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Post by northbynorthwest on Mar 21, 2009 5:20:19 GMT 1
Well, we are just over a week away from the start of what I believe is the most significant service ever offered from LPL. It is the first time that LPL has been truelly connected wordwide by any of the major airline alliances. (I am discounting the British Airways flights LPL-LHR many years ago as none of the alliances were in effect then.) The importance of LPL-AMS on KLM cannot be underestimated because it can show that LPL is viable for full service carriers, not just the low cost carriers. Prior to this routing, no practical connecting flights to/from LPL were displayed on any of the global reservation systems - so any passenger wanting to come to LPL from, for example, Los Angeles simply could not do it, they would be routed to MAN by every major carrier. For all practical purposes, LPL as an airport did not exist in the world of airline reservations systems. But now it most certainly does.
This new route comes about at probably the worst possible time imaginable to start a new route, with the worldwide recession. However, it is imperative that it succeeds. It will certainly draw off many KLM passengers from AMS-MAN, but for it to succeed, it also needs to gain incremental passengers from EasyJet as well as from the other global alliances who fly from MAN to their hubs such as LHR/FRA and who connect around the world from there. If all this route does is diminish MAN-AMS traffic, it will fail in the eyes of KLM. Incidentally, I did notice that KLM are reducing some capacity at MAN as of March 29th, with a couple of 737 flights switching to Fokker 70s and 100s.
I am able to check KLM loads at work, and although I cannot reveal actual loads, I can pass on what I see as trends, and I will do this occaisionally on the forum. The loads for the first week or so are truelly NOT indicative of how the route is doing - so you will see some flights during this time where there are only a handful of passengers. Loads build up gradually on new routes, and this route is no exception. If you still see flights with only a handful of passengers after two or three months of operation, THEN you can start worrying.
I decided to look at other KLM routes into Britain to compare advanced bookings to those from LPL until the end of April, and the advanced bookings out of LPL are fairly similar to those out of MME/HUY/LBA/CWL on the unscientific random sample of dates that I chose. The crux will be how many businessmen will fly (who also book at short notice and pay premium fares).
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Post by johnoakes on Mar 21, 2009 8:30:28 GMT 1
 Now this is very interesting and useful information.Thanks for sharing this with us .I hope the route does well and that you can keep us up to spec with any developments. You are in a very privileged position.
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Post by griff on Mar 25, 2009 21:51:35 GMT 1
Anyone know the arrival & departure times?
Cheers
Griff
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Post by RICEY on Mar 25, 2009 21:54:29 GMT 1
what time is the first a/c due in?
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Post by LPL on Mar 26, 2009 11:57:02 GMT 1
This Sunday is:
arr 0950 dep 1030
arr 1650 dep 1730
arr 2055 dep 0615 Monday
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Post by LPL on Mar 28, 2009 14:38:49 GMT 1
I have noticed that on some sites the KLM fights are listed with a Air France codeshare.
KL1037/AF8321 arr 0950
KL1041/AF8323 arr 1650
KL1045/AF8325 arr 2055
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Post by LPL on Mar 28, 2009 15:22:36 GMT 1
I have noticed that on some sites the KLM fights are listed with a Air France codeshare. KL1037/AF8321 arr 0950 KL1041/AF8323 arr 1650 KL1045/AF8325 arr 2055 The Schiphol site is also listing a Northwest Airlines codeshare too. KL1037/AF8321/NW8710 arr 0950 KL1041/AF8323/NW8717 arr 1650 KL1045/AF8325/NW8719 arr 2055 |
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Post by RICEY on Mar 28, 2009 21:50:22 GMT 1
gona go up to see the first a/c arrive hopefuly. ill take me camera and try for pics from the terminal
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Post by davel on Mar 30, 2009 16:29:48 GMT 1
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Post by LPL on Mar 30, 2009 17:51:39 GMT 1
Well, we are just over a week away from the start of what I believe is the most significant service ever offered from LPL. It is the first time that LPL has been truelly connected wordwide by any of the major airline alliances. (I am discounting the British Airways flights LPL-LHR many years ago as none of the alliances were in effect then.) The importance of LPL-AMS on KLM cannot be underestimated because it can show that LPL is viable for full service carriers, not just the low cost carriers. Prior to this routing, no practical connecting flights to/from LPL were displayed on any of the global reservation systems - so any passenger wanting to come to LPL from, for example, Los Angeles simply could not do it, they would be routed to MAN by every major carrier. For all practical purposes, LPL as an airport did not exist in the world of airline reservations systems. But now it most certainly does. This new route comes about at probably the worst possible time imaginable to start a new route, with the worldwide recession. However, it is imperative that it succeeds. It will certainly draw off many KLM passengers from AMS-MAN, but for it to succeed, it also needs to gain incremental passengers from EasyJet as well as from the other global alliances who fly from MAN to their hubs such as LHR/FRA and who connect around the world from there. If all this route does is diminish MAN-AMS traffic, it will fail in the eyes of KLM. Incidentally, I did notice that KLM are reducing some capacity at MAN as of March 29th, with a couple of 737 flights switching to Fokker 70s and 100s. I am able to check KLM loads at work, and although I cannot reveal actual loads, I can pass on what I see as trends, and I will do this occaisionally on the forum. The loads for the first week or so are truelly NOT indicative of how the route is doing - so you will see some flights during this time where there are only a handful of passengers. Loads build up gradually on new routes, and this route is no exception. If you still see flights with only a handful of passengers after two or three months of operation, THEN you can start worrying. I decided to look at other KLM routes into Britain to compare advanced bookings to those from LPL until the end of April, and the advanced bookings out of LPL are fairly similar to those out of MME/HUY/LBA/CWL on the unscientific random sample of dates that I chose. The crux will be how many businessmen will fly (who also book at short notice and pay premium fares). By looking at the local media today, KLM are predicting 100,000 passengers per year to use the LPL/AMS route. This breaks down to an average of 45 per sector (8100 per 30 day month). |
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Post by RICEY on Mar 30, 2009 20:12:32 GMT 1
great pics dave. glad it got a double water cannon salute
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Post by johnoakes on Mar 31, 2009 7:19:52 GMT 1
;D
Good to see the water cannons---like to have seen it on national news too.At least our good news is recognised by the aviation fraternity.
What a step forward.
I wonder what other good news is due this year, after this and Whizzair to PRAGUE.
Good luck often comes in threes.LOL
Well done the management team--what a coup.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2009 11:30:00 GMT 1
Saw my first KLM LPL flight fly over my house on a sunny Sunday afternoon just gone, nice to see something new not Orange or Blue and yellow :-)
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Post by northbynorthwest on Apr 7, 2009 17:35:26 GMT 1
So with the flight running for 10-11 days now, here are some general observations of trends for bookings. Firstly, some of the initial loads were quite poor, but I am pleased to see that the loads are picking up quite well. Indeed, there are some very good forward bookings on certain flights during the next couple of weeks. I don't know if they are related to any particular sports activities or anything, or whether they are related to any cheap fare offerings.
The loads seem to follow a fairly standard trend - decent loads Monday mornings, trailing off Tuesday/Wednesday, increasing on Thursdays and Fridays as people return home for the weekend or head off for a weekend break. Saturday mornings ok, trailing off for the rest of Saturday and Sunday mornings then increasing again as people return from weekends or go on business trips. This is pretty much standard for just about any market in Europe / North America that has a mix of business and leisure travellers.
Busiest flights are typically the first flight inbound from AMS, KL1037, and the 10am outbound flight, KL1038. These two have consistently good loads - they both connect with many longhaul flights into/out of AMS. The early morning KL1034 has lower forward bookings - but does also see bookings increase closer to departure day, pointing to higher revenue business people using the flight. This flight also has a huge list of connections out of AMS, so should do very well.
The afternoon / evening flights trail off a little, but again should see increased bookings closer to departure time due business travel. People booking business fares - J fares or whatever they call them are fairly few compared to flights out of MME/LBA/HUY, etc that I compare these flights to. As business travellers (hopefully) begin using the LPL flights, these should rise - indeed, they must rise if this route is to be successful.
KLM will be monitoring this flight closely, just as they do for all flights, and they will be wanting to see as little diminishing of loads / yields out of MAN as possible. Obviously, there will be many passengers now using LPL-AMS versus MAN-AMS, but what they will be looking for is growth based on new business that comes at the expense of Easyjet and (more importantly) at the expense of the likes of Lufthansa / British Airways / Scandinavian out of MAN.
I will be watching to see how the loads increase between now and the end of April - I can see how many business / economy seats are booked on each flight, so I will be able to see some definite trends by that time. Be interesting to see what affect these flights have on Easyjet, particularly with business travellers between LPL-AMS. The times I have used this flight, there were several businessmen onboard - if Easy lose them, their yields on this route will drop significantly, and I have to wonder if they could remain on this route. I know they and KLM are after different markets, but if KLM capture just a few passengers off Easy, any profits Easy make on this route will vanish. Having said that, Easyjet do appear amazingly resilient when Ryanair move into their markets - but KLM is no Ryanair.
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Post by eagleeye on Apr 7, 2009 18:08:48 GMT 1
It looks like KLM are also expanding in Canada. Just flew back from Calgary with BA and boards in terminal carried news of a new :DKLM Calgary -Amsterdam service starting in May. I think I will use this next from more convenient airport Liverpool when I travel again to Canada.  |
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