Air Routes Quietly Dropped

[willstain]

Very quietly last year Manx2 cut their daily service to STN down to twice weekly and then pulled the plug, no announcement was made. This month Aer Arann have pulled the plug on the LTN route completely after cutting it from double daily to a daily flight for the winter schedule. Lack of competition will always result in higher prices and lack of communications has far reaching effects on the business community, the local ecconomy and the community at large. We can only wait and see what flyBe does when it takes over BA Connect, in the past it has dropped routes to the IOM as it changed its strategy from operating business led routes to low cost regional routing. It would be great if they took a fresh look at the IOM and linked it to their hubs around the UK offering low fares to their many onward destinations.

[Pragmatopian]

Airlines are businesses - if they were making money on a route, they would keep it open. It's especially difficult for smaller airlines to ride out slow months.

 

Although we're told the passenger figures through Ronaldsway hit an all-time high last year, in relative terms it is still quite a small airport, serving quite a small and unpredictable market. Hence, limited services and high prices.

[Lonan3]

In other words, they need to invest in appropriate aircraft....

[thesultanofsheight]

If passenger numbers are forever escalating at Ronaldsway why are a record number of airlines pulling routes and pulling out all together? Are there secret CIA flights arriving all through the night we know nothing about? Have half of Al Quaida gone through Ronaldsway en route to prison in Pakistan?

 

You can hardly fly to anywhere now, so how are so many people moving through Ronaldsway?

[Pragmatopian]

If passenger numbers are forever escalating at Ronaldsway why are a record number of airlines pulling routes and pulling out all together? Are there secret CIA flights arriving all through the night we know nothing about? Have half of Al Quaida gone through Ronaldsway en route to prison in Pakistan?

 

You can hardly fly to anywhere now, so how are so many people moving through Ronaldsway?

 

Perhaps the number of routes served are down but the passenger volumes on the remaining routes are up?

[asitis]

But we must push ahead with the longer runway as the new CM said in Tynwald, we must throw more public money away. The runway as is can cope (legally) with the size of aircraft that need, and are economically viable to come here, if the small operators can't support routes, where are these myriad passengers coming from who will need larger operators ? !!

 

There are a huge amount of issues regarding the proposed extension that have been swept under the carpet.

[Manxie99]

The runway being extended is nothing to do with larger aircraft coming in its all about new safety restrictions in place by the CAA therefore if it was to remain the same size the landing area will become smaller and larger aircraft like the FlyBe Embraer will not be able to land safely therefore they wont send it!

[ans]

Very quietly last year Manx2 cut their daily service to STN down to twice weekly

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/isle_of_man/6185776.stm

 

Yes, quietly indeed.

[asitis]

The runway being extended is nothing to do with larger aircraft coming in its all about new safety restrictions in place by the CAA therefore if it was to remain the same size the landing area will become smaller and larger aircraft like the FlyBe Embraer will not be able to land safely therefore they wont send it!

 

There is nothing mandatory as yet about the runway runoffs, they are merely good practice recommendations from EASA. Southampton has roughly the same dimension runway in terms of ASDA, TORA and TODA and has no plans to extend it despite handling twice the number of passengers that Ronaldsway does. The Embraer was never designed as a short field commuter airliner and it only ever came here for service. Regrettably FlyBe are closing the service facility and Ronaldsway can be served by the Dash series of aircraft whose performance is perfectly suited to our runway. Spending millions to accommodate unnecessary aircraft types does not make financial sense particularly as this thread started with the difficulties of operating small aircraft on low utilisation routes. IMHO 30 million plus could be better spent elsewhere to the benefit of all.

[Manxie99]

There is nothing mandatory as yet about the runway runoffs, they are merely good practice recommendations from EASA. Southampton has roughly the same dimension runway in terms of ASDA, TORA and TODA and has no plans to extend it despite handling twice the number of passengers that Ronaldsway does. The Embraer was never designed as a short field commuter airliner and it only ever came here for service. Regrettably FlyBe are closing the service facility and Ronaldsway can be served by the Dash series of aircraft whose performance is perfectly suited to our runway. Spending millions to accommodate unnecessary aircraft types does not make financial sense particularly as this thread started with the difficulties of operating small aircraft on low utilisation routes. IMHO 30 million plus could be better spent elsewhere to the benefit of all.

 

Well at the moment the NEW FlyBe Embraer does actually come to the island on a tuesday to do the birmingham route and it struggles to stop with a full load, perfectly safe at the moment but if the new plan does come into effect, it wont be able to land anymore, and they cant use the dash 8 on all the routes to the isle of man if there expanding its service lie they say they are. The ronaldsway base isn't closed yet and it makes sense for flybe to keep it or sell it to euromanx! The Maintanence base would be useless without the runway extension as Flybe would sell it if their A/C couldnt land here! Makes sense to expand! Direct holidays sell fast in the summer!!!

[willstain]

Very quietly last year Manx2 cut their daily service to STN down to twice weekly

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/isle_of_man/6185776.stm

 

Yes, quietly indeed.

 

They left the STN route on their web site long after they dropped it, at least Aer Arann removed the LTN route tout de suite.