Iain wrote: ↑Thu Dec 05, 2024 9:26 am
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgvr5573v2o
Travel companies too are seeing evidence that something changed during those few weeks of football.
“The number of Germans visiting Edinburgh has increased by 156% year on year,” noted Mohit Joshi from travel company Skyscanner.
“What’s fascinating is that the Scottish fans brought warmth, kindness, and humour to Germany - qualities that the locals truly admired.
“This curiosity has sparked a growing interest in Scotland, reflected in the rising search queries.”
Visit Scotland anticipates a clearer picture of the impact next year, but they say that searches in Germany for Scotland as a holiday destination surged by 57% during the tournament itself.
You'd think those in charge at GLA could capitalise on this to get more flights to Germany - and at least get DUS and MUC operating again....
German tourists LOVE Scotland, even before the Tartan Army helped increase their interest in our country - fantastic ambassadors!
As many of you will know, we often see German registered cars (as well as many other EU registered cars all over Scotland). Thousands of German tourists come here by any manner of means. More importantly, they also fly here, bringing their bikes with them to go on cycling holidays, not forgetting those who go on walking holidays or perhaps those who just want to experience Scottish hospitality - anything from luxury to budget.
Regarding AGS capitalising on this increased demand, I was saying as much to Glasgow Airport/LH/EW/FR/U2 etc in social media posts WELL BEFORE the championships. They need(ed) to be engaging with Lufthansa/Eurowings/Ryanair to bring as much extra capacity as possible to GLA and capitalise on that going forward.
Granted LH did up-gauge a lot of flights to A321 during the tournament, and during the summer months and FR offered a few one-off flights.
You would like to hope that the airport would be working collaboratively with the local airline management (if such a thing exists any more), the airlines at HQ level, local chambers of commerce, Visit Scotland (heaven forbid), local councils, local Government as well as the likes of the SEC Campus etc. as well as the hundreds of Scottish inbound tourism providers there are out there.
Who knows, AGS may well have been talking to all these airlines already and may still be doing so, and we may well see new services announced in due course. Then again, pigs may fly.
I recall back in the 1990s (back before some of you on here were even born, or just kids), that LH would send their A300s and A310s FRA-GLA on occasion when they had large groups booked, there was high demand over the summer months or there were big conferences in the city. Back then they also had a city ticket office too. Ah, the good old days! Back then all of the collaboration mentioned above happened very much at a local level and was then sent higher up the various chains at the airline/airport/Chamber of Commerce, and I would very much like to think it continues to this day.
I travelled on the LH GLA-FRA-GLA lunchtime flights last month (also connected to & from the USA, seeing as we no longer have suitable direct flights from GLA. Believe me, I would have much preferred to have flown nonstop from GLA, but we are where we are. I wanted to travel from, and support my local airport rather than 'the big airport' as I like to call it and fly nonstop so I booked using one of the limited connections I had available to me on the dates I wanted to travel. Both GLA-FRA-GLA legs were pretty much 100% full in both classes. Emails were sent by LH the day before both flights asking passengers to consider checking in hand luggage for free (yes, I'm aware most airlines do this. I don't have the time (or inclination) to write a full trip report, but that's a potted summary of my most recent experience using LH from & to GLA. I also know a good few people who have used the 0600 outbound and 2200 inbound LH FRA services who all say the same thing - pretty much always, if not 100% full.
Some of my thoughts about potential service from Germany - GLA or vice versa:
FRA-GLA - I'm sure, that with the combination of airport & airline negotiation/FRA slots/suitable aircraft etc. that LH could offer extra rotations FRA-GLA-FRA (even if seasonally or on certain days of the week).
MUC/DUS-GLA - also a no brainer to get the service back to what we had before, or an increase.
BER - GLA - remember when we had daily EZY/FR from GLA? I used both of these on multiple occasions and again, I never had a flight that wasn't busy. Now look at the paltry offering we have.
HAM -GLA - I think this route would also do well, again even if seasonally or limited to certain days of the week.
AviAlliance - Perhaps the new
GERMAN owners of AGS, will have already realised this and already be working on capitalising on this demand, given that they also own DUS and HAM (as well as ATH and SJU). They will hopefully already be aware of the huge increase in demand by German tourists to Scotland and quickly introduce services to GLA from DUS & HAM, then we can hope that we can rebuild on services to BER and MUC. Then don't forget the business communities of west central Scotland and how much they too need these services, coupled with the businesses all over Germany, Europe and the wider world.
Given AviAlliance also own ATH, ATH-GLA, I'm sure that could also work, however SJU-GLA - not a chance but never say never!
I'm sure a lot of this has already been said by, posted by, or thought about by various other users of this forum, but that's my 2p worth for now.
I could go on and on about this (and my perceived failings of AGS) for ages & ages but I have a million and one things to do rather than be posting on here.
Right now I'm off to play on my Dudelsack (my favourite German word, us Google translate if you don't already know what a Dudelsack is) and direct my hot air there for now.
Have a pleasant day chaps/chapesses/however you choose to identify
