Norwegian Air International discussion

JCX BXC

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Loss making, yes. Not being used, no. Use of the phrase 'Shannon lobby' to encompass the entire travelling public of the Midwest suggests a bias against Shannon. Shannon also had transatlantic flights from four other carriers competing against Norwegian.

Agreed,

To say the service wasn't being used is bizzare when the LF is clearly stated and high. Are the people of the Midwest to blame for poor yield management by Norwegian?

If you give me a €50 in exchange for me giving you 2 €20 euros, is it my fault you lost a tenner?

Van.Bosch

JCX BXC wrote: »

Agreed,

To say the service wasn't being used is bizzare when the LF is clearly stated and high. Are the people of the Midwest to blame for poor yield management by Norwegian?

If you give me a €50 in exchange for me giving you 2 €20 euros, is it my fault you lost a tenner?

Agreed, but the yield mgt could be perfect and still lose money. If you can only sell seats at loss making prices because there is no demand at higher prices then the issue is that SNN customers were not willing to pay X to fly on Norweigsn’s service.

I think it’s more a reflection on the service/product than the people of the SNN region.

Blut2

Theres also the issue that unsustainably low prices will generate an artificial level of demand. Theres absolutely no point in having a high load factor on a route if your profit margin is -68%. Thats just not a route any airline can operate for long, regardless of the load factor.

If the route was priced at a profitable level we'd see how much sustainable demand there really is.

Irish Steve

I think it would be fair to say that probably more than on any other route, the absence of the MAX aircraft has been one of the most significant factors in the decision by Norwegian to close the routes. It was always intended that they would be operated by Max aircraft, and the initial launch using 800's was a short term stop gap due to delivery delays, and there were clear issues with using that airframe on the route, more significantly so in Winter months when the wind strengths are stronger, the 800 was not capable of getting to the scheduled destinations without a (costly) refuelling stop.

In addition, the operating costs of the MAX are listed as being between 6 and 16% better than an 800, depending on who you believe. On that basis, while the initial operations may not have been profitable because of marketing reasons, if the Max had been introduced at the time it was meant to have been, the economics of the route would have been somewhat different, but circumstances combined to make it almost impossible to operate as had been intended, the costs of transporting passengers to alternate airports, chartering in airframes from other operators, and using other frames from their own resources will have had significant implications, and while Boeing may eventually pick up the tab for much of that, the timing of those payments, and the reality of how much those payments cover in relation to the actual cost are a matter for the bean counters, and in the meantime, Norwegian will have been haemorrhaging cash to a scary extent, and it's becoming clear that the return to service of the Max is going to be a lot further down the line than anyone had been expecting, so they've been caught between a rock and a hard place, and had to make (for Ireland) uncomfortable decisions.

They're not alone in this, we've seen some hints in among the bluster of similar issues that are going to happen with Ryanair, and they are in a much stronger financial position to withstand the problems that are ongoing.

It may well be the case that the Norwegian plan was not sustainable, but what they've been forced to do over this summer has been very much NOT what they planned to do, and they should be given credit for doing as much as they have to try and make it happen in spite of some very difficult obstacles.

As to if they will return with a revised version of "the plan", once the future of the Max has been decided, that's anyone's guess.

goingnowhere

The MAX might have changed the numbers, but the numbers prior to the MAX issue weren't great.

If you want to start flying LCC long haul on the Atlantic, picking a fight with Aer Lingus on its home turf is never going to be a good plan.

Germany is still a ridiculous old fashioned market where LCC has still to take hold, only single Easyjet grabbed part of AB have things moved forward. Flying long haul out of TXL, SXF, HAM etc would have zero competition massive populations. Lufthansa while big hasn't got anything like the profit margins or cash on hand that IAG has, but they choose Ireland...

Marcusm

marno21 wrote: »

Incorrect. Birmingham has a seasonal route to Orlando with TUI.

Cork probably has plenty private jet capacity too. An off peak seasonal charter to a bucket & spade destination does not count!

Van.Bosch

goingnowhere wrote: »

The MAX might have changed the numbers, but the numbers prior to the MAX issue weren't great.

If you want to start flying LCC long haul on the Atlantic, picking a fight with Aer Lingus on its home turf is never going to be a good plan.

Germany is still a ridiculous old fashioned market where LCC has still to take hold, only single Easyjet grabbed part of AB have things moved forward. Flying long haul out of TXL, SXF, HAM etc would have zero competition massive populations. Lufthansa while big hasn't got anything like the profit margins or cash on hand that IAG has, but they choose Ireland...

They chose Ireland as the 737 Max could do Ireland - US. It couldn’t do Germany - US.

They could have used the Dreamliner but that’s a different question.

jucylucy

I always looked at it that if it was a good business case then Ryanair would have been doing it years ago....

Pablo Escobar

Blut2 wrote: »

If they run only one of ORK -> PVD or DUB -> PVD they'd be much better off running DUB. People from all over the country can get to DUB quickly, ORK is much more geographically limited.

Much larger market and all of that already too - almost double the PAX last summer out of DUB than ORK on that route, according to those figures.

About 10% of the population of Ireland live in the environs of Cork City. There are no transatlantic flights got to compete with. It's certainly not a bad starting point.

Irish Steve

jucylucy wrote: »

I always looked at it that if it was a good business case then Ryanair would have been doing it years ago....

Such short memories. Not that long ago, Ryanair made an offer for Aer Lingus, and their prime reason for doing so was to gain access to the very successful wide body ETOPS certified side of the operation, as the costs of setting up such an operation are not insignificant.

If I was in a position to look at putting a low cost operation across the Atlantic into place, I'd be using 2 x A380's, fed by a whole range of routes to and from Europe, with a similar arrangement on the other side of the pond, and using Shannon as the hub, in that with a smart, slick operation on the ground, 2 airframes could do 3 flights a day to the East Coast, albeit that there would need to be a slot for maintenance somewhere in the schedule. And yes, there will be all manner of abuse thrown for this suggestion, in time, the flights from Europe could well end up being replaced by high speed electric trains, if the environmental lobby get their way, the jury's out on how that scenario is going to play out.

rivegauche

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts
"PILOTS PAY IS A COMPLEX MATTER" -FÓRSA RESPOND TO RYANAIR PILOT STRIKE

At the end of the podcast(9m34s) the HR officer for Ryanair said that 50 pilots lost their jobs with the closing of the Dublin based.

JCX BXC

Irish Steve wrote: »

Such short memories. Not that long ago, Ryanair made an offer for Aer Lingus, and their prime reason for doing so was to gain access to the very successful wide body ETOPS certified side of the operation, as the costs of setting up such an operation are not insignificant.

So that means Ryanair wanted to apply their low-cost model to transatlantic?

No it doesn't, not at all.

IngazZagni

rivegauche wrote: »

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts
"PILOTS PAY IS A COMPLEX MATTER" -FÓRSA RESPOND TO RYANAIR PILOT STRIKE

At the end of the podcast(9m34s) the HR officer for Ryanair said that 50 pilots lost their jobs with the closing of the Dublin based.

No they didn’t rivegauche. All jobs remain for now and it is hoped that all pilots will be able to transfer to other bases on their network. They haven’t ruled out redundancies however.

You really shouldn’t take Ryanair’s side of the story as fact because most of the time it’s the opposite.

rivegauche

IngazZagni wrote: »

No they didn’t rivegauche. All jobs remain for now and it is hoped that all pilots will be able to transfer to other bases on their network. They haven’t ruled out redundancies however.

You really shouldn’t take Ryanair’s side of the story as fact because most of the time it’s the opposite.

If this was German I'd use Konjunktiv I/Subjunctiv reported speech but it isn't avaiable in English. If an airline is not flying routes which require a lot of labour and not replacing those routes it is reasonable that redundancies will occur and at the very least a closed base means up-ended lives.

IngazZagni

rivegauche wrote: »

If this was German I'd use Konjunktiv I/Subjunctiv reported speech but it isn't avaiable in English. If an airline is not flying routes which require a lot of labour and not replacing those routes it is reasonable that redundancies will occur and at the very least a closed base means up-ended lives.

Those aircraft will he redeployed elsewhere. Are you trying to say they'll simply just sell the aircraft or something?

JCX BXC

rivegauche wrote: »

If this was German I'd use Konjunktiv I/Subjunctiv reported speech but it isn't avaiable in English. If an airline is not flying routes which require a lot of labour and not replacing those routes it is reasonable that redundancies will occur and at the very least a closed base means up-ended lives.

You could use the Konjunktiv I/Subjunctiv, but it still wouldn't be entirely correct, base closed does not conclusively mean redundancies, staff can and often are transferred to other bases in this situation.

rivegauche

IngazZagni wrote: »

Those aircraft will he redeployed elsewhere. Are you trying to say they'll simply just sell the aircraft or something?

Norwegian have been selling airframes consistently for quite a while to keep their head above water.
Whether it is this exact plane that gets redeployed or another is in question.
I see EC-LXA flew route D81762 yesterday. That belongs to Evelop, not Norwegian. That is a charter airline.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norwegian-boeing/norwegian-air-sells-two-planes-as-it-puts-profitability-over-growth-idUSKCN1RF1CF
https://standbynordic.com/norwegian-sells-more-aircraft/

rivegauche

JCX BXC wrote: »

You could use the Konjunktiv I/Subjunctiv, but it still wouldn't be entirely correct, base closed does not conclusively mean redundancies, staff can and often are transferred to other bases in this situation.

...because everyone yearns to be a long distance commuter?

JCX BXC

rivegauche wrote: »

...because everyone yearns to be a long distance commuter?

If you're joining ryanair that's often what you have to do!

rivegauche

JCX BXC wrote: »

If you're joining ryanair that's often what you have to do!

Those Norwegian pilots mostly joined that airline on the understanding they'd be based in Dublin.

JCX BXC

rivegauche wrote: »

Those Norwegian pilots mostly joined that airline on the understanding they'd be based in Dublin.

That's true and I'm not disputing that, just pointing out that it's often done in the industry.

Irish Steve

JCX BXC wrote: »

So that means Ryanair wanted to apply their low-cost model to transatlantic?

No it doesn't, not at all.

Did I say that? NO, so stop stirring and saying things that were not there.

Ryanair made it clear at the time that they were looking at operating the EI side of things (if they had got it) as a separate entity, in a similar way to the way they are now running Lauda Air. There is no way that a home every night low cost model will transfer to Long Haul routes, they saw the Aer Lingus long haul operation as an easier route into the much more complex regulatory requirements of wide body ETOPS long haul, as it was (and is) a successful operation that they hoped to integrate into their overall operation.

They are in the ideal position to use Dublin, or Shannon, or possibly other locations as hubs for long haul, which they can feed passengers into from their short haul network, and for the Atlantic, Dublin and Shannon are ideally placed and have other advantages that make them a very attractive option, as has been seen with how well Aer Lingus are now doing the same.

JCX BXC

Irish Steve wrote: »

Did I say that? NO, so stop stirring and saying things that were not there.

I'm not "stirring" Irish Steve, the comment you replied to was saying that they believed if there was a market Ryanair would have done it years ago, and you replied referencing short memories and the Aer Lingus takeover attempt.

That probably wouldn't have been a low cost transatlantic service, hence my point.

L1011

Last roll of the dice has happened according to reports - the final share in the bank they've been selling off over time has been sold. That's the last solid source of capital for them used up

phishcakes

ironclaw wrote: »

EI have dramatically increased their prices from YYZ since Norweigan came into the fold. I'm flying with Norweigan in about a week from YHM, I think it cost about 800CAD for a round trip. The same flight with EI was 1400CAD. For contrast, I've never paid over 1000CAD for a return flight to YYZ with EI in the past two years, regardless of the time of year. I've even flown business for less than that. This time last year, my flight with EI was 700CAD and Air Canada around the same.

I understand fuel prices have moved a little but EI, to me, were price matching with Air Canada and others out of YYZ since YHM opened. I doubt they'll drop the prices now that it's gone.

In short, it's sustainable if you are charging double the fare price you were a year ago.

I agree, paid 800 EUR for return flights for 2, DUB to JFK end of November 2 years ago, coming up approx 1200 EUR for the same dates this November, the new 3 tier pricing structure is a complete scam

Darc19

phishcakes wrote: »

I agree, paid 800 EUR for return flights for 2, DUB to JFK end of November 2 years ago, coming up approx 1200 EUR for the same dates this November, the new 3 tier pricing structure is a complete scam

With Norwegian gone from Ireland to USA, and that capacity not taken up by any other airline, the value seats would have been booked almost immediately after Norwegian announced cancelation.
I know my brother has paid less than €700 for return to jfk for 1st week Nov. He booked about a month ago.

There was a thread in May in bargain alerts giving return flights for under €400 with aer lingus in Oct.

You're simply a victim of increased demand and missing out on the cheap seats.

Remember, you're not just competing against Irish people going to the USA, but also Americans taking trips here - and that figure is up double digit %

VG31

phishcakes wrote: »

I agree, paid 800 EUR for return flights for 2, DUB to JFK end of November 2 years ago, coming up approx 1200 EUR for the same dates this November, the new 3 tier pricing structure is a complete scam

Delta and United often have very good value to NYC from Dublin. I can see fares in November for as low as €280 or €380 with checked bags.

Van.Bosch

phishcakes wrote: »

I agree, paid 800 EUR for return flights for 2, DUB to JFK end of November 2 years ago, coming up approx 1200 EUR for the same dates this November, the new 3 tier pricing structure is a complete scam

How is it a scam?

phishcakes

Van.Bosch wrote: »

How is it a scam?

They try to make it seem cheaper than it actually is, by the time you add seat selection to the “saver” option it’s the same price as the “smart” option

Locker10a

phishcakes wrote: »

They try to make it seem cheaper than it actually is, by the time you add seat selection to the “saver” option it’s the same price as the “smart” option

But that’s not a scam, it’s the opposite, it’s total transparency, if you want the most basic fare plus the added conveniences you pay for the next tier that included such conveniences