VS moving to EDI?

[GKirk]

With Tui moving to Melbourne, for the Space Coast, GLA now has a gaping hole in the market with no service to Orlando. I'm struggling to see who is going to fill this space, as it is still an important part of the leisure market. Or, are Virgin taking a punt that all their regular users will take the M8 to still fly with them?

Maybe EK might see a gap in the market and offer DXB-GLA-MCO, unless they are about to move east too?

[atuk]

With Tui moving to Melbourne, for the Space Coast, GLA now has a gaping hole in the market with no service to Orlando. I'm struggling to see who is going to fill this space, as it is still an important part of the leisure market. Or, are Virgin taking a punt that all their regular users will take the M8 to still fly with them?

I suspect the latter, Piperone. If, as others say, this is an outbound market it’s finite and no scope for growth. EdI has not only taken a slice of the cake it’s grabbed the major part leavingGLA with the crumbs. That’s the result of not consolidating a route network of strong alliance partners. Skyteam AMS only, Star FRA only and Oneworld LHR. As you know multiple alliance carrier at a single airport is more attractive to secure routes. BA QR AY AA IB ; AF KL DL and now VS; UA LH LX SK all provide important hub connections as well as seemless disruption transfer. I well remember re routing my EDI AMS KUL customer to QR one Monday morning due to fog in AMS.

[Iain]

Not posted in over a year but I can't ignore this news!

If there was one carrier/route I thought was unlikely to go east it was VS.

On hearing about it I remembered something I read on the EDI route shop entry and I see it's still there:

http://www.therouteshop.com/profiles/edinburgh-airport/

35% (41.2k) of all passengers between Orlando and Glasgow (117,741) travelled to/from EDI catchment area (CAA Passenger Survey, 2015/16)

I realise these are somewhat old figures, but nevertheless I think it pretty much proves that this is NOT about VS moving to an airport with greater demand or moving to where their customers are. This is imo about EDI selling themselves as the airport for the whole of the central belt and airlines buying into it - as has been happening for more than a decade with little fightback from GLA (particularly latterly).

5 mins looking at the EDI site shows how comprehensive and well though out their transport links are, whilst in comparison GLA's transport links are little short of a joke - and that goes way beyond the lack of GARL! The fact that GLA management don't even appear to realise this, never mind have the strategic initiative to try to improve it, is damning.

It's a bit of a risk for VS imo because if most of their pax are from outside the EDI catchment then there's s risk the likes of EI could be drawn to start GLA to pick up those pax. Presumably VS and EDI think GLA management are too useless to win such business though, so they needn't worry! There quite clearly is significant demand from GLA to the USA (particularly FL) so there are opportunities there and if the management can't sell those opportunities then it just goes to show what many of us have been saying for years.

It's not just EDI that's doing better, it's English regionals too - Even NCL have now got an FR base! At the time we were told two of the main reasons that the GLA FR base was closed was that "small bases aren't profitable" and the old (and highly questionable imo) claim "not enough inbound" - Yet here FR are opening a small base at another UK city which the official stats tell us has vastly fewer foreign visitors than GLA. YRCMIU!

The reality for me is that I suspect EDI have GLA management completely dominated in practically every area - skills, expertise, finance etc and have done for quite some time. It's interesting to read those in the know are hearing similar things apparently. Unfortunately I think there's zero chance of a new owner so the only hope is that the ultimate owners of AGS start banging head together!

With the climate change conference this should be another opportunity for the city to showcase itself to the world, attract more investment and visitors and improve even more on it's already excellent reputation for conferences and events. The airport in turn should be able to make hay off the back of this but instead they're the weak link in the chain and they'll probably just continue to haemorrhage business, which could have the knock on effect of damaging investment and jobs throughout the city region - totally unacceptable imo.

[Clive]

Not posted in over a year but I can't ignore this news!

If there was one carrier/route I thought was unlikely to go east it was VS.

On hearing about it I remembered something I read on the EDI route shop entry and I see it's still there:

http://www.therouteshop.com/profiles/edinburgh-airport/

35% (41.2k) of all passengers between Orlando and Glasgow (117,741) travelled to/from EDI catchment area (CAA Passenger Survey, 2015/16)

I realise these are somewhat old figures, but nevertheless I think it pretty much proves that this is NOT about VS moving to an airport with greater demand or moving to where their customers are. This is imo about EDI selling themselves as the airport for the whole of the central belt and airlines buying into it - as has been happening for more than a decade with little fightback from GLA (particularly latterly).

5 mins looking at the EDI site shows how comprehensive and well though out their transport links are, whilst in comparison GLA's transport links are little short of a joke - and that goes way beyond the lack of GARL! The fact that GLA management don't even appear to realise this, never mind have the strategic initiative to try to improve it, is damning.

It's a bit of a risk for VS imo because if most of their pax are from outside the EDI catchment then there's s risk the likes of EI could be drawn to start GLA to pick up those pax. Presumably VS and EDI think GLA management are too useless to win such business though, so they needn't worry! There quite clearly is significant demand from GLA to the USA (particularly FL) so there are opportunities there and if the management can't sell those opportunities then it just goes to show what many of us have been saying for years.

It's not just EDI that's doing better, it's English regionals too - Even NCL have now got an FR base! At the time we were told two of the main reasons that the GLA FR base was closed was that "small bases aren't profitable" and the old (and highly questionable imo) claim "not enough inbound" - Yet here FR are opening a small base at another UK city which the official stats tell us has vastly fewer foreign visitors than GLA. YRCMIU!

The reality for me is that I suspect EDI have GLA management completely dominated in practically every area - skills, expertise, finance etc and have done for quite some time. It's interesting to read those in the know are hearing similar things apparently. Unfortunately I think there's zero chance of a new owner so the only hope is that the ultimate owners of AGS start banging head together!

With the climate change conference this should be another opportunity for the city to showcase itself to the world, attract more investment and visitors and improve even more on it's already excellent reputation for conferences and events. The airport in turn should be able to make hay off the back of this but instead they're the weak link in the chain and they'll probably just continue to haemorrhage business, which could have the knock on effect of damaging investment and jobs throughout the city region - totally unacceptable imo.

I don’t think GLA’s management have put a foot right since Amanda left.

My only hope for positive change is that we retain what we have left and get a Ryanair base.

There’s no point in folks comparing GLA to EDI. That ship sailed about 20 years ago.

[Ekally1]

I think we need a takeover ... fresh pair of eyes , new objectives and ideas and some urgency might go a long way ... Team GLA are stuck in a rut and dont know how to adjust ...

[awwdabaaby]

I think we need a takeover ... fresh pair of eyes , new objectives and ideas and some urgency might go a long way ... Team GLA are stuck in a rut and dont know how to adjust ...

I'm here and waiting

[PiperOne]

I think we need a takeover ... fresh pair of eyes , new objectives and ideas and some urgency might go a long way ... Team GLA are stuck in a rut and dont know how to adjust ...

I'm here and waiting

What we don't know is whether Virgin gave the airport a heads up that this was in the cards, as part of a strategic move by Delta to focus all their activities in one place, and therefore the decision was out of Virgin's hands. The GLA service was highly successful over the years since starting in 2007, and generally growing, particularly with the involvement of Virgin Holidays, so presumably the holiday arm is on board with this. It will be interesting to see what level this develops to, given the capacity of the 747s.

Unfortunately I can't see any alternative provider that GLA could turn to in order to maintain an Orlando service, as Tui is very much an in-house charter operation now being geared to feeding its cruise ships.

[Ekally1]

Think the simple way to put team GLA overall is leaderless ... needs strong leaders , go getters , think out the box ... said years ago about this management team , dont take pleasure saying i was right ...

[Iain]

What we don't know is whether Virgin gave the airport a heads up that this was in the cards, as part of a strategic move by Delta to focus all their activities in one place, and therefore the decision was out of Virgin's hands. The GLA service was highly successful over the years since starting in 2007, and generally growing, particularly with the involvement of Virgin Holidays, so presumably the holiday arm is on board with this. It will be interesting to see what level this develops to, given the capacity of the 747s.

Unfortunately I can't see any alternative provider that GLA could turn to in order to maintain an Orlando service, as Tui is very much an in-house charter operation now being geared to feeding its cruise ships.

If, as others have said, they were given a heads up and opportunity to counter offer and failed then it's awful and just suggests that they're financially dominated.

From the CAA stats, GLA-MCO+SFB direct in 2019 was about 91k and in 2018 was about 111k. This interview:

https://www.anna.aero/2019/04/03/glasgo ... -scotland/

quotes 50k indirects to MCO in 2018, so total market in 2018 about 160k, guessing maybe 130-140k in 2019. If we take away the 30-40k claimed by EDI route shop entry to be EDI catchment then about 100-110k. In comparison the EDI pax using GLA (about 40k) plus indirects (48k claimed) then EDI-MCO about 90k top end. So GLA is very likely the bigger market - and a market that deserves service.

I don't believe MCO (from either airport) is finite and not expandable. I've seen Visitscotland research that named FL as the number 1 state of origin for US visitors to Scotland. Unfortunately VS didn't seem very interested in promoting the GLA service - I've lost count of how many people from FL I've come across who weren't aware of the service. It will be very annoying if VS now start promoting EDI heavily in FL.

Wrt we had about 190k direct to the USA in 2019 and nearly 240k in 2018. Plus GLA claiming in 2018 55k indirects to NYC, 50k to MCO and 25k to BOS, which would suggest that total indirects to USA may were well over 100k and perhaps could be nearing 200k. Also tourism stats showed Glasgow with big rises in US visitors before covid, iirc 3rd most visited in UK. GLA-MCO and GLA-USA in general is a market that should be served and if GLA can't get any more/replacement service they're clearly not up to it imo.

Imo this is clearly an opportunity for EI, but its perhaps unlikely to be possible by next summer. EK are interesting, but I think there are a lot of issues in that one including logistics and seasonality - but it could certainly give VS something to think about!

That said, do GLA have people to pull off a deal with these airlines? Probably not.......

[PiperOne]

What we don't know is whether Virgin gave the airport a heads up that this was in the cards, as part of a strategic move by Delta to focus all their activities in one place, and therefore the decision was out of Virgin's hands. The GLA service was highly successful over the years since starting in 2007, and generally growing, particularly with the involvement of Virgin Holidays, so presumably the holiday arm is on board with this. It will be interesting to see what level this develops to, given the capacity of the 747s.

Unfortunately I can't see any alternative provider that GLA could turn to in order to maintain an Orlando service, as Tui is very much an in-house charter operation now being geared to feeding its cruise ships.

If, as others have said, they were given a heads up and opportunity to counter offer and failed then it's awful and just suggests that they're financially dominated.

From the CAA stats, GLA-MCO+SFB direct in 2019 was about 91k and in 2018 was about 111k. This interview:

https://www.anna.aero/2019/04/03/glasgo ... -scotland/

quotes 50k indirects to MCO in 2018, so total market in 2018 about 160k, guessing maybe 130-140k in 2019. If we take away the 30-40k claimed by EDI route shop entry to be EDI catchment then about 100-110k. In comparison the EDI pax using GLA (about 40k) plus indirects (48k claimed) then EDI-MCO about 90k top end. So GLA is very likely the bigger market - and a market that deserves service.

I don't believe MCO (from either airport) is finite and not expandable. I've seen Visitscotland research that named FL as the number 1 state of origin for US visitors to Scotland. Unfortunately VS didn't seem very interested in promoting the GLA service - I've lost count of how many people from FL I've come across who weren't aware of the service. It will be very annoying if VS now start promoting EDI heavily in FL.

Wrt we had about 190k direct to the USA in 2019 and nearly 240k in 2018. Plus GLA claiming in 2018 55k indirects to NYC, 50k to MCO and 25k to BOS, which would suggest that total indirects to USA may were well over 100k and perhaps could be nearing 200k. Also tourism stats showed Glasgow with big rises in US visitors before covid, iirc 3rd most visited in UK. GLA-MCO and GLA-USA in general is a market that should be served and if GLA can't get any more/replacement service they're clearly not up to it imo.

Imo this is clearly an opportunity for EI, but its perhaps unlikely to be possible by next summer. EK are interesting, but I think there are a lot of issues in that one including logistics and seasonality - but it could certainly give VS something to think about!

That said, do GLA have people to pull off a deal with these airlines? Probably not.......

There's also nothing in the market to replace Thomas Cook's capacity, I would have thought VS would have been eyeing it up, but only doing 2 a week suggests they see a big downturn in the Florida market, given that pre-pandemic in 2019 we had round 5 a week combined. Perhaps looking at selling on Delta as well to help fill their flights.

Either way, GLA has yet another mountain to climb.