Fly Atlantic plans transatlantic flights from Belfast International

[hads]

Its a sorry state of affairs that contributers on here are contemplating a hypotheical start up in Belfast as a positive for Glasgow Airport. I appreciate little is happening on the positive news front , however, isnt it just a glaring example of how far the Business has fallen? I cringe when I see Glasgow Airport adverts for Lufthansa nd KLM extolling the virtues with " connect to the world".
It really is all a bit depressing .

[Clive]

Its a sorry state of affairs that contributers on here are contemplating a hypotheical start up in Belfast as a positive for Glasgow Airport. I appreciate little is happening on the positive news front , however, isnt it just a glaring example of how far the Business has fallen? I cringe when I see Glasgow Airport adverts for Lufthansa nd KLM extolling the virtues with " connect to the world".
It really is all a bit depressing .

Clearly egpfeqtv thinks there’s no market from GLA but this business model brings through people who never set foot landslide at GLA and count as 4 heads on a return journey. Without wasting any time on this, the pax mix over the entire operation could be about 1/3 each of Scottish, European and North American pax. So we are only looking for a third of a plane load of West of Scotland locals on each sector and we are talking about on flights from GLA to the likes of New York and Pisa. If we can’t do that then there’s no point in having an airport.

[Iain]

Obviously I am bias but you would think that GLA is physically set up far better for that sort of operation. Far more space is the main thing, BFS is a tiny terminal and it's not a great space to be in.

This is the point for me. I think GLA is better set up for this operation and, although I realise it's aimed mainly at connecting traffic, the O&D numbers for GLA to most destinations are probably larger than fro BFS. Glasgow has more foreign tourists than Belfast and iirc higher disposal income in the city region.

I think GLA/Scotland is also probably somewhat more attractive for people who want stopovers.

It's notable that the people involved say they weren't necessarily set on BFS as the hub from the off and considered "many options throughout the UK and Ireland". If GLA wasn't pitching for this potentially game changing business, then why not? If they pitched and failed then that's surely another huge failure by GLA management.

We talk about GLA struggling to compete with EDI and the reasons for that, but here it is apparently failing to compete with BFS (not just for this, FR have recently announced a base there too) What castle and medieval old town does Belfast have exactly?

[kenneth1]

I seem to recall that quite a few years ago Icelandair considered using Glasgow for a hub type operation but opted not to pursue it.

[egpffqtv]

Its a sorry state of affairs that contributers on here are contemplating a hypotheical start up in Belfast as a positive for Glasgow Airport. I appreciate little is happening on the positive news front , however, isnt it just a glaring example of how far the Business has fallen? I cringe when I see Glasgow Airport adverts for Lufthansa nd KLM extolling the virtues with " connect to the world".
It really is all a bit depressing .

Clearly egpfeqtv thinks there’s no market from GLA but this business model brings through people who never set foot landslide at GLA and count as 4 heads on a return journey. Without wasting any time on this, the pax mix over the entire operation could be about 1/3 each of Scottish, European and North American pax. So we are only looking for a third of a plane load of West of Scotland locals on each sector and we are talking about on flights from GLA to the likes of New York and Pisa. If we can’t do that then there’s no point in having an airport.

Where exactly did I say that there’s no market from GLA or that this model wouldn’t work here?

What I was ridiculing was the fact that someone was going to completely waste their time on a pointless exercise and that there’s little else up for discussion in this forum given the lack of Ops at GLA having lost most of it to EDI.

[Clive]

Its a sorry state of affairs that contributers on here are contemplating a hypotheical start up in Belfast as a positive for Glasgow Airport. I appreciate little is happening on the positive news front , however, isnt it just a glaring example of how far the Business has fallen? I cringe when I see Glasgow Airport adverts for Lufthansa nd KLM extolling the virtues with " connect to the world".
It really is all a bit depressing .

Clearly egpfeqtv thinks there’s no market from GLA but this business model brings through people who never set foot landslide at GLA and count as 4 heads on a return journey. Without wasting any time on this, the pax mix over the entire operation could be about 1/3 each of Scottish, European and North American pax. So we are only looking for a third of a plane load of West of Scotland locals on each sector and we are talking about on flights from GLA to the likes of New York and Pisa. If we can’t do that then there’s no point in having an airport.

Where exactly did I say that there’s no market from GLA or that this model wouldn’t work here?

What I was ridiculing was the fact that someone was going to completely waste their time on a pointless exercise and that there’s little else up for discussion in this forum given the lack of Ops at GLA having lost most of it to EDI.

That doesn’t make any sense.

[egpffqtv]

Clearly egpfeqtv thinks there’s no market from GLA but this business model brings through people who never set foot landslide at GLA and count as 4 heads on a return journey. Without wasting any time on this, the pax mix over the entire operation could be about 1/3 each of Scottish, European and North American pax. So we are only looking for a third of a plane load of West of Scotland locals on each sector and we are talking about on flights from GLA to the likes of New York and Pisa. If we can’t do that then there’s no point in having an airport.

Where exactly did I say that there’s no market from GLA or that this model wouldn’t work here?

What I was ridiculing was the fact that someone was going to completely waste their time on a pointless exercise and that there’s little else up for discussion in this forum given the lack of Ops at GLA having lost most of it to EDI.

That doesn’t make any sense.

Makes perfect sense to me.

[Paris]

I seem to recall that quite a few years ago Icelandair considered using Glasgow for a hub type operation but opted not to pursue it.

I haven’t the link to what was said at the time, but just to comment on what you’ve written (not saying it’s not so) just an addition: Icelandair said at the time of the ‘Volcanic Ash’ incident when most of their fleet at some point were going through GLA. They criticised GLA’s set up, infrastructure, ability & want as to be able to run as a transit-hub operation. They said at the time that they were disappointed & surprised that GLA wasn’t able to even remotely meet their expectations… Maybe someone else can provide the actual wording, but it was said & written.

The only (close to) quote I can remember was: ‘GLA has some work to do to meet our expectations of a transit hub’

[Clive]

I seem to recall that quite a few years ago Icelandair considered using Glasgow for a hub type operation but opted not to pursue it.

I haven’t the link to what was said at the time, but just to comment on what you’ve written (not saying it’s not so) just an addition: Icelandair said at the time of the ‘Volcanic Ash’ incident when most of their fleet at some point were going through GLA. They criticised GLA’s set up, infrastructure, ability & want as to be able to run as a transit-hub operation. They said at the time that they were disappointed & surprised that GLA wasn’t able to even remotely meet their expectations… Maybe someone else can provide the actual wording, but it was said & written.

The only (close to) quote I can remember was: ‘GLA has some work to do to meet our expectations of a transit hub’

Anyone?

I never saw anything like that. I seem to recall Icelandair were pleased they could carry on their ops at GLA when it came to ‘any port in a storm’.

Anyway, if a set up like this was coming to GLA obviously there would need to be alterations to accommodate it.

[Paris]

I seem to recall that quite a few years ago Icelandair considered using Glasgow for a hub type operation but opted not to pursue it.

I haven’t the link to what was said at the time, but just to comment on what you’ve written (not saying it’s not so) just an addition: Icelandair said at the time of the ‘Volcanic Ash’ incident when most of their fleet at some point were going through GLA. They criticised GLA’s set up, infrastructure, ability & want as to be able to run as a transit-hub operation. They said at the time that they were disappointed & surprised that GLA wasn’t able to even remotely meet their expectations… Maybe someone else can provide the actual wording, but it was said & written.

The only (close to) quote I can remember was: ‘GLA has some work to do to meet our expectations of a transit hub’

Anyone?

I never saw anything like that. I seem to recall Icelandair were pleased they could carry on their ops at GLA when it came to ‘any port in a storm’.

Anyway, if a set up like this was coming to GLA obviously there would need to be alterations to accommodate it.

As at the time, my take from his/their comments was ‘There is work to be done’… I recall comments made re: Gate #27 being the only viable facility that was transit ready … I’m struggling for exact quotations: It was sometime ago & ive no idea how to recover the content.