Wouldn't such an approach potentially impact transfer traffic? The reduced number of shorthaul flights would mean some people having to wait longer in London for their onward flight meaning they might look at another airline with a shorter flight connection.

So, I can't see it working unless it was imposed at a European level.

But this assumes that you can carry the same number of pax by replacing 3 flights at 8.00am 10.30am and 1pm by a single flight at, say, 9am, with 3 times the capacity and that the same number of pax being carried in total.

Of course, this is totally unrealistic. The person who was planning to take the 1pm flight to connect to a long-haul at 4pm is not going to take the 9am flight and spend all day savouring the delights of the lounge or of the terminal. They will fly with somebody else who offers a better schedule, allowing them to do their morning's work at the office or whatever else they had to do that morning and fly in the afternoon.

Thinking from an airline point of view, if the hub idea is so important (which is it to an extent), then does it matter so much where that hub is? Not at all. It's merely a stepping stone to somewhere else. Dubai isn't that popular of a destination, you know! :D

One thing that I keep thinking of are when attempts to start a JFK flight from STN were made. Initially CO which was scuppered by 9/11 and then AA several years later. The problem with that is that it relied on O/D traffic.

If BA were to bite the bullet and invest money into a new hub with a few key routes, JFK, CDG, MAD, FRA etc. and market it well, it may very well work. I've always felt that the lack of will behind any of these things shows through lacklustre marketing. Tell people they want it! Try and split the loads on the airports. If someone wants to go to CDG from JFK on BA does it matter if it's LHR, STN, LGW or BHX? If the on ground facilities are good, as well as the price, then market it as a real, serious option. Furthermore, the latest generation aircraft like the 787 would certainly help viability on the long haul sectors.

Why shouldn't a true secondary hub work? (LGW as it is doesn't count)

Now you are being silly and creating a totally unrealistic example :rolleyes:

You are suggesting an A319 sized aircraft is replaced by a 777 and a A320 is replaced by a 747 sized aircraft. On short haul routes of <1-2 hours. Because that is about the ratio of x3.

Would you like to contribute something more realistic?

BA would never do it. You would probably need at least 5 based aircraft to do the European shuttles and bring in decent numbers - actually nearer 10 to make it viable. When the MAN -> JFK service did exist, it was timed in such a way that all the feeder services from BACON only arrived after that service had left. Perhaps with FlyBE there could be BA code shares from Manchester so they just need the long haul aircraft.

People will say though that they need to frequency from London to be viable for businesses - and I could see London travellets saying it would not be acceptable for someone to go to LHR -> MAN -> XXX

NGBTS.

I am also suggesting that on x airlines BHX flights, they reduce the taxes like fuel surcharge. So its cheaper to fly through BHX than Heathrow. If you want to land and go into London, its an hour to Euston on the train. If high speed rail is introduced and correctly priced, 45mintues.

I do agree under this management team, BA would never do it..

Gee. Some people can be so literal and pedantic. I am sorry if I overestimated your capacity for abstraction and for extracting an idea out of an illustration, so I suppose I need to be far more direct and precise:

Is it you contention that, on a given route, the load factor and therefore the number of passenger carried is purely a function of the total number of seats available and not affected by such factors as frequency, timing of flights, and, where the passenger is connecting to another flight, the connection time between the first flight and the connecting flight so that an airline can change from a high frequency with low capacity aircrafts service to a low frequency with high capacity aircrafts and carry exactly the same total number of passengers on the route?

No it isn't. I simply responded to your post and specific reference to 3 flights being replaced by one that had 3x the capacity. I (nor anyone else) ever suggested that, but for you to use that as an example was attempting to portray that was what was being suggested.

So can you provide a better example please. And in a much shorter sentence that your one I have quoted :p

Exactly. Doing it halfheartedly isn't going to make it work - it needs to be a robust operation. I too fear BA wouldn't even touch the idea with a bargepole.


I'm not suggesting an additional hub would focus around flying out of LHR to connect. Another hub, in my mind, would supplement anything at LHR. Where there is a lot a frequency, such as JFK and CDG, you could cut some flights from LHR and use the slots for new routes and in turn replace the lost JFK an CDG flights at the new hub - with the option to add additional frequencies in the future. It's a case of displacing some of the passengers that would connect through LHR, to free up LHR for other markets. You also obviously benefit by being more conveniently located for people in other areas of the UK.

For example:

Cut 1 JFK flight and 2 CDG flights from LHR. Gain 3 pairs of slots.

Add 2 JFK flights and 3 CDG flights to the new hub. Create growth with additional flights at a hub that is cheaper to operate and with more economical aircraft such as the 787 on the JFK rotations.

Use the newly opened slots at LHR for flights to increase capacity (and frequency) on HKG and open new dailies to ICN and KIX (For example).

Obviously it wouldn't just work with JFK and CDG as the only routes, but you get the idea.

In that case, your statement that is unsound since it is premised, unless I have missed something, on the notion that reducing frequencies and augmenting capacity is neutral on the number of pax carried. If it is not neutral, if decreasing frequency results in fewer pax being carried (or in yields having to decrease to entice more pax), your argument falls apart, imo. It may well be that a new point of equilibrium can be found, but it may equally not be found or not at a point that results in sufficient profit for the airline, resulting in the route having to be abandoned.

I agree with you 100% - it needs a willing airline, a willing airport with capacity and a willing government (to reduce APD as per the BFS example) as you need to implement the "wave" concept as EK have done so succesfully out of DXB. You can probably find the airport, the other two would be more difficult...

It would be feasible - but I can never see it happening within the UK - unfortunately.

NGBTS.

Thats better. The point is, BA have some choices to make because even if R3 gets the go-ahead today, it won't be open for a minimum of 7-10 years.

So if they want to open up lucrative new routes to China and India etc without any more capacity becoming available, one option is to drop one rotation from a heavy frequency route and use slightly larger aircraft on the two adjacent services for example - if they feel they won't lose to many pax by doing that. By slightly larger I mean an A320 in place of an A319 and an A321 in place of an A320. Those sort of adjustments, not dropping 3x rotations for an aircraft 3x larger!

A little tweaking and adjusting here and there could open up a few extra slots per day. But of course only BA can decide whether opening up a new India or China route is more lucrative by dropping / consolidating one daily rotation to one or number of high frequency CDG, AMS, FRA, MAN, EDI, GLA, DUS, BRU etc.

But as I said, a small tweak here and there on some high frequency routes is but one option to create more slots. And at the end of the day the market, ie the paying pax will vote with their feet and if they can't travel to these new destinations with BA vias LHR they will go to other less constrained hubs :)

Sorry, what is the wave concept?

I think it is as in "waves" of flights with connecting pax coming in at or around the same time to coincide with key services going out. So maybe an EK example would be flights arriving into DXB from places like LHR, MAN, CDG, FRA etc within 1-2 hours of key onward connnecting services to Australia, India or Hong-Kong.

Think the USA calls it "banks" of flights.