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Post by bobbystreet56 on Mar 8, 2015 13:59:27 GMT
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Post by Jeff on Mar 8, 2015 14:16:06 GMT
The 787 and the like are a big step up from a 737, on a 737 to Europe you can get in 4 or 5 sectors a day, BMI although not low cost used to get 6 in on some schedules! so multiply 6 x 180 (b737) gives you a possibility of selling 1080 seats in a day. Fly transatlantic only allows 1 sector a day to the likes of JFK and Boston, so a 300 seat 787 only allows for the possibility of selling 600 seats. Your already struggling to get your return.....then you add to this leasing costs... Tui group are paying $800,000 a month on lease costs per 787 ! a 2012 B738 costs on average $360,000 in leasing costs for a month !.....Im sure it can be done....but its not for the feint hearted Airline CEO !
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Post by graham on Mar 8, 2015 14:39:01 GMT
O'Leary reckons he will be able to offer trans-Atlantic seats for a little as €10? Surely, that will possibly apply to a very, very few seats per flight. Even at €100 on a 300 seat 787, that's just a revenue of €30,000 out of which he has to pay leasing costs, fuel, landing fees and staff. What's the cost of fuel for a trans-Atlantic flight Jeff, roughly for say a 787?
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Post by Jeff on Mar 8, 2015 14:49:28 GMT
Cant find figures for a 787 but a 380 is around $50,000 one way LHR-JFK! I believe aviation fuel is around 80 cents a gallon
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Post by Jeff on Mar 8, 2015 14:58:37 GMT
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Post by graham on Mar 8, 2015 14:59:53 GMT
I can't see how he'll make it pay, you can turn an A320 or a B737 round quickly, fewer pax, therefore fewer bags, many travel with just a cabin bag, less fuel to load on a 2-4 hour flight, and so on. And as has been said, the distance invloved to the States, time differences, crew layovers and the like, makes you wonder how he thinks he'll do it. Low cost also means "no frills" - is anyone really going to contemplate a 7-8 hour flight with nothing to eat other than a sandwich and a can of coke?
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Post by Jeff on Mar 8, 2015 15:07:03 GMT
Like i said..... Its a big ask !! Low cost doesnt do cargo either which goes a big way to Offset the cost of the flight ! Long haul as you say involves crew layover, normally 2 nights, extra crews, in case aircraft goes tech or delayed and crew go out of hours...... Theres so Many pitfalls, I still dont know how the full cost operators make it work to be honest !!
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Post by graham on Mar 8, 2015 15:10:32 GMT
According to the article, most turn the profit on the business class seats they sell for each flight. I know it was a long time ago now, but didn't Laker fail because the likes of BOAC and PanAm squeezed him out to protect their lucrative trans Atlantic business?
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Post by Jeff on Mar 8, 2015 15:17:56 GMT
From wiki
The final blow came when British Caledonian (BCal) found out about a rescue package that McDonnell-Douglas[113] and General Electric (GE), the suppliers of DC-10 widebodied aircraft and its CF6 engines to Laker as well as BCal, had put together.[nb 25][90][105] BCal wrote to other operators of the DC-10/CF6 in Europe saying that BCal on behalf of all European operators warned McDonnell-Douglas and GE that in the event of the rescue for Laker being approved, none of these airlines would do business with those companies. McDonnell-Douglas and GE did not go ahead. Laker Airways collapsed during the early morning of 5 February 1982 with debts of £270m, the biggest corporate failure in Britain.[67][105][114][115]
Sir Freddie sued British Airways, BCal, Pan Am, TWA, Lufthansa, Air France, Swissair, KLM, SAS, Sabena, Alitalia and UTA for conspiracy to put his airline out of business by predatory pricing.[105][116] They settled out of court for US$50m, which let Laker Airways pay its debts. British Airways reached a separate out-of-court agreement with Sir Freddie personally for £8m.[115][117]
Following Laker Airways's demise at the end of the first week of February in 1982, a number of aircraft the airline had operated at that time were quickly re-allocated to other operators. These included two McDonnell-Douglas DC-10-10 widebodies that joined the fleet of British Caledonian Charter, BCal's charter division, four BAC One-Eleven 300 narrowbodies that replaced the seven One-Eleven 200s BCal had inherited from British United Airways at the time of its formation and two Airbus A300B4 widebodies that were placed with Air Jamaica.[118]
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Post by graham on Mar 8, 2015 15:23:56 GMT
Thanks for that, seems then a case of " bail out Laker and wave goodbye to us all as customers".
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Post by keithh on Mar 8, 2015 17:43:51 GMT
We returned from our honeymoon in Barbados on Laker in mid Jan 82 and our flight was delayed to combine with the next flight making the aircraft completely full and meaning that we had to go home via Luxembourg to drop off a number of passengers that would have been on the later flight. I guessed then that the writing was on the wall.
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Post by graham on Mar 8, 2015 19:11:29 GMT
Similar but slightly different Keith we went to Crete with a package company called Golden Sun way back, possibly 2004, late in the season, around mid October I think. At the apartments we were staying at, there were people who had flown in on various flights from Exeter, Cardiff, Birmingham and Gatwick. The day prior to all the homebound flights departing, the rep appeared on site and told us that due to the high cost of sending four empty aircraft out to collect everyone as it was the final week of the season, a 747 had been chartered to take the Exeter, Cardiff and Gatwick passengers home on one flight. We were lucky - we flew from BHX that year and we weren't affected. But one of the couples who had flown from Exeter were from Port Isaac in Cornwwall, they were flown back to LGW and then spent 12 hours on a coach dropping everyone off.
A few days after that Golden Sun went bust.
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