VS moving to EDI?

[egpffqtv]

VS @ EDI event happening tonight

https://www.facebook.com/69039766779958 ... 165158390/

[Bearsden]

All of which is a complete reversal of the 2007-2017 era with a dynamic team who went to the route conferences, and were actively building relationships with commercial people at airlines. Ok, it didn't always work, but at least an effort was being made. It looks like all of that team have now gone, or not getting support.

Combine this with a new, more pro-active management in the east, with lots of new stand space and a terminal extension to sell, and an approach to keeping costs down for the airlines, is making life very difficult for GLA. Difficult to see where they go from here, but maybe that analyst job that was being advertised might attract someone with a real drive and passion to grow the business.

Regrettably the analyst job sounds as if it is 5 years too late - GLA has lost its Ryanair base, Wizzair and now Virgin Atlantic plus the US carriers for 2022 at least and allowed Emirates to add a rotation at EDI (if Emirates second rotation into Scotland which is probable in 2022 goes to EDI before GLA then 'the cat is amongst the pigeons' (or perhaps 'the tiger is amongst the turkeys'!) while the Scottish Ministers of course still prop up passenger operations at PIK through its military revenue

In 2019, the split of 24.2m passengers was EDI 61%, GLA 36%, PIK 3%

Getting the crystal ball out I'll guess 18m passengers in 2022 with EDI 66% (12.0m), GLA 31% (5.5m), PIK 3% (0.5m)

[Ekally1]

Also hearing , DL is the influence in the move , consolidate ops at EDI ... albeit edi more inbound , Orlando certainly isnt ... got a poor record in outbound florida routes ... this one could be a mistake ... VS in twitter messages saying they can grow more at EDI which would make sense with DL also at EDI , but dont think MCO and BGI the right routes to do it ... GLA lost the boat with loco and going for the alliances also ... only got there selfs to blame

[PiperOne]

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?

[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