Lucydog wrote:Cancun is the place most of us would pick if flying from Manchester, I have been asking for this for months. If Virgin dont take this gift TUI will keep hoovering up ex Thomas Cook flights. Maybe BA might try as well. I dont want to transit through Atlanta as its to long a day. Manchester to Jamaica is also a good bet for us as well. twice weekly between the Islands.
I think VS should reconsider CUN. They pulled LGW-CUN a few years ago, but it's just TUI to themselves on that route from the UK plus BA from LGW.
I agree about Jamaica, particularly to MBJ.
Hurricane86 wrote:Lucydog wrote:Cancun is the place most of us would pick if flying from Manchester, I have been asking for this for months. If Virgin dont take this gift TUI will keep hoovering up ex Thomas Cook flights. Maybe BA might try as well. I dont want to transit through Atlanta as its to long a day. Manchester to Jamaica is also a good bet for us as well. twice weekly between the Islands.
I think the launch of ISB showed that Virgin are capable of original thinking at MAN and can follow where the market leads them. With Aer Lingus UK applying for permits for MAN-BOS/JFK/MCO, to me it seems likely that Virgin will be forced towards serving the gap in long-haul at MAN, and as you say that is Jamaica and Mexico right now since the demise of TCX. My one reservation about this is that I suspect these routes are fairly low-yielding, at least in more traditional times. The problem is that other more conventional Virgin Caribbean destinations like UVF, GND and ANU which may have higher yields have not recently been served from MAN with any regularity before (outside of cruise charters) and would represent a more significant risk in my opinion. I guess time will tell...
I'm less sure about MBJ being that low yielding. The prices of some Jamaican holidays aren't cheap, which would indicate to me there's some sort of premium demand, though not as much as say Barbados. VS will no doubt know more through any data they have from Virgin Holidays plus their existing MBJ flight.
As for Aer Lingus, there's room for another airline from MAN to New York and Orlando, so I actually welcome the competition and (from a consumer's perspective) choice. It will also keep VS pricing honest and on their toes - no bad thing! The fact they've applied for permits in the US and in the process of re-registering 2 of their A330's and intend to place 2 A321LR's on the UK register instead of the Irish register tells me they are deadly serious about it, irrespective of what the Irish media were whipping up a few months back at UK-US flights being at the expense of flights from Shannon Airport. That said, I do think this might dissuade VS/DL from re-launching their own MAN-BOS route in the future, as history has shown this route cannot sustain more than one airline.
You mention St Lucia. Besides VS no longer serving the island, they ran MAN-UVF for one season years ago but never ran it again.