator but (from LHR) BA could charge a premium on other routes.

13901

What about the room next to the current HEX/Tube station in T5?

As for being infintely more conveniente to take the train from Heathrow to Wigan... allow me to be doubtful. There's a 1hr-fast train journey from Naples to Rome and, from there, a 30' journey on the FCO Express... but still people fly from Capodichino and transfer in Rome (or, rather, Frankfurt/Munich). The people of Wigan will continue to drive to their nearest airport and fly from there.