nordic

AY has entered into a vicious circle. Do they really think that they will be a succesful carrier between Europe and Asia, if they concentrate in cities like London and Paris and Tokyo and Shanghai (rumours about closingg Seou and Delhi). Middle Eastern carriers fly from cities like Birmingham, Dublin, Zagreb and Sofia to a plethora of Asian cities (ok, not the best routing to Northeast Asia). This in combination with a poor FF programme, lower and lower inflight service, European connection with Embraers with no blocked seats and a lottery of good lie-flat seats in the wide-body fleet. There are opportunities. With a better timetable they could pick up a lot of AA passengers now that AA is closing ORD-DEL. Combine the summer ORD route, JFK and move the YYZ flights to the same wave with a proper equipment. And voila, even demand to IEV would be enough for that route to stay. Well, without knowing the facts and figures it is easy to advise the others.

OH-LGG

Source for AY closing ICN + DEL and AA closing ORD-HEL ?

Oho, it was DEL not HEL. My bad.

NoWindowSeat

Just take a look at the load factors on these routes + continuous cheap offers...it's not rocket science to do the math..not enough J pax on either route , simple as that..most of Y pax are making losses to legacy airlines anyway..w/o J pax and/or cargo it just won't make sense..

I have no official sources but should these happen...a surprise? Hardly..

NoWindowSeat

It's a very good point..their FF program is attractive only to people who fly only or at least mostly AY (and AY is wayyy to small airline for such..) with very expensive tickets and their LH product is a total hit and miss, both hard and soft..SH is more and more LCC style every day...I really cannot see any way for AY to survive on their current path...they'd really need some airline expert to run the company, not some already super rich former IT guy who has most likely very little ambition to take AY to next level, just focusing on his personal/management team bonuses and trying to make it profitable via cost cutting route rather than putting emphasis on quality and service...it's shame how good plan can be implemented so poorly..

ffay005

Couldn't have said it better myself. It's sad, though, because there are many things about AY that I actually like (or liked; some of them are long (or not so long) gone already).

mosburger

I think the fact that even LH is outsourcing shorthaul flights from/to STR to Germanwings tells something about the current market conditions there.

Not sure how the AY relationship with AB is at the moment after the Etihad sidestep but wouldn't it make most sense to completely transfer the German feeder flights to Air Berlin? Probably they could also take over flights to Austria, Switzerland as well as France, The Iberian Peninsula and Italy.

Not all of those have to be nonstop, if STR - HEL can't be flown with a profit then a STR - DUS/TXL - HEL feeder can do as long as transit is seamless.

Only have to look at American carriers to see how the European short and medium haul market is going to be. Less direct connections outside of major hubs, paid food & beverages and other service and generally flexible pricing in both directions.

Inside Oneworld that means BA longhaul First for the premium Moscow market, LCC type offerings for stingy Germans and Scandinavians and everything inbetween.

intuition

It would make sense, but I think they already started to move feeder flights to flybe. Latest is HEL-GVA wich will soon be flybe only.
Maybe another sign of AB not going all the way with OW?

intuition

Actually they seem to increase frequency to PRG and BUD (while cancelling PSA and LIS). I guess these are only seasonal routes, but it is not a complete walk-over in central europe, right?

mkgrip

Keeping in mind that only a fraction of AY business is to/from HEL, wouldn't a double connection pretty much eliminate the advantage AY gets from HEL's geographical position.

Otherwise I do understand the need for outsourcing with the AY cost structure, and if the unions let them, I wouldn't be surprised to see all the E170:s in FlyBe colors some day.

mosburger

Codeshares to an important business destination like Stuttgart have to be organized somehow anyway. Enough demand from Asia and also point-to-point to warrant that, IMHO.

Generally, however, the ground experience on AY flights from and to Germany is really poor. Once on the plane it gets a lot better if flying in business.

But I would not be surprised if business travellers at STR were fed up with disinterested outsourced check-in & ticketing staff, second grade lounges and the constant bus gates and distant stand positions at any German airport AY flies to. Most of the competition does a far better job regarding ground services.

They just have to be careful to leave some differentiation from the LCC competition. The current Air Berlin service level, which on European routes is actually better than Finnair economy would be a good benchmark.

intuition

One A340 will do a new thursday rotation to DXB, leaving in 0945, returning just after midnight.

Any guess where this plane is coming from? I didn't think there was capacity.

Also, as this is a 757-route (one class, I presume?), adding J-seats to the route on a thursday would serve what purpose? Or is it just that there is a 340 available, and this is putting it to decent use?

OH-LGG

You mean DXB, right?

Capacity is taken from axed SIN on day 3.

I'm not sure yet is there C class on AY965/966. I made dummy booking (Y) and rows 6 + 7 were available. And no access to rows 1-5 with C bookingclass.

NoWindowSeat

I bet there is not..doesn't make any sense to offer proper LH J 1 day per week with all the rest being served by the worst possible metal in the fleet.

Some big charter deal which uses most of the capasity for 7 day long trips - that's my bet..maybe the tour operator sells comfort class or something..

intuition

Aha, yes that fits the temporary SIN reduction. Maybe we can expect some other odd medium haul destination soon to be announced for fridays and sundays...

SIN is the difficult destination as an outgoing plane won't be back in HEL and ready to go out again in less than 24h. According to flightradar, many days that aircraft is on the ground in HEL (between 06:20 and 23:50) doing nothing.

Sometimes the planes are in a pattern where they go to NRT in the afternoon (which explains AY's love of these cumbersome day flights - they help utilize the fleet)


flightstats seems to think there is J-availability on the 340 and none on the 75W but AY booking engine won't allow searches for J-seats on the route at all.

intuition

AY is placing AY code on AB metal, starting 28 oct:

OSL, GOT, ARN CPH to Berlin
CPH to Düsseldorf.
Düsseldorf and Berlin to Abu Dhabi