SCQ83 From United States of America, joined Oct 2012, 459 posts, RR: 0 Posted (5 months 1 week 2 days 20 hours ago) and read 2617 times:
I would never see this coming... Ethiopian starting MAD as a tag from FCO.
Which market are they aiming for? Tourism from Spain to East Africa? Bad timing. Onward connections to Africa, Middle East and Asia? EK is doing very well with 2xdaily (and rumors about the A380 coming), TK is adding a 3rd daily and QR will soon be a OW hub and likely to add a 2xdaily with B787 in 2013. MS and RJ are still flying to MAD. East Africa - Spain VFR traffic is negligible.
Quote: Ethiopian Airlines starting 15JUN13 is launching service to Madrid, where it’ll operate 3 weekly Addis Ababa – Rome – Madrid route, on board Boeing 757 aircraft. Overall service to Rome will increase from 8 to 11 weekly (Northbound, 10 on Southbound).
Quoting SCQ83 (Thread starter): West Africa - Spain VFR traffic is negligible
East perhaps. Ethiopia is in East Africa. IB has some coverage of West Africa from MAD.
Quoting SCQ83 (Thread starter): Onward connections to Africa, Middle East and Asia? EK is doing very well with 2xdaily (and rumors about the A380 coming)
I suppose they are trying to capture whatever traffic they can get: to South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, and points east of ADD that make sense. Not really sure.
True, I mixed East/West. Anyway for East Africa, EK, QR, MS and especially TK are expanding there, so any comparative advantage that ET could have a few years ago is gone now. Also being ET in Star does not help either in MAD.
From my understanding, most Subsaharan African inmigrants in Spain come from West Africa (Ghana, Mauritania, Senegal, Nigeria, Mali). That VFR traffic certainly explained some flights to that region (for instance, Spanair used to fly to Bamako, and Air Mali to Madrid).
peterinlisbon From Portugal, joined Jan 2006, 229 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (5 months 1 week 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 2398 times:
Perhaps they could codeshare with IB on flights to South America, and offer connections to everywhere in Central / South America. For Spanish passengers, they can offer connections to East and Southern Africa as well as connections to Asia (which isn't very well connected to Spain).
SCQ83 From United States of America, joined Oct 2012, 459 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (5 months 1 week 2 days 19 hours ago) and read 2354 times:
Quoting peterinlisbon (Reply 4): connections to Asia (which isn't very well connected to Spain)
From MAD direct:
- CA: PEK
- KE: ICN
- TG: BKK
- From BCN, SQ to SIN.
From MAD to Asia, connecting:
- TK: IST (2xdaily, 3xd coming soon), also flies to 5 more destinations
- EK: DXB (2xdaily), also BCN
- QR: DOH, also BCN
Add MS and RJ in the Middle East (I haven't included them with TK-EK-QR because they offer certainly less connectivity and they are not even daily). And all the European carriers (SU, AY, LH, LX...) And some rare airlines such as SV or HY offer flights to MAD as well.
I agree that MAD is relatively worse connected to Asia than other European gateways (no direct flights to India, Japan, HKG or PVG just to begin with), but ET offers a 3xweekly with a tech-stop in FCO... I wonder how they will compete with all the well-established 1-stop options through Europe or the Middle East and the direct flights.
Jokes aside, perhaps they just had idle a/c in FCO and wanted to send it somewhere?
It's ironic that KQ is complaining of slowdown in Europe (even stopping its FCO service) but ET is starting new routes. Are they seeing something we all cannot? We will find out, but I think this may be just a very opportunistic service trying to grab whatever they can. MAD is well served today, main addition here is the connections to East Africa, but even there TK, EK to some extent have good coverage.
Interesting move ET, good luck with this one.
Quoting peterinlisbon (Reply 4): Perhaps they could codeshare with IB on flights to South America
except that they are in different alliances, so not sure this will go anywhere. Plus, ET will launch GRU in April, so they may choose to codeshare with Avianca and Copa from there? That's what I would do.
Quoting EddieDude (Reply 1):
I suppose they are trying to capture whatever traffic they can get: to South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, and points east of ADD that make sense. Not really sure.
Exactly what I thought of this as well. Very opportunistic move.
Pe@rson From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2001, 18829 posts, RR: 54 Reply 8, posted (5 months 1 week 2 days ago) and read 1702 times:
Quoting ETinCaribe (Reply 7): perhaps they just had idle a/c in FCO and wanted to send it somewhere?
"wanted to send it somewhere" would imply that they had not thoroughly analysed demand, revenue, cost, and load factor projections. Clearly they would have, and they have determined a sufficiently attractive opportunity. Of course, it may not work, but without the data side of it we cannot really fairly say.
"Everyone writing for the Telegraph knows that the way to grab eyeballs is with Ryanair and/or sex."
migair54 From Spain, joined Jun 2007, 1277 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (5 months 1 week 2 days ago) and read 1696 times:
Quoting ETinCaribe (Reply 7): MAD is well served today, main addition here is the connections to East Africa
True, and the stop in FCO make it not very attractive, and now TK is adding a lot of services to East Africa as well, as well QR, and even KLM is adding more flights to JRO and direct.
Quoting ETinCaribe (Reply 7): It's ironic that KQ is complaining of slowdown in Europe (even stopping its FCO service)
they failed because the schedule was very bad not allowing connecting pax to ZNZ (main tourist destinations for Italians). they should have done a different flight arriving NBO at 6am then allowing plenty of connections.
Quoting ETinCaribe (Reply 7): except that they are in different alliances, so not sure this will go anywhere. Plus, ET will launch GRU in April, so they may choose to codeshare with Avianca and Copa from there? That's what I would do.
Yes, it´s much more logical, KQ is also planning to start GRU.
behramjee From Canada, joined Aug 2003, 4439 posts, RR: 43 Reply 10, posted (5 months 1 week 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 1538 times:
It would have been much easier if ET chose Manchester as their new EU route as that city desperately needs a direct link to Africa as the market demand from MAN and North England is huge to East Africa (DAR EBB NBO ADD) plus via ADD to South Africa/MRU/SEZ.
migair54 From Spain, joined Jun 2007, 1277 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (5 months 1 week 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 1477 times:
Quoting behramjee (Reply 10): It would have been much easier if ET chose Manchester as their new EU route as that city desperately needs a direct link to Africa as the market demand from MAN and North England is huge to East Africa (DAR EBB NBO ADD) plus via ADD to South Africa/MRU/SEZ.
I´m not sure about that, competition against middle east carriers (TK, QR, EY, EK) will be much more difficult in MAN, also with KLM (EBB, KGL, DAR, JRO, NBO). however in MAD ET has some advantage against KL, EK, QR, but they will have more problems with TK, because right now they are serving 2x day and soon it will be 3 x day MAD and the network they are developing in Africa is becoming quite large.
Let´s see maybe in the future we can see a dedicated B757 to MAD only avoiding the FCO stop.
ETinCaribe From Ethiopia, joined Dec 2009, 620 posts, RR: 0 Reply 12, posted (5 months 1 week 23 hours ago) and read 1195 times:
Quoting Pe@rson (Reply 8): "wanted to send it somewhere" would imply that they had not thoroughly analysed demand, revenue, cost, and load factor projections. Clearly they would have, and they have determined a sufficiently attractive opportunity. Of course, it may not work, but without the data side of it we cannot really fairly say.
I am not doubting that it is a data driven decision. I should have better worded my statement. The point is that they may have had capacity and thought of opening a new station (or adding freq). Looks like southern Europe and MAD came on top using their calculus.
Quoting migair54 (Reply 9): True, and the stop in FCO make it not very attractive, and now TK is adding a lot of services to East Africa as well, as well QR, and even KLM is adding more flights to JRO and direct.
Quoting behramjee (Reply 10): It would have been much easier if ET chose Manchester as their new EU route as that city desperately needs a direct link to Africa as the market demand from MAN and North England is huge to East Africa (DAR EBB NBO ADD) plus via ADD to South Africa/MRU/SEZ.
Quoting migair54 (Reply 11): Let´s see maybe in the future we can see a dedicated B757 to MAD only avoiding the FCO stop.
The bottom line is, there are fewer and fewer places where there is little to no competition. ET has to earn its keeps and I for one give them a chance. It won't be easy though. Their strategy (as i read it) is to play in the big leagues, as opposed to KQ which seems to be retrenching into Africa and feed KLM, so it is going to be as tough as it can get.
SCQ83 From United States of America, joined Oct 2012, 459 posts, RR: 0 Reply 13, posted (5 months 1 week 22 hours ago) and read 1156 times:
Quoting migair54 (Reply 11): I´m not sure about that, competition against middle east carriers (TK, QR, EY, EK) will be much more difficult in MAN, also with KLM (EBB, KGL, DAR, JRO, NBO). however in MAD ET has some advantage against KL, EK, QR, but they will have more problems with TK, because right now they are serving 2x day and soon it will be 3 x day MAD and the network they are developing in Africa is becoming quite large.
Let´s see maybe in the future we can see a dedicated B757 to MAD only avoiding the FCO stop.
Advantage against EK? With Emirates' 14xweekly???? A tremendously recognized brand in Europe (in Spain too seen its success)? In fact even with TK's 3rd service, EK will still have way more seats than TK from MAD. MAN has 3 or 4 daily to DXB, but 2 daily from MAD certainly serves perfectly the connections to Africa. Same to QR, especially if they are due to get a 2nd daily too. I know it is a detour, but still with ET there are 2 stops if you somewhere other than ADD.
I agree that MAD only 2 or 3 years ago was "underserved" to the Middle East (no EK until 2010, QR not even daily in the beginning - I think they even used A319s for a while -, TK had less than 2 dailies), but definitely this is not the case in 2012.
Now compare it to Ethiopian (a brand no one has ever heard of in Spain, and no offense, Ethiopia for "non connoiseurs" might not be the best country to be associated with an airline), with three weekly doing a stop-over in FCO.
Quoting behramjee (Reply 10): It would have been much easier if ET chose Manchester as their new EU route as that city desperately needs a direct link to Africa as the market demand from MAN and North England is huge to East Africa (DAR EBB NBO ADD) plus via ADD to South Africa/MRU/SEZ.
Completely agree... I think a new Ethiopian service could only work with high VFR traffic to Ethiopia or the area (not the case for MAD) or with an increasing tourism to Kenya/Tanzania (neither the case in Spain with the crisis)
Quoting Pe@rson (Reply 8): "wanted to send it somewhere" would imply that they had not thoroughly analysed demand, revenue, cost, and load factor projections. Clearly they would have, and they have determined a sufficiently attractive opportunity. Of course, it may not work, but without the data side of it we cannot really fairly say.
That is what it looks to me... the fact that MAD is a relatively short hop from FCO is probably the reason. It might have worked 6 or 7 years ago with the economic boom (so Spaniards going safari in Kenya like there is no end) and little TK/EK/QR competition... but today?
777jaah From Colombia, joined Jan 2006, 1401 posts, RR: 2 Reply 14, posted (5 months 1 week 21 hours ago) and read 1092 times:
Quoting peterinlisbon (Reply 4): Perhaps they could codeshare with IB on flights to South America, and offer connections to everywhere in Central / South America.
Aren't they in *A?? AV could do that for them if that's the case.
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