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DUSZRH wrote:In Germany, there are rumors that FR will close all bases. Some completely like NUE, while at others shifting to a different AOC (Malta, Lauda).
Blerg wrote:DUSZRH wrote:In Germany, there are rumors that FR will close all bases. Some completely like NUE, while at others shifting to a different AOC (Malta, Lauda).
How many planes do they have stationed in Germany? Do they still operate a base in FRA or do they use planes from elsewhere?
a350lover wrote:Skavsta in Sweden was their third international base out of the UK, only after Charleroi and Hahn. It’s got quite a few years of history, opened back in 2003.
I wonder what’s the logic behind Ryanair bases closed. Are those the ones for which Ryanair had more 737MAXs plans? Are they just underperforming compared to others? Hard to believe a place like NYO, NUE or LPA isn’t as profitable as single-aircraft-bases such as PDL OR SCQ? What are your thoughts?
Blerg wrote:Good evening,
It is being reported that Ryanair will be shutting down two bases: NUE and NYO.
Destinations that will be terminated from Nuremberg: Athens, Bergamo, Budapest, Copenhagen, Kiev, Stansted, Malta, Rome, Tel Aviv, Marrakesch and Naples.
Following destinations will remain: Thessaloniki, Palermo, Palma de Mallorca, Porto, Alicante, Krakow and Zadar.
Destinations to be cut from Skavsta: Banja Luka, Barcelona, Beauvais, Charleroi, Gran Canaria, Kiev, Malta, Nis, Weeze.
Routes that will be kept: Alicante, Bergamo, Gdansk, Krakow, Stansted, Malaga, Podgorica, Poznan, Thessaloniki, Modlin, Edinburgh, Zadar, Naples and Pisa
Quite a few cuts by Ryanair. In another forum someone wrote that NYO is being closed because of a dispute with unions. Could the same be true of NUE or was it generally a rather unprofitable base for them?
Source:
https://www.dw.com/en/ryanair-will-clos ... a-51532836
a350lover wrote:Skavsta in Sweden was their third international base out of the UK, only after Charleroi and Hahn. It’s got quite a few years of history, opened back in 2003.
marcogr12 wrote:Blerg wrote:Good evening,
It is being reported that Ryanair will be shutting down two bases: NUE and NYO.
Destinations that will be terminated from Nuremberg: Athens, Bergamo, Budapest, Copenhagen, Kiev, Stansted, Malta, Rome, Tel Aviv, Marrakesch and Naples.
Following destinations will remain: Thessaloniki, Palermo, Palma de Mallorca, Porto, Alicante, Krakow and Zadar.
Destinations to be cut from Skavsta: Banja Luka, Barcelona, Beauvais, Charleroi, Gran Canaria, Kiev, Malta, Nis, Weeze.
Routes that will be kept: Alicante, Bergamo, Gdansk, Krakow, Stansted, Malaga, Podgorica, Poznan, Thessaloniki, Modlin, Edinburgh, Zadar, Naples and Pisa
Quite a few cuts by Ryanair. In another forum someone wrote that NYO is being closed because of a dispute with unions. Could the same be true of NUE or was it generally a rather unprofitable base for them?
Source:
https://www.dw.com/en/ryanair-will-clos ... a-51532836
Well quite a big blow to NUE airport...But why cut the routes instead of keeping them with flights TO Nue from other bases? ATH,BGY,BUD,KBP,MLA,CIA,STN, NAP are all bases...
marcogr12 wrote:Could be.. I think NUE-SKG is also serving a large ex-pat commmunity from N.Greece because A3 flies in summer too, although at horrible hours...Wizzair expanding would be great but their focus is more Central and Eastern Europe
leghorn wrote:He needs to base planes in labour markets with looser regulation/laws such as Ireland, UK, Poland and Malta.
His staff may or may not still earn a market competitive wage but his planes are like ships flying under flags of convenience within the markets he operates on irrespective of whether those flags of convenience are E.U. or not E.U.
The company has already cut quite a number of routes in Britain but the main bases in the UK appear to be safe so long as the regulatory environment in which they operate remains favourable.
Blerg wrote:marcogr12 wrote:Blerg wrote:Good evening,
It is being reported that Ryanair will be shutting down two bases: NUE and NYO.
Destinations that will be terminated from Nuremberg: Athens, Bergamo, Budapest, Copenhagen, Kiev, Stansted, Malta, Rome, Tel Aviv, Marrakesch and Naples.
Following destinations will remain: Thessaloniki, Palermo, Palma de Mallorca, Porto, Alicante, Krakow and Zadar.
Destinations to be cut from Skavsta: Banja Luka, Barcelona, Beauvais, Charleroi, Gran Canaria, Kiev, Malta, Nis, Weeze.
Routes that will be kept: Alicante, Bergamo, Gdansk, Krakow, Stansted, Malaga, Podgorica, Poznan, Thessaloniki, Modlin, Edinburgh, Zadar, Naples and Pisa
Quite a few cuts by Ryanair. In another forum someone wrote that NYO is being closed because of a dispute with unions. Could the same be true of NUE or was it generally a rather unprofitable base for them?
Source:
https://www.dw.com/en/ryanair-will-clos ... a-51532836
Well quite a big blow to NUE airport...But why cut the routes instead of keeping them with flights TO Nue from other bases? ATH,BGY,BUD,KBP,MLA,CIA,STN, NAP are all bases...
My guess is that those routes could have been kept but they are not because of weaker performance. I mean, NUE-ATH is right between MUC and FRA and both airports have train stations so they are easily accessible and have multiple daily flights on both Aegean and Lufthansa.
Thessaloniki is probably kept because of a much larger tourist market but also because there is less competition.
Will be interesting to see if Wizz Air actually considers NUE as their next base. Now that would be interesting to follow.
lhrsfosyd91 wrote:The days of the secondary airports hours away from the cities Ryanair claims to serve are over. The gap between legacies and LCCs is simply not what is used to be in 2003 and a higher yield from the main airports outweighs the benefits of the lower operating costs in provincial airfields.
Blerg wrote:Thessaloniki is probably kept because of a much larger tourist market but also because there is less competition
lhrsfosyd91 wrote:The days of the secondary airports hours away from the cities Ryanair claims to serve are over. The gap between legacies and LCCs is simply not what is used to be in 2003 and a higher yield from the main airports outweighs the benefits of the lower operating costs in provincial airfields.
sevenair wrote:Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (1 Oct) launched its UK Summer 2020 schedule with 14 new routes including exciting destinations for Summer such as Cluj (Romania), Pisa and Terceira (Portugal), and more than 500 routes in total which will deliver 46.3m customers p.a. and support 35,000 jobs at its 21 UK Airports.
Ryanair’s UK Summer 2020 schedule will deliver:
5 brand new routes – Edinburgh to Bydgoszcz (2 pw); Manchester to Pisa (2 pw); Stansted to Cluj (3 pw), Kosice (3 pw) & Terceira (1 pw);
9 new summer services – Exeter to Alicante (2 pw); Edinburgh to Bucharest (3 pw); London Stansted to Dresden (3 pw) & Essaouira (2 pw); London Luton to Krakow (4 pw) & Seville (3 pw); Manchester to Katowice (3 pw), Milan Malpensa (5 pw) & Prague (9 pw)
More flights on 46 other routes including destinations like Budapest, Milan Bergamo & Krakow
Over 500 routes in total
46.3m customers p.a.
35,000* on-site jobs
https://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryan ... -sale-now/
They also announced six new Southend routes just weeks ago, in addition to two new routes announced in August and Stansted to Lajes.
There definitely seems to be more grown than shrinkage.
Blerg wrote:marcogr12 wrote:Could be.. I think NUE-SKG is also serving a large ex-pat commmunity from N.Greece because A3 flies in summer too, although at horrible hours...Wizzair expanding would be great but their focus is more Central and Eastern Europe
You mean that Aegean flies SKG-NUE? Do they operate night flights? Probably has to do with fleet utilization.
sevenair wrote:I wonder why MOL doesn't just close UK bases and move the planes to the NYO, NUE and any other base that he may he forced to close? He did say Ryanair would 'pivot away' from the UK because of Brexit so surely this would be the perfect time to so pivot?
SCQ83 wrote:Blerg wrote:Thessaloniki is probably kept because of a much larger tourist market but also because there is less competition
Since when SKG is a much larger tourism market than ATH? Also for most Western Europeans (not to mention Americans or Asians), Thessaloniki and Northern Greece pretty much do not exist. And yes, I know that Condor or Jet2 fly to SKG, but compared to ATH or the main Greek islands (Crete, Rhodes, Santorini, etc), it is a very small market. It is very different than to say for Serbs or Romanians for whom Northern Greece is very popular because they just drive there.
As others have mentioned, those flights serve VFR traffic.
As for NUE I suspect a problem is that it is not really a major tourism destination like Berlin is. HAM had the same issue (and easyJet and Ryanair closed bases). For low-cost carriers is probably much easier to make something like Berlin work (despite competition), since Berlin is today both a major local market (even if not the wealthiest) and a massive tourism destination. So it work both ways for them.lhrsfosyd91 wrote:The days of the secondary airports hours away from the cities Ryanair claims to serve are over. The gap between legacies and LCCs is simply not what is used to be in 2003 and a higher yield from the main airports outweighs the benefits of the lower operating costs in provincial airfields.
Indeed. I was once in NYO and it is so far from Stockholm it does not make any sense today with Norwegian and everyone else at ARN. Not very different to what has happened to GRO (VS Barcelona) and HHN (VS Frankfurt/Luxembourg). Or RYG which was closed.
The only bases at non main airports that work are those like CRL, STN or BGY which are right in the middle of very large metropolitan regions (Benelux/Northern France, Greater London/SE England, Lombardia/Veneto).
sevenair wrote:leghorn wrote:He needs to base planes in labour markets with looser regulation/laws such as Ireland, UK, Poland and Malta.
His staff may or may not still earn a market competitive wage but his planes are like ships flying under flags of convenience within the markets he operates on irrespective of whether those flags of convenience are E.U. or not E.U.
The company has already cut quite a number of routes in Britain but the main bases in the UK appear to be safe so long as the regulatory environment in which they operate remains favourable.
Could it not be air passenger duty that's the killer? I assume you're talking about UK domestics as as a whole FR have increased their routes, particularly to UK regions and have opened a new base in SEN.
leghorn wrote:So are Ryanair not expecting the Max back in service in the next 6 months?I disagree with the analysis above. They will continue to sell seats cheap for the near to mid-term until they help create issues for competitors and can pounce on weaknesses of other airlines in Europe. It is up to their shareholders to decide if they agree with that strategy or not and it doesn't matter to the rest of us.
Here specifically they are closing bases and routes because they temporarily don't have enough planes. It is as simple as that.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/tra ... -1.4107163
Apart from the usual comments about M O'L being very demanding and not an easy person to work for the most important points I take out of this are:
"O’Leary is less concerned about Easyjet getting details of supplier contracts than he is about it learning Ryanair’s plans to deal with a delay in the delivery of the new Boeing 737 Max aircraft. Regulators have temporarily grounded this model, but are expected to allow it fly in coming months. Ryanair is coping with the delay by slowing growth plans and closing some bases.
O’Leary said he feared that, if Easyjet learned which bases it would close, the British carrier could move in there, potentially taking limited slots in some of the airports and blocking Ryanair from returning there when the new aircraft become available. Bellew has promised not to share confidential information, but Ryanair clearly thinks that the risks involved in him joining its rival are too great."
I'd guess most of these base and route closures are now announced but there might still be a few to be announced. Ryanair don't want to close bases for Easyjet to enter and take their passengers. It appears that Ryanair would like to come back to these airports and if their competitors only know they are closing them at the last possible moment then the chances are that their competitors won't fill the temporary void.
Personally, I think Ryanair are wrong here and being too pathologically "cheap" and they should be leasing two or three more 737-800s or A320s to serve the routes so that competitors don't steal routes from them while they wait for the supply of new planes to arrive.
They will be in the Irish High Court for well over a week by the time it is finished and that could have paid for months of lease on a 737 or A320 with those legal fees. No negative press, No vacant routes for their competitor to slip in to. It might cost 200k to lease an A320 or 737 per month but those routes are either making some profit or not loosing much.
sevenair wrote:leghorn wrote:He needs to base planes in labour markets with looser regulation/laws such as Ireland, UK, Poland and Malta.
His staff may or may not still earn a market competitive wage but his planes are like ships flying under flags of convenience within the markets he operates on irrespective of whether those flags of convenience are E.U. or not E.U.
The company has already cut quite a number of routes in Britain but the main bases in the UK appear to be safe so long as the regulatory environment in which they operate remains favourable.
Could it not be air passenger duty that's the killer?
IrishLessor wrote:The reason is very clear and I've not seen any discussion about this. Their approach to pricing and load factors is in my opinion the key weakness.
Ryanair want the seats filled at all costs. A large proportion of this domestic flying is a late booking market usually at a generous ticket level. In Ryanair's case they were flogging the market early on with 14.99/9.99/5.00 fares.
I
leghorn wrote:I disagree with the analysis above. They will continue to sell seats cheap for the near to mid-term until they help create issues for competitors and can pounce on weaknesses of other airlines in Europe. It is up to their shareholders to decide if they agree with that strategy or not and it doesn't matter to the rest of us.
Here specifically they are closing bases and routes because they temporarily don't have enough planes. It is as simple as that.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/tra ... -1.4107163
Apart from the usual comments about M O'L being very demanding and not an easy person to work for the most important points I take out of this are:
"O’Leary is less concerned about Easyjet getting details of supplier contracts than he is about it learning Ryanair’s plans to deal with a delay in the delivery of the new Boeing 737 Max aircraft. Regulators have temporarily grounded this model, but are expected to allow it fly in coming months. Ryanair is coping with the delay by slowing growth plans and closing some bases.
O’Leary said he feared that, if Easyjet learned which bases it would close, the British carrier could move in there, potentially taking limited slots in some of the airports and blocking Ryanair from returning there when the new aircraft become available. Bellew has promised not to share confidential information, but Ryanair clearly thinks that the risks involved in him joining its rival are too great."
I'd guess most of these base and route closures are now announced but there might still be a few to be announced. Ryanair don't want to close bases for Easyjet to enter and take their passengers. It appears that Ryanair would like to come back to these airports and if their competitors only know they are closing them at the last possible moment then the chances are that their competitors won't fill the temporary void.
Personally, I think Ryanair are wrong here and being too pathologically "cheap" and they should be leasing two or three more 737-800s or A320s to serve the routes so that competitors don't steal routes from them while they wait for the supply of new planes to arrive.
They will be in the Irish High Court for well over a week by the time it is finished and that could have paid for months of lease on a 737 or A320 with those legal fees. No negative press, No vacant routes for their competitor to slip in to. It might cost 200k to lease an A320 or 737 per month but those routes are either making some profit or not loosing much.
BasilFawlty wrote:What I don't understand is if the 737 MAX deliveries is the real problem, then why are they getting rid of older aircraft? If they're really need more aircraft they could extend leases or defer selling them. This year 9 737-800's have left the fleet so far: EI-DAC, EI-EPE/G, EI-ESR/W/X/Y/Z, EI-EVD.
Blerg wrote:BasilFawlty wrote:What I don't understand is if the 737 MAX deliveries is the real problem, then why are they getting rid of older aircraft? If they're really need more aircraft they could extend leases or defer selling them. This year 9 737-800's have left the fleet so far: EI-DAC, EI-EPE/G, EI-ESR/W/X/Y/Z, EI-EVD.
Maybe they were due for heave maintenance and Ryanair didn't feel like investing in planes they were not going to use for much longer. That said, I do wonder why they didn't lease additional capacity on the market to cover these shortages.
Delta777Jet wrote:Blerg wrote:BasilFawlty wrote:What I don't understand is if the 737 MAX deliveries is the real problem, then why are they getting rid of older aircraft? If they're really need more aircraft they could extend leases or defer selling them. This year 9 737-800's have left the fleet so far: EI-DAC, EI-EPE/G, EI-ESR/W/X/Y/Z, EI-EVD.
Maybe they were due for heave maintenance and Ryanair didn't feel like investing in planes they were not going to use for much longer. That said, I do wonder why they didn't lease additional capacity on the market to cover these shortages.
It's the best moment to sell airplanes. They might never get again that much for them. This is surely more profitable than flying every possible winter route. Let me also remind that Ryanair usually parked a lot of aircraft during winter seasons across Europe.
SCQ83 wrote:Indeed. I was once in NYO and it is so far from Stockholm it does not make any sense today with Norwegian and everyone else at ARN. Not very different to what has happened to GRO (VS Barcelona) and HHN (VS Frankfurt/Luxembourg). Or RYG which was closed.