There goes the EDI-BDL flight...... can't say I'm surprised.


http://www.wfsb.com/story/37268152/norw ... start=true

DY*

SCHATC422 wrote:

There goes the EDI-BDL flight...... can't say I'm surprised.


http://www.wfsb.com/story/37268152/norw ... start=true

There is a silver lining to this announcement:
"While we are certainly disappointed by the discontinuation of the Norwegian service, the CAA will continue moving forward with our strong partnership with Aer Lingus," he said. "The route between Dublin and Bradley has shown promising growth, and, after recent discussions, we are confident that the Bradley route is currently in line for an aircraft upgrade in 2019."

For June/July:
BDL-EDI-80.5%
EDI-BDL-69.9%

And the airports managements response regarding this withdrawal from Norwegian is they said 'it was inline with expectations'!

They obviously didn't hold much faith in Norwegian to continue the flight to make that sort of statement.

This seems to reduce the possibility that Norwegian will consider stand-alone secondary cities (those that are not an alternate, like PVD, for a larger metro)
Perhaps they heard WOW was coming in?
WOW to Reykjavik or KLM/DL to AMS could be replacements.
At least they proved there was a market.

I assume the aircraft upgrade they hint at would be EI to an A330? (An A321neoLR wouldn't be considered an upgrade, would it?)

BGO-PVD also gone, as well as reduced frequency on EDI-PVD.

SNN-SWF/PVD gets an increase however.

Goodyear wrote:

DY*

DL pulling out would be significantly greater news.

They blame it on the APD, which is logical. Flights from Dublin are much cheaper because they're not subject to APD. I bet many people self-transfer in Dublin to avoid the APD. To a lesser extent this is also the case for Shannon and Cork. I can see them totally scrapping all TATL flights from the UK and instead increase from Ireland and maybe from the European mainland close to the UK (Netherlands, Belgium or northwest France).

User001 wrote:

BGO-PVD also gone

Wow, shocker.... I remember last year on a.net people were admittedly arguing with me that PVD-BGO would be a huge success...

In comparison for July
PVD-BFS-57.5%
PVD-BGO-58.8%
PVD-DUB-68.7%
PVD-EDI-64.3%
PVD-ORK-71.8%
PVD-SNN-71.1%

Goodyear wrote:

DY*

My mistake...

I'm not really surprised. I don't think BDL will be able to sustain more than 1 or 2 international carriers in the long run. It's an airport with under 6 million passengers last year and the metro area isn't that large either.

Started off big but just died apparently. That and around here everybody is booking Aer Lingus. With the ease in connections to the rest of Europe and not just a dead end in Scotland, safe to say the Irish carrier demolished them here at BDL.

For smaller cities transatlantic it’s one of two things in order to work:

1) ethnic connections
Or
2) abundant connecting opportunities

BDL-EDI offered neither

To my knowledge the BDL catchment area is not as ethnically diverse as that of PVD whereas their superior business climate gets them the premium product to a hub (DUB).

For PVD they should probably stick with Ireland England and maybe Portugal/Azores until BOS maxes out

RL757PVD wrote:

For smaller cities transatlantic it’s one of two things in order to work:

1) ethnic connections
Or
2) abundant connecting opportunities

BDL-EDI offered neither

To my knowledge the BDL catchment area is not as ethnically diverse as that of PVD whereas their superior business climate gets them the premium product to a hub (DUB).

For PVD they should probably stick with Ireland England and maybe Portugal/Azores until BOS maxes out

No connections to the rest of Europe either. Pricewise they were not that cheap either. I have a feeling there may be some issues in the casa de Norwegian.

remember when people said this would be a huge success?

SumChristianus wrote:

This seems to reduce the possibility that Norwegian will consider stand-alone secondary cities (those that are not an alternate, like PVD, for a larger metro)
Perhaps they heard WOW was coming in?
WOW to Reykjavik or KLM/DL to AMS could be replacements.
At least they proved there was a market.

I assume the aircraft upgrade they hint at would be EI to an A330? (An A321neoLR wouldn't be considered an upgrade, would it?)

The flight has been going out heavy...often sold out or with just a few open single seats. Could eventually be an A350 on certain days is my guess.

Goodyear wrote:

DY*

Actually reports as D8 not DY.

What is Norwegian's (which ever "D's") 737-8MAX TATL schedule the coming Summer now?

CairnterriAIR wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

I assume the aircraft upgrade they hint at would be EI to an A330? (An A321neoLR wouldn't be considered an upgrade, would it?)

The flight has been going out heavy...often sold out or with just a few open single seats. Could eventually be an A350 on certain days is my guess.

Not a chance it goes to an A350, for one they said it could be in upguaged in 2019 and they don't get the A350s until 2020. 2. They don't need to run a 300+ passenger a/c on that route. The quote was more than likely referring to it being upguaged to an A321LR once they are delivered in 2019.

Midwestindy wrote:

CairnterriAIR wrote:

SumChristianus wrote:

I assume the aircraft upgrade they hint at would be EI to an A330? (An A321neoLR wouldn't be considered an upgrade, would it?)

The flight has been going out heavy...often sold out or with just a few open single seats. Could eventually be an A350 on certain days is my guess.

Not a chance it goes to an A350, for one they said it could be in upguaged in 2019 and they don't get the A350s until 2020. 2. They don't need to run a 300+ passenger a/c on that route. The quote was more than likely referring to it being upguaged to an A321LR once they are delivered in 2019.

How many seats on an A321? Is it larger than the 757?

Some secondary cities will work, others will not. You fish different waters and return if the fish bite and don't return if they don't. It will be the same for the A321s that will reach into the US a bit further.

SumChristianus wrote:

At least they proved there was a market.

Rrrrrriiiiight.... Interesting conclusion.

CairnterriAIR wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

CairnterriAIR wrote:

The flight has been going out heavy...often sold out or with just a few open single seats. Could eventually be an A350 on certain days is my guess.

Not a chance it goes to an A350, for one they said it could be in upguaged in 2019 and they don't get the A350s until 2020. 2. They don't need to run a 300+ passenger a/c on that route. The quote was more than likely referring to it being upguaged to an A321LR once they are delivered in 2019.

How many seats on an A321? Is it larger than the 757?

I believe the 757 used has 177 seats, so a 321LR will be about the same roughly, depending on configuration, they could go from 180 (almost a match) to 200, which would be an increase. The other option is to utilize the Omni 762, which goes up to 240. The 332/333 fleet are pretty much maxed out with the coming service, so I don't think BDL will be on that list any time soon.

CairnterriAIR wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

CairnterriAIR wrote:

The flight has been going out heavy...often sold out or with just a few open single seats. Could eventually be an A350 on certain days is my guess.

Not a chance it goes to an A350, for one they said it could be in upguaged in 2019 and they don't get the A350s until 2020. 2. They don't need to run a 300+ passenger a/c on that route. The quote was more than likely referring to it being upguaged to an A321LR once they are delivered in 2019.

How many seats on an A321? Is it larger than the 757?

Doesn't EI have slightly less than 180 seats on their leased 757s, the A321LR will probably have at least 185 seats (probably closer to 200 though).

Midwestindy wrote:

CairnterriAIR wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Not a chance it goes to an A350, for one they said it could be in upguaged in 2019 and they don't get the A350s until 2020. 2. They don't need to run a 300+ passenger a/c on that route. The quote was more than likely referring to it being upguaged to an A321LR once they are delivered in 2019.

How many seats on an A321? Is it larger than the 757?

Doesn't EI have slightly less than 180 seats on their leased 757s, the A321LR will probably have at least 185 seats (probably closer to 200 though).

More seats in a shorter cabin? Anything above 180 seats will begin to affect range of the A321LR

arcticcruiser wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

CairnterriAIR wrote:

How many seats on an A321? Is it larger than the 757?

Doesn't EI have slightly less than 180 seats on their leased 757s, the A321LR will probably have at least 185 seats (probably closer to 200 though).

More seats in a shorter cabin? Anything above 180 seats will begin to affect range of the A321LR

DY is planning on using the 220 seat configuration on their A321LR for TATL flights....

Midwestindy wrote:

arcticcruiser wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Doesn't EI have slightly less than 180 seats on their leased 757s, the A321LR will probably have at least 185 seats (probably closer to 200 though).

More seats in a shorter cabin? Anything above 180 seats will begin to affect range of the A321LR

DY is planning on using the 220 seat configuration on their A321LR for TATL flights....

Which will eat up about 1,5 hrs worth of range. Simple trade-off.

NickolayAv wrote:

I'm not really surprised. I don't think BDL will be able to sustain more than 1 or 2 international carriers in the long run. It's an airport with under 6 million passengers last year and the metro area isn't that large either.

First of all BDL is far larger than SWF or PVD when you compare airport passenger numbers. The EDI flight actually did better from BDL than PVD or SWF. Second, when you combine Hartford and Springfield you have more than 2 million people the airport serves, add the entire I-91 knowledge corridor you are approaching 3 million people.

With JFK and BOS fairly close, BDL does not stand a chance. In the New Haven and Fairfield counties, JFK is the best for international flights on the east coast, more airlines, more flights, and more non-stop destinations. New London county is best serves by BOS and its many airlines and flights. The state needs to face it, BDL is international in name only, its catchment area is small and not heavily populated.

wenders825 wrote:

remember when people said this would be a huge success?

Only those you may have expected.
Wonder what the D8 737 landscape will look this time next year
If they cant fill 737s why would a A321 be the right approach?

cheapgreek wrote:

With JFK and BOS fairly close, BDL does not stand a chance. In the New Haven and Fairfield counties, JFK is the best for international flights on the east coast, more airlines, more flights, and more non-stop destinations. New London county is best serves by BOS and its many airlines and flights. The state needs to face it, BDL is international in name only, its catchment area is small and not heavily populated.

BDL does quite well without Fairfield County (who accounts for less than 5% of BDL's passengers). BDL's catchment area is over 3 million people, explain how that is small?

EI 321LRs will have a premium cabin, so I don’t see circa 200 seats being realistic. They have 12 321LRs on order, with 4 arriving per year starting 2019. The 757s will be replaced by the final 4 in 2021.

Perhaps they’ll put a double daily 321 into the likes of YYZ or IAD instead of a 330 and send that to BDL instead, or perhaps they’ll source a few more off QR like the latest additional 330....I’d have guessed they’d be looking at further expansion to the likes of DEN, IAH, DFW etc before upgauging BDL though.

The EI 321s will have the likes of DTW, PIT, YUL etc seeking their services too.

One of the reasons IAG is throwing extra 321LRs to EI is the success of DUB-BDL. No APD and US preclearance in DUB seems to be giving EI an edge.

cheapgreek wrote:

With JFK and BOS fairly close, BDL does not stand a chance. In the New Haven and Fairfield counties, JFK is the best for international flights on the east coast, more airlines, more flights, and more non-stop destinations. New London county is best serves by BOS and its many airlines and flights. The state needs to face it, BDL is international in name only, its catchment area is small and not heavily populated.

With all due respect....I know you have issues with a BDL and the state of CT over the whole HVN deal....but this area does have a large population....BDL is a heavily traveled station to many routes....and the termination of this route has nothing to due with the population supporting it. Look at the population numbers and the catchment area up here. Different market from New Haven and the shore.

SCHATC422 wrote:

Goodyear wrote:

DY*

My mistake...

VS4ever wrote:

Actually reports as D8 not DY.

DY/NAX is Norwegian Air Shuttle, registered in Norway.
D8/IBK is Norwegian Air International, registered in Ireland.
DI/NRS is Norwegian Air UK, registered (surprisingly) in the UK.

The EDI-BDL-EDI flights were coded D8.

uconn99 wrote:

First of all BDL is far larger than SWF or PVD when you compare airport passenger numbers. The EDI flight actually did better from BDL than PVD or SWF. Second, when you combine Hartford and Springfield you have more than 2 million people the airport serves, add the entire I-91 knowledge corridor you are approaching 3 million people.

Yes it’s far larger in Passenger numbers however PVD can capture significantly more people in the range you quote.

It’s a blessing and a curse for for BDL and PVD, with BDL having a more insulated, independent market and PVD having the ability to tap into a much larger market much easier than BDL, though that pendulum swings both ways...

uconn99 wrote:

NickolayAv wrote:

I'm not really surprised. I don't think BDL will be able to sustain more than 1 or 2 international carriers in the long run. It's an airport with under 6 million passengers last year and the metro area isn't that large either.

First of all BDL is far larger than SWF or PVD when you compare airport passenger numbers. The EDI flight actually did better from BDL than PVD or SWF. Second, when you combine Hartford and Springfield you have more than 2 million people the airport serves, add the entire I-91 knowledge corridor you are approaching 3 million people.

All while ignoring the fact that much of that area loses passengers to NYC and BOS which have many more options and can be substantially cheaper. The economy in the area is still not very strong to boot, BDL is right sized, maybe even a little overserved at the moment.

uconn99 wrote:

cheapgreek wrote:

With JFK and BOS fairly close, BDL does not stand a chance. In the New Haven and Fairfield counties, JFK is the best for international flights on the east coast, more airlines, more flights, and more non-stop destinations. New London county is best serves by BOS and its many airlines and flights. The state needs to face it, BDL is international in name only, its catchment area is small and not heavily populated.

BDL does quite well without Fairfield County (who accounts for less than 5% of BDL's passengers). BDL's catchment area is over 3 million people, explain how that is small?

It's small because even when you remove Fairfield County from the equation you still have loss to BOS and NYC. I live in Middlebury and I end up flying out of LGA and JFK more than not because of fares AND schedule. Hell I flew to DUB a week and a half ago from JFK over BDL because it was still substantially cheaper.

CairnterriAIR wrote:

cheapgreek wrote:

With JFK and BOS fairly close, BDL does not stand a chance. In the New Haven and Fairfield counties, JFK is the best for international flights on the east coast, more airlines, more flights, and more non-stop destinations. New London county is best serves by BOS and its many airlines and flights. The state needs to face it, BDL is international in name only, its catchment area is small and not heavily populated.

With all due respect....I know you have issues with a BDL and the state of CT over the whole HVN deal....but this area does have a large population....BDL is a heavily traveled station to many routes....and the termination of this route has nothing to due with the population supporting it. Look at the population numbers and the catchment area up here. Different market from New Haven and the shore.

It has everything to do with the lack of population supporting it. If it was supported, this thread wouldn't exist right now. Population and catchment mean nothing if people aren't buying tickets.

I had people saying I was out of touch when we were talking about WOW possibly coming to BDL and I mentioned that BDL was overserved as is, this is further proof of that. It wasn't a desirable route, no doubt about that, but BDL will always, ALWAYS lose passengers to JFK and BOS thanks to better fares, better schedules, and the ability to fly to almost any European destination nonstop.

I do think that if DY had chosen a more popular city then EDI, things may have been different. These weird oddball cities they chose (EDI, BGO, BFS, ORK) ... silly.

A BDL-LGW route would have cleaned up. Serve the real first-level cities first (even maybe via their alternate or outlying airports) ... not these silly "throw a dart at a board" towns.

Shame to lose them at BDL. I was hoping to see them grow. Just a wrong European destination choice.

jetblueguy22 wrote:

I had people saying I was out of touch when we were talking about WOW possibly coming to BDL and I mentioned that BDL was overserved as is, this is further proof of that. It wasn't a desirable route, no doubt about that, but BDL will always, ALWAYS lose passengers to JFK and BOS thanks to better fares, better schedules, and the ability to fly to almost any European destination nonstop.

How can the EDI flight be a success when it connects to nothing and charges fares that are just as pricey as the nonstops to Dublin?? (I’m surprised the numbers were as high as they were....and didn’t they state that the reason for the suspension was because of taxes on the EDI side???) As for the prices being cheaper out of NY....a lot of the Aer Lingus fares are comparable between the two cities.

Yes people in CT will still fly out of JFK....indeed you can get anywhere from there....after all there are millions of folks just in Manhattan alone. But that does not mean BDL can’t support flights if done correctly. Obviously Aer Lingus is doing things right up here. The flight has done well. My family owns a travel agency of which the flight is used and booked heavily. Nearly everybody up here who uses JFK does so begrudgingly....the drive to and from sucks. If you live in the Hartford area, to drop off or pick up a family member from JFK is an all day affair. If you are flying out of JFK, you loose savings you may have gotten on the flight spending it on parking, gas, overnight hotel if your flight is early in the morning, cost of the limo or train if you use that method to get to the airport, and of course dealing with the New York airport drama in general. That, my friend is how people feel and why transatlantic will work. And it will work if the carriers actually do things right.

[list=][/list]

F27500 wrote:

I do think that if DY had chosen a more popular city then EDI, things may have been different. These weird oddball cities they chose (EDI, BGO, BFS, ORK) ... silly.

A BDL-LGW route would have cleaned up. Serve the real first-level cities first (even maybe via their alternate or outlying airports) ... not these silly "throw a dart at a board" towns.

Shame to lose them at BDL. I was hoping to see them grow. Just a wrong European destination choice.

You are 100% correct.

F27500 wrote:

I do think that if DY had chosen a more popular city then EDI, things may have been different. These weird oddball cities they chose (EDI, BGO, BFS, ORK) ... silly.

A BDL-LGW route would have cleaned up. Serve the real first-level cities first (even maybe via their alternate or outlying airports) ... not these silly "throw a dart at a board" towns.

Shame to lose them at BDL. I was hoping to see them grow. Just a wrong European destination choice.

^------^ this.... EDI has about 1.3m in it's region, so unless you've got some serious business connections and flying between the two points, it's going to be tough, no matter how you look at, as an expat, it certainly raised my eyebrows when they picked EDI as one of the initial routes. As you note LGW would do much better, huge catchment area and alternative to LHR for the Southeast corner, even with the expensive APD. DY (see what I did there), have been packing them in on the BOS-LGW run, so much so that right now it appears they have booted OSL/CPH-BOS limited service routes to go daily on LGW and frankly if they can find the slots, maybe adding a 2nd limited service down the road.

The D8 routes were always going to be a risk, but like others have said, not sure they were the best choices. SWF you can at least market as an outlier to NYC, can't really do that for BDL, from a UK purchase side of things, most folks don't have the foggiest clue where Hartford is, so trying to do that on a city pair like EDI or BFS, is going to be a challenge. PVD has the advantage at least being a BOS alternative. This strategy was always going to be difficult, some routes will work, some will not. I will be interested to see how the BHX/STN routes work for PF when they start later this year. I still believe there is a market for some routes like this, albeit a limited one, I like SWF and PVD as options, because they can be marketed like FR did in their early days like New York - Stewart or Boston - Providence (although my PVD colleagues may not be too much of a fan of that).
Not quite ready to write off the experiment yet, but they've got to put those MAX's and LR's somewhere when they arrive. Might not be quite time for the popcorn to be made yet, but it might be worth getting the packets out of the cupboard, just in case.

wenders825 wrote:

remember when people said this would be a huge success?

I think most people or everyone was talking about SWF and PVD having potential. Near big markets NYC and BOS to Europe they can try multiple cities to make it work. I think most people were surprised by bdl and to one random city. It's norweigan they are probably very interested in subsidies and things for now so don't be surprised if they shift things later.

CairnterriAIR wrote:

cheapgreek wrote:

With JFK and BOS fairly close, BDL does not stand a chance. In the New Haven and Fairfield counties, JFK is the best for international flights on the east coast, more airlines, more flights, and more non-stop destinations. New London county is best serves by BOS and its many airlines and flights. The state needs to face it, BDL is international in name only, its catchment area is small and not heavily populated.

With all due respect....I know you have issues with a BDL and the state of CT over the whole HVN deal....but this area does have a large population....BDL is a heavily traveled station to many routes....and the termination of this route has nothing to due with the population supporting it. Look at the population numbers and the catchment area up here. Different market from New Haven and the shore.

I have issues because the state only recognizes BDL even though it is not a centrally located airport being almost in Massachusetts. The state has put up billboards in Fairfield county saying, "Come home to Bradley" BDL is not home to many of the states residents, especially Fairfield county which has JFK much closer and a wide array of airlines and non-stop destinations. BDL is a good domestic airport for the Hartford and Springfield areas, New London county is closer to PVD and as far as international service, what if BDL's single flight to Europe is cancelled? Come back tomorrow or the day after? JFK and BOS can reaccommodate passengers on other airlines.
Flyers would always rather have non-stop flights and a wide choice of airlines and Connecticut being a small state area wise and with its close proximity to two large international airports, flyers will vote with their wallets. I have used JFK many times and the options were plentiful.

Perhaps the initial hard-on over silly transatlantic routes like these is starting to subside a bit.

Maybe we won't be seeing Binghamton-Bordeaux .... Erie-Saarbrucken ... Paducah-Tromso or State-College-Minsk any time soon. Thankfully.

uconn99 wrote:

NickolayAv wrote:

I'm not really surprised. I don't think BDL will be able to sustain more than 1 or 2 international carriers in the long run. It's an airport with under 6 million passengers last year and the metro area isn't that large either.

First of all BDL is far larger than SWF or PVD when you compare airport passenger numbers. The EDI flight actually did better from BDL than PVD or SWF. Second, when you combine Hartford and Springfield you have more than 2 million people the airport serves, add the entire I-91 knowledge corridor you are approaching 3 million people.

PVD serves the Boston area and SWF New York, so they have a larger draw than their local passenger numbers alone. BDL serves Hartford pretty much alone, not a small city, but not as large as New York City or Boston either.
If Norwegian stays around for another 10 years, they'll probably be back eventually. With the number of aircraft they have on order, they'll eventually have to look at secondary cities.

Any ideas on how LGW-AUS will do for them?

This is Norwegian's Stalingrad. It's all down hill from here.

Varsity1 wrote:

This is Norwegian's Stalingrad. It's all down hill from here.

Would you care to elaborate? lol
It's not like they are pulling out of London or Paris.

F27500 wrote:

Perhaps the initial hard-on over silly transatlantic routes like these is starting to subside a bit.

Maybe we won't be seeing Binghamton-Bordeaux .... Erie-Saarbrucken ... Paducah-Tromso or State-College-Minsk any time soon. Thankfully.

Yeah, it should not be shocking that random US city to random European city did not work out, even if it was on 737. There scan be cheap fares but their still has to be some local demand...