Delta Air Lines

[atuk]

I’ve been reading all the posts with great interest.

Firstly I would say there is a management issue at Glasgow. Behind every successful business lies good management, leadership and a dedicated, happy workforce. That was proven for decades by Southwest Airlines under Herb Kellacher; sadly under todays’s management it faces malaise, attack by private equity investors and a lack of passion for the job.

Glasgow did have a strong, committed and focused team and workforce but over recent years has lost key players and that has encouraged the competitor airport not only to sharpen its axe to ensure the demise of competing services by means of consolidation.

I also back Speedbird Julie’s comments regards the Scottish Parliament. Way back in 1998 I remember a BAA advert for a route development vacancy; not based in GLA the then Scottish HQ, but in EDI. I remember this as the then Personnel Manager was previously ina company who banked with the branch I worked in.

Glasgow does need Aer Lingus UK; I stated that in many previous posts. They also should be going after the leisure market big style. Westjet, JetBlue, Norwegian, WizzAir and Breeze are the companies they should be chasing as well as the return of a second daily EK flight. There is no magic formula which has taken the competitor airport to its present dominance: it is a business plan which has recognised the value of a large low cost base added to which there are traditional charter flights coupled with legacy scheduled business over many alliance carriers. This allows a mix to offset and protect revenue generation and increase profitability.

[Clive]

I’ve been reading all the posts with great interest.

Firstly I would say there is a management issue at Glasgow. Behind every successful business lies good management, leadership and a dedicated, happy workforce. That was proven for decades by Southwest Airlines under Herb Kellacher; sadly under todays’s management it faces malaise, attack by private equity investors and a lack of passion for the job.



Glasgow did have a strong, committed and focused team and workforce but over recent years has lost key players and that has encouraged the competitor airport not only to sharpen its axe to ensure the demise of competing services by means of consolidation.

It’s funny because some people insist it’s the managers and staff still here from the BAA days that are holding GLA back. Now those were the golden days. Which is it?

I also back Speedbird Julie’s comments regards the Scottish Parliament.

Yes well devolution could only be good for Scotland and we are half way to the full autonomy of a normal country but the location of the parliament is not what caused tourists to flock to Edinburgh. They want to go there because the old town is a picture postcard gem of a place and can often be visited as part of a wider tour of Scotland.

[atuk]

[quote=atuk post_id=14007 time=<a href="tel:1736289475">1736289475</a> user_id=75]
I’ve been reading all the posts with great interest.

Firstly I would say there is a management issue at Glasgow. Behind every successful business lies good management, leadership and a dedicated, happy workforce. That was proven for decades by Southwest Airlines under Herb Kellacher; sadly under todays’s management it faces malaise, attack by private equity investors and a lack of passion for the job.



Glasgow did have a strong, committed and focused team and workforce but over recent years has lost key players and that has encouraged the competitor airport not only to sharpen its axe but also to ensure the demise of competing services by means of consolidation.

It’s funny because some people insist it’s the managers and staff still here from the BAA days that are holding GLA back. Now those were the golden days. Which is it?

[quote=atuk post_id=14007 time=<a href="tel:1736289475">1736289475</a> user_id=75]

I also back Speedbird Julie’s comments regards the Scottish Parliament.


[/quote]

Yes well devolution could only be good for Scotland and we are half way to the full autonomy of a normal country but the location of the parliament is not what caused tourists to flock to Edinburgh. They want to go there because the old town is a picture postcard gem of a place and can often be visited as part of a wider tour of Scotland.
[/quote]

I should have made this clear. I’m not referring to BAA days but AGS under the stewardship of Amanda MacMillan and Team Glasgow who raised the airport profile, its business and increased connectivity. I didn’t see any of this under the invisible leadership of Andy Cliffe.

Regards devolution; the post specifically referred to a BAA created post at EDI. I personally think this sowed the seeds of EDI’s current dominance. One of my logs in the 1990s included an EDI Saturday visit with PiperOne where EDI was all AMS, CDG,LHR etc all the business routes against the numerous ALC, FAO, PMI services at GLA. The contrast between the two was obvious. One of the failures of GLA was not to consolidate IT operators en masse at GLA with all Scottish flying using GLA based aircraft operating W pattern flights to ABZ,BFS and EDI. That alone would have help prevent the numerous based aircraft at EDI bu EZY, LS and FR.

[Iain]

I should have made this clear. I’m not referring to BAA days but AGS under the stewardship of Amanda MacMillan and Team Glasgow who raised the airport profile, its business and increased connectivity. I didn’t see any of this under the invisible leadership of Andy Cliffs.

I'd agree, I think AM had a good record. I think WJ, DL and AC rouge were all attracted to GLA under her stewardship, so it's clearly possible. She also secured FR expansion.

It seemed to me that her departure from AGS was quite abrupt, so I wonder if there was some kind of falling out between her and AGS?

Andy Cliffe is positive and talks a good game, including many of the things AM used to push. Unfortunately he hasn't really backed this up with results.

Glasgow does need Aer Lingus UK; I stated that in many previous posts. They also should be going after the leisure market big style. Westjet, JetBlue, Norwegian, WizzAir and Breeze are the companies they should be chasing as well as the return of a second daily EK flight. There is no magic formula which has taken the competitor airport to its present dominance: it is a business plan which has recognised the value of a large low cost base added to which there are traditional charter flights coupled with legacy scheduled business over many alliance carriers. This allows a mix to offset and protect revenue generation and increase profitability.

It's a pretty clear and simple business plan - get as many cheap, direct flights as possible, drive down fares by encouraging competition and target the GLA catchment relentlessley - but it seems to have outwitted most of those who've been in charge at GLA over the years and they've been unable to come up with any tactics or strategies to counter it.

I think GLA needs any airline it can get tbh, but the ones you mention are a good start.

EI UK are a funny one. It seemed they were set up to try to counter DL/VS - and maybe Jetblue - in the UK regions, and when they were starting out I remember them inviting tenders from regional airports all across the UK, although they were always going to start out at MAN.

But since then they've not really expanded and they've shown no sign of going into other UK regionals - despite the fact that DL/VS and Jetblue are developing a significant operation in Scotland - something I thought EI UK were supposed to be combating!

[Clive]

I’ve found the info I needed earlier to reinforce a point I was making to Iain. At the time of Open Skies when I said EDI wasn’t in the game for the tx boom, in the season November 1999 to March 2000 EDI hosted exactly the following international schedules and barely any outbound IT charters.

AMS 6 daily KLM UK 100
BRU 3 daily SN ARJ/737
CPH daily BD 100 shared load with GLA but GLA also had a daily direct
DUB 3 daily EI 146
FRA 2 daily LH 100
CDG 3 daily AF 146 and 3 daily BA ER4
VIE 3 weekly VO EQV
ZRH daily LX S20

[egpffqtv]

I’ve found the info I needed earlier to reinforce a point I was making to Iain. At the time of Open Skies when I said EDI wasn’t in the game for the tx boom, in the season November 1999 to March 2000 EDI hosted exactly the following international schedules and barely any outbound IT charters.

AMS 6 daily UK 100
BRU 3 daily SN ARJ/737
CPH daily BD 100 shared load with GLA but GLA also had a daily direct
DUB 3 daily EI 146
FRA 2 daily LH 100
CDG 3 daily AF 146 and 3 daily BA ER4
VIE 3 weekly VO EQV
ZRH daily LX S20

Back in 1999, EZY were in their infancy, and they didn’t open their EDI base until 2003 so I wouldn’t have expected to see much more than what EDI gphad at the time.

FR didn’t open their base until 2014.

GLA should, in 2025, at the very least be aiming for what EDI had 25 years ago - BRU/CPH/VIE and ZRH glaring omissions from our current offerings!

[Iain]

AMS 6 daily UK 100
BRU 3 daily SN ARJ/737
CPH daily BD 100 shared load with GLA but GLA also had a daily direct
DUB 3 daily EI 146
FRA 2 daily LH 100
CDG 3 daily AF 146 and 3 daily BA ER4
VIE 3 weekly VO EQV
ZRH daily LX S20

GLA should, in 2025, at the very least be aiming for what EDI had 25 years ago - BRU/CPH/VIE and ZRH glaring omissions from our current offerings!
[/quote]

Yes, at that time GLA had 5 of those destinations and 25 years later - it only has 4! GLA has contrived to have less CPH (indeed Scandinavian) service than it had 25 years ago.

Not to mention a 3 or 4 dalily BRU service back then is now a 2x weekly seasonal service to CRL.

To address Clive's point, in my original post I was mainly referring to the last 20 years, during most of which both airports have had transatlantic service, which quite clearly proves that its possible.

[Clive]

AMS 6 daily UK 100
BRU 3 daily SN ARJ/737
CPH daily BD 100 shared load with GLA but GLA also had a daily direct
DUB 3 daily EI 146
FRA 2 daily LH 100
CDG 3 daily AF 146 and 3 daily BA ER4
VIE 3 weekly VO EQV
ZRH daily LX S20

GLA should, in 2025, at the very least be aiming for what EDI had 25 years ago - BRU/CPH/VIE and ZRH glaring omissions from our current offerings!

Yes, at that time GLA had 5 of those destinations and 25 years later - it only has 4! GLA has contrived to have less CPH (indeed Scandinavian) service than it had 25 years ago.

Not to mention a 3 or 4 dalily BRU service back then is now a 2x weekly seasonal service to CRL.

To address Clive's point, in my original post I was mainly referring to the last 20 years, during most of which both airports have had transatlantic service, which quite clearly proves that its possible.
[/quote]

Yes and I’d fully expect GLA could host regular NYC and MCO flights in due course. We just need a suitable carrier to think the same way.

We had LAS at one point too, which seemed popular while it lasted, and it’s currently unserved from Scotland, as is YVR.

[Clive]

I’ve found the info I needed earlier to reinforce a point I was making to Iain. At the time of Open Skies when I said EDI wasn’t in the game for the tx boom, in the season November 1999 to March 2000 EDI hosted exactly the following international schedules and barely any outbound IT charters.

AMS 6 daily UK 100
BRU 3 daily SN ARJ/737
CPH daily BD 100 shared load with GLA but GLA also had a daily direct
DUB 3 daily EI 146
FRA 2 daily LH 100
CDG 3 daily AF 146 and 3 daily BA ER4
VIE 3 weekly VO EQV
ZRH daily LX S20

Back in 1999, EZY were in their infancy, and they didn’t open their EDI base until 2003 so I wouldn’t have expected to see much more than what EDI gphad at the time.

FR didn’t open their base until 2014.

GLA should, in 2025, at the very least be aiming for what EDI had 25 years ago - BRU/CPH/VIE and ZRH glaring omissions from our current offerings!

Yes easyJet only flew from GLA and EDI to LTN at the time in question, and interestingly enough this was when Go had just started GLA/EDI-STN which soon saw off the incumbent Air UK.

We all remember the Route Development Fund and how many GLA-Europe pairs couldn’t qualify but the same route from EDI could because PIK was treated as a Glasgow airport. This was not long after the deregulation of air travel and might have played a bigger part in sowing the seeds for the way airlines were going to judge demand than we ever imagined.

[Iain]

To address Clive's point, in my original post I was mainly referring to the last 20 years, during most of which both airports have had transatlantic service, which quite clearly proves that its possible.

Yes and I’d fully expect GLA could host regular NYC and MCO flights in due course. We just need a suitable carrier to think the same way.

We had LAS at one point too, which seemed popular while it lasted, and it’s currently unserved from Scotland, as is YVR.

Yes - and I think most of us would be happy with NYC and MCO - with perhaps a smattering of something else seasonally. We had this for nearly 20 years in tandem with transatlantic flights at EDI, so it's quite clearly achievable - and even AGS seem to agree.

The problem is that we've been without this since S19 and realistically nothing can happen now till S26, so that's 7 years. Given the proven market that exists at GLA and the flights we had immediately before covid, I think it's fair to ask questions of those in charge at GLA as to why they've failed to attract any new/replacement service.