Football Charters a Comparison & nwan LFC/EFC threads index
Jun 16, 2018 23:31:10 GMT 1
ian531 and khardwk like this
Post by viscount on Jun 16, 2018 23:31:10 GMT 1
THE LFC FAN'S AIRLIFTS
- HOW DO THEY ALL COMPARE?
- HOW DO THEY ALL COMPARE?
Despite the title I've given this research, there is no real comparison between each of the LFC fan's airlifts to European and UEFA League Cup Finals. In the early 'glory' days of Shankley and Paisley's LFC there were a number of appearances in the Final, indeed 8 in total 1966 to 1985. The location of the final was generally in North-west Europe. Liverpool's appearances in Finals for the record were:
1966 Cup Winner's Cup Borussia Dortmund (lost) Hampden Park, GLASGOW. 5 return charter flts
1973 UEFA Cup Borrusia Monchengladbach (won) 2 legs, home & then away 3 inbound; 8 outbound using 6 airlines
1976 UEFA Cup Club Brugge (won) 2 legs, home & then away 4 inbound (incl 2 A.300); 6 outbound using 5 airlines
1977 European Cup Borussia Monchengladbach (won) Stadio Olimpico, ROME. 24 charter flts, 8 airlines, one wide body (Tristar)
1978 European Cup Club Brugge (won) Wembley Stadium, LONDON. no charter flight - the team did likely fly scheduled.
1981 European Cup Real Madrid FC (won) Parc des Princes, PARIS. 10 charter flts, 6 airlines, 3 wide-body flights (DC-10s)
1984 European Cup Roma (won) Stadio Olimpico, ROME. 12 charter flts, 6 airlines, 2 wide-body flts (B.747, Tristar)
1985 European Cup Juventus (lost) Heysel Stadium, BRUSSELS. 11 charter flts, 5 airlines, 1 wide body aircraft (B.747)
To be fair and impartial, despite this being a thread relating to LFC in European competition Finals, the City's other supporters need a mention as they have reached a European Final just the once in a long and industrious history - and when they did their fans flocked to see them.
1985 UEFA Cup Rapid Vienna (won) de Kuip Stadium, ROTTERDAM. 20 charter flts, 9 airlines, 5 wide body flts (A.310,B.747,B.767)
To continue this table into the modern period, it is interesting to find the two finals played in Western Europe were comparable to earlier games in terms of support travelling by charter flight, the big difference being to the Finals located on the east side of Europe.
2001 UEFA Cup Deportivo Alaves (won) Westfalenstadion, DORTMUND. 20 charter flts, 9 airlines, 6 wide-body flights
2005 Champions League AC Milan (won) Ataturk Stadium, ISTANBUL. 42 charter flts, 22 airlines, 12 wide-body flights (all twins)
2007 Champions League AC Milan (lost) Olympic Stadium, ATHENS. 54 charter flts, 33 airlines, 11 wide-body flights
2016 Europa Cup Sevilla FC (lost) St.Jacob-Park Stadium, BASLE. 18 charter flts, 14 airlines, 1 wide-body aircraft
2018 Champions League Real Madrid FC (lost) NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, KIEV 32 charter flts, 22 airlines, 5 wide-body flights
2019 Champions League Tottenham Hotspurs FC (won) Metropolitano Stadium, MADRID 39 charter flts, 15 airlines, 6 wide-body flights
(actually 37 charters outbound/41 returning)
2022 Champions League Real Madrid (lost) Stade de France, PARIS 27 charter flts, 12 airlines, 7 wide-body flights
(actually 30 outbound and 24 returning)
It is not really fair to try and analyse this table any further, other than to comment on the fairly obvious fact that the more remote from Liverpool, the more fans will have to travel by charter rather than making their own way to the big Finals. Clearly Athens, Istanbul, Madrid and Kiev are the games that have produced the most charters, then Rome '77, Dortmund, Rotterdam (EFC), Basle as you move down the rank order. Looking beyond the Finals, there have been other matches that produced a large number of charter flights, St. Etienne fans in 1977 arrived for a Quarter-Final game on 26 charter flights flown by 13 airlines.
So what other variables need to be considered apart from distance and accessibility? Clearly the number of seats available to fans is a factor and varies according to the capacity of the stadium and UEFA distribution policy. The fear of violence limited sales of tickets for the 1984 Rome final against Roma, effectively the 'home' team, whose fans had a particularly bad reputation at the time. For Kiev the number of aircraft that could be found was a limiting factor. The state of the economy will play a factor too, the degree of 'feel good factor' affecting the amount of cash available for spending on luxury items such as heading across Europe to support your team for 90 minutes. Linked to that is price, it appears that there is a growing 'cash-in on the windfall' factor that raises the price of aircraft charters, hotels, coach transport even food; companies charging a premium on top of their maximum rates as demand for a very short period outstrips supply.
A new 'trend' for Madrid in 2019 was for both Ryanair and Vueling to direct-sell seats as a scheduled service on the Internet. The actual regular scheduled service operator, easyJet, did not respond to demand in terms of extra flights - they just put the fares up on their flights! The flights (4 each way by Ryanair and 12 outbound and 16 inbound by Vueling are counted in the 'charter' number as they were 'specials' purely for the event.
Unfortunately interesting stats such as how many fans travelled, exactly how many flew, how many tickets were allocated to LFC fans etc are figures that don't become public domain.
MORE FIGURES
BASLE 2016 DORTMUND 2001 ROTTERDAM*1985 ROME 1977 PARIS 2022 KIEV 2018 MADRID 2019 ISTANBUL 2005 ATHENS 2007
No of return flights 18 20 20 24 27 average 32 39 average 42 54
No of airlines 14 9 9 8 12 22 15 22 33
Regn nationalities 9 6 3 5 9 17 9 14 18
No of different a/c 18 27 20 21 30 35 42 42 60
Pax each way (approx.) 5,000 3,330 max 10,000 10,000ish 12,000
Wide Body flts 1 6 5 1 7> 5 6 12 10
A.300 1 A.300 8 A.300
A.310 3 A.310
A.330 1 A.330 6 A.330 1 A.330 2 A.330 2 A.330 2 A.330
A.340 1 A.340
B.747 2 B.747 1 B.747 1 B.767> 1 B.747 6 B.747+
B.767 1 B.767 2 B.767 1 B.767 2 B.767 2 B.767
B.777 1 B.777
B.787 1 x B787 1 B.787 1 B.787
DC-10 2 DC-10
Tristar 1 Tristar 1 Tristar
NOTES: * Rotterdam 1985 airlift was with EFC fans
Number of flights is that outbound.
+ There were actually 7 B.747 outbound for Athens, but one was a substitute for a Boeing 757
The number of different aircraft covers both outbound and return charters. Biz-jets not included.
> In 2022 the B.767 was on the return leg only (6 wide-bodies out, 7 on the return
FOOTNOTE
This post has not worked out quite how I planned it to look. However it does clearly show how the recent fan's airlifts rank against each other in numerical terms.
