V-Flyer

Hi Folks,

I was looking for opinions on whether you think further expansion at GLA could be possible. There a certainly some routes at Glasgow that need filling such as Boston and possibly Chicago which has north of 15,00 indirect pax a year the same as Las Vegas which now has a year round service from Thomas Cook and twice a week in the summer.

Could these routes be possible with an aircraft based at Glasgow during the Summer?

p.s I'm new thanks.

The whole things depends on the availability of landing slots at airports. These are often sold by airlines or they can be surrendered and then re-allocated to another airline. No landing slot - no route basically.

So even if airline does the sums and thinks a route would be worthwhile - they need the landing slots (which could upset the financial balance). They would also need to evaluate the costs of new aircraft, maintenance at new airports and so on.

I know Thomas Cook have been active with new routes (MAN- MIA and MCO) for example -let's hope they prove to be successful.

I agree with you, Glasgow has plenty of slots available and i'm sure they wouldn't say no to Virgin also probably because of an aircraft shortage to as all of Virgin's aircraft seem to be utilised. Transatlantic routes at Glasgow seem to have been doing very well over the past 2-3 years:
Thomas cook have put more flights to Orlando and added a 2*weekly service to Las Vegas
Air Canada Rouge are starting from next June
West jet arrived at the Airport last year and I'm sure new routes from Glasgow will come just what airline and when.
Thomas cook seem to be trying to put a lots of American flights on, but they simply don't have enough aircraft.

sf2302 wrote:I agree with you, Glasgow has plenty of slots available and i'm sure they wouldn't say no to Virgin also probably because of an aircraft shortage to as all of Virgin's aircraft seem to be utilised. Transatlantic routes at Glasgow seem to have been doing very well over the past 2-3 years:
Thomas cook have put more flights to Orlando and added a 2*weekly service to Las Vegas
Air Canada Rouge are starting from next June
West jet arrived at the Airport last year and I'm sure new routes from Glasgow will come just what airline and when.
Thomas cook seem to be trying to put a lots of American flights on, but they simply don't have enough aircraft.

It might not be as profitable for Virgin to open up these routes as it is for West Jet, Air Canada Rouge and Thomas Cook as it has higher operating costs (crew, admin etc).

GLA might have slots available but you also need a slot at a destination airport too and those may not always be at the most passenger friendly times especially if you have to avoid a noise or night curfew.

Well, hopefully in the coming years (if Virgin, for whatever reason has an aircraft available and there is slots) we could hopefully see them open an actual mini-base with a few routes as air travel globally continues to expand.

Also a new daily route can require at least 2 aircraft to operate, one going out, one coming back - depending on timings and length of flight, some flights require more due to length (e.g. LAX).
The more routes you have form an airport, you can set your schedule to have aircraft on the ground as little as possible, with one or two routes, there will be a lot more time sitting on the tarmac.

On my recent BGI flight it was bounded about by crew that further routes are being looked at from Man,Glasgow and Belfast. How true or timescales we wait with baited breath

Touch wood! Was speaking to someone at Customer service and they said the Las Vegas route will return between June and July.

I think the seasonal Las Vegas route has been quietly dropped this year, I can't find it anywhere on the booking engine.
They were facing competition on that route from TCX.

I shall repeat my request for VS to run a A330 to Atlanta to allow onward Delta connections.