Virgin gets domestic slots

I thought that the UK domestics were going to be 7500 points plus a small amount fo taxes - something like 10 or 15 quid from memory

No the tax and fees make up most of a domestic fare now, for example a VS domestic flight from MAN>LHR return in April 2013:

Total Net fare for all passengers GBP 8.00
Taxes, fees and surcharges GBP 97.85
Total GBP 105.85

Break down of the tax/fees:

UK Passenger Service Charge UB GBP 37.85
UK Air Passenger Duty GB GBP 26.00
Operating Airline Fuel & Insurance Surcharge YQ GBP 34.00

So 7500 miles + £97.85 is only actually giving you a £8.00 return flight. BA is exactly the same too. Domestic reward flights are a waste of miles.

But BA is 4500 avios and £15 one way. Double for return.

I wish Virgin well with this but I wonder how they are going to make money from it?

BA loses a reported £200m a year on its Heathrow short-haul operation. bmi was losing £38 per passenger. Heathrow landing charges are geared towards discouraging small short-haul ops and domestic traffic is by far the least lucrative traffic.

I tend to agree, can't see how VS will make a business of this when at least two major players have failed.

I wish Virgin well with this but I wonder how they are going to make money from it?

BA loses a reported £200m a year on its Heathrow short-haul operation. bmi was losing £38 per passenger. Heathrow landing charges are geared towards discouraging small short-haul ops and domestic traffic is by far the least lucrative traffic.

I tend to agree, can't see how VS will make a business of this when at least two major players have failed.

It depends on a lot of factors however ... neither BA's legacy cost base (contracts and operations) or BMI's revenue sharing with *A partners should apply to VS where a wet lease requires no capital outlay and represents a known fixed cost. I'm not necessarily disagreeing that SH flying into LHR Is tricky, but it can work. I read somewhere this week that KLM flies from 17 destinations in the UK to connect people to its network from AMS, there has to be a good reason for that ...

I'd argue - can VS actually NOT afford to offer these connections.

I am sure they have a good idea about what passengers currently connect / used to connect with BD etc and what they wetlease operation is going to cost.

I believe by also having this short haul network it will make them more likely to move to an alliance... all things that I think will be benficial to passengers and the Virgin business.

I thought that the UK domestics were going to be 7500 points plus a small amount fo taxes - something like 10 or 15 quid from memory

No the tax and fees make up most of a domestic fare now, for example a VS domestic flight from MAN>LHR return in April 2013:

Total Net fare for all passengers GBP 8.00
Taxes, fees and surcharges GBP 97.85
Total GBP 105.85

Break down of the tax/fees:

UK Passenger Service Charge UB GBP 37.85
UK Air Passenger Duty GB GBP 26.00
Operating Airline Fuel & Insurance Surcharge YQ GBP 34.00

So 7500 miles + £97.85 is only actually giving you a £8.00 return flight. BA is exactly the same too. Domestic reward flights are a waste of miles.

But BA is 4500 avios and £15 one way. Double for return.

Virgin is £15 and 3750 miles one way (obviously double for the return)

Unless VS wanted to commit commercial suicide, their domestic ops will only ever be LHR based for onward connections to the majority of their premium heavy network. Offering LGW domestic connections for only a small number of destinations doesn't make any sense.

I agree Ryan. Some days at LGW virgin only operate 4 flights and with ALL flight being early services ie before 2pm, how would running a connection service be viable? No airline has the money to have aircraft sitting around.

If Flybe have pulled ABZ from LGW surely there is no profit to be made there.

i think it's no coincidence that this annoucement came right on the heels of BA picking up some of the old LBA-LHR slots to get their north of england PAX onto their long hauls

i think it's no coincidence that this annoucement came right on the heels of BA picking up some of the old LBA-LHR slots to get their north of england PAX onto their long hauls

BA have dropped LGW-MAN service though.

An eagle eyed spotter on FT suggests that Avion Express will be operating the VS short haul fleet, see here for a clue!

An eagle eyed spotter on FT suggests that Avion Express will be operating the VS short haul fleet, see here for a clue!

here gives more away with the start date.