BA to add capacity to CCU - Airliners-India

B772 · Member

BA to add capacity to CCU

PALatYWG · Member

If the rumour turns out to be true then it's good news for CCU! But on a second thought, how BA will fill it's 6x 772s ? With LH's 3 weekly starting in Dec 06 and EK's 6 weekly to DXB (I guess with UK bound passengers mostly), who is going to be elbowed out? AI ? I don't think CCU can support 12 europe-bound flights a week.

Interested to know how EK doing on their CCU route...I used them (April-May 06) when they have just started the route. For DXB-CCU route, we were about 60 pax whereas for CCU-DXB, the flight was almost full. But again EK is known for elbowing out other players by just flooding some routes with seats initially.

Nimish · Member

PALatYWG wrote:

But on a second thought, how BA will fill it's 6x 772s ? With LH's 3 weekly starting in Dec 06 and EK's 6 weekly to DXB (I guess with UK bound passengers mostly), who is going to be elbowed out? AI ? I don't think CCU can support 12 europe-bound flights a week.

I think CCU has the potential to turn into a regional hub, with feeder flights from Bangladesh/Myanmar/Bhutan being timed to connect to the direct flights to LHR/FRA. That way every one benefits and AAI @ CCU becomes much richer!

B772 · Member

BA and AI are reporting loads over 85% ex CCU.I'm not sure about EK but i strongly believe that this would also be as high as 70%. With these figures in mind it does seem that BA will easily be able to fill the extra 3 flights it is rumoured to announce soon.

Can anybody help with EK loads ex CCU ?

B772 · Member

LH is for some reason operating A333 on its inaugural flight to CCU on December 1st and then switching to the A343 from its very next flight.Any particular reason for this ?

Nimish · Member

B772 wrote:

Can anybody help with EK loads ex CCU ?

FRI  25 Aug 2006 EK        547    CCU  09:40     DXB  13:15     332  0  J0 C0 Y0 W0 M0 B0 K0 Q0 H0 L0 T0 V0
SUN  27 Aug 2006 EK        549    CCU  20:30     DXB  00:05 +1  332  0  F4 A4 J4 C4 Y0 W0 M0 B0 K0 Q0 H0 L0 T0 V0
MON  28 Aug 2006 EK        547    CCU  09:40     DXB  13:15     332  0  F4 A4 J4 C4 Y0 W0 M0 B0 K0 Q0 H0 L0 T0 V0
TUE  29 Aug 2006 EK        547    CCU  09:40     DXB  13:15     332  0  F4 A4 J4 C4 Y4 W4 M4 B4 K4 Q4 H4 L4 T4 V4
And showing fully open for Wednesday/Thursday as well
FRI  01 Sep 2006 EK        547    CCU  09:40     DXB  13:15     332  0  J0 C0 Y0 W0 M4 B4 K4 Q4 H0 L4 T4 V0
Sunday - wide open
Monday - wide open

So Fri/Sun/Monday - fully sold out, and open from Tuesday-Th, busy again on Friday etc.

Note: These are NOT the loads on the flight, these only indicate the number of seats the airline is willing to sell at different fare levels. Hence a flight showing wide open on the GDS may in fact be fully booked, but the airline may be looking to get extra pax to compensate for no-shows etc.

HTH getting a feel for how EK is doing. I would say they're doing quite well - since they have a couple of completely sold out flights this week.

PALatYWG · Member

Nimish wrote:

Note: These are NOT the loads on the flight, these only indicate the number of seats the airline is willing to sell at different fare levels. Hence a flight showing wide open on the GDS may in fact be fully booked, but the airline may be looking to get extra pax to compensate for no-shows etc. HTH getting a feel for how EK is doing. I would say they're doing quite well - since they have a couple of completely sold out flights this week.

Nimish,

Many thanks for explanation, very helpful for non-trade people like us who simply love commercial aviation!

The departure of RJ (twice weekly) from CCU may be another factor. My uncle always used RJ for his annual FRA-CCU trip but this year he had to take EK. Curious to know how GF is doing on CCU-BAH as against EK's onslaught in terms of load factor...

Nimish · Member

PALatYWG wrote:

Many thanks for explanation, very helpful for non-trade people like us who simply love commercial aviation!

The departure of RJ (twice weekly) from CCU may be another factor. My uncle always used RJ for his annual FRA-CCU trip but this year he had to take EK. Curious to know how GF is doing on CCU-BAH as against EK's onslaught in terms of load factor...

PALatYWG - you're welcome! I'm not in the aviation trade either - just a software engineer who is intruiged by aviation and loves the thrill of flying.

GF & EK seem to survive together in other markets (BOM/DEL etc.), so I'm sure they'll do the same in CCCU as well. I think EK is generally the pricier one with much more aggression (they start with 8X widebody to BLR, while GF is still 2X 320 to BLR for the past many years!), and hence they eventually take up the market they create. GF will continue to be an option based on price or convenience (since GF goes to BAH & MCT, while EK goes to DXB)

PALatYWG · Member

Nimish,

Once again many thanks ! I am also in a totally different profession. Don't like the job I do but not qualified for the type of job(avaition of course!) I would love to do!

D-ABTH · Member

sometimes u dont need to start out qualified... you just need the break... and you pick up from there.

you never know till you dont try.... you may risk failure but you will know you gave it your best.

B772 · Member

Now that we know that EK is doing fairly well, it would be very interesting to know how SQ and GF are doing on their services to CCU. Tg;s performance has been well known for a long time.The simply rake in the profits.

B772 · Member

I'M AGAIN PUTTING IT DOWN.

CAN SOMEBODY KINDLY INFORM OF OTHER AIRLINE LOADS EX CCU FOR EG. SQ,GF ETC.

D-ABTH · Member

by shouting i doubt you're gonna get it any faster mate... realise that not everyone on this board has access to the stuff you are looking for... and that the ones who do, might be too busy with other things

Nimish · Member

Once again - not loads, but seat availability on Sabre (GDS):

GF CCU - MCT
WED  30 Aug 2006 GF279    J4 C4 Y4 H4 M4 L4 Q4 D4 T4 K4 V4
FRI  01 Sep 2006 GF279    J4 C4 Y4 H4 M4 L4 Q4 D4 T0 K4 V0
SAT  02 Sep 2006 GF279    J4 C4 Y0 H0 M0 L0 Q0 D4 T0 K0 V0
WED  06 Sep 2006 GF279    J4 C4 Y4 H4 M4 L4 Q4 D4 T4 K4 V4

SQ CCU - SIN
MON  28 Aug 2006 SQ415    Z4 C4 J4 D4 Y9 W9 Q9 K0 L0 S9 E9 B9 M9 H9 N9 T9 V9
WED  30 Aug 2006 SQ415    Z4 C4 J4 D4 Y9 W9 Q9 K0 L0 S9 E9 B9 M9 H9 N9 T9 V9
FRI  01 Sep 2006 SQ415    Z4 C4 J4 D4 Y9 W9 Q9 K0 L9 S9 E9 B9 M9 H9 N9 T9 V9
SAT  02 Sep 2006 SQ415    Z4 C4 J4 D4 Y9 W9 Q9 K0 L0 S9 E9 B9 M9 H9 N9 T0 V9
MON  04 Sep 2006 SQ415    Z4 C4 J4 D4 Y9 W9 Q9 K0 L0 S9 E9 B9 M9 H9 N9 T0 V9

So SQ seems totally flat, GF has a slight blip on Saturday, where it's sold out in Economy.

SQ suffers from it's lack of a/c choices, since it's smallest a/c is the 772. The only hope is that there's enough cargo business to keep the a/c profitable, even if it's an empty flight as far as pax go. I know SQ must do quite well on cargo from BLR, because they deploy numerous 747 cargo a/c to BLR every week.

Nimish · Member

DABTH wrote:

by shouting i doubt you're gonna get it any faster mate...

I Agree with DABTH here.

B772, please realize that all caps is the equivalent of shouting.

If the information is so important, please take a look at a thread on this same board on this topic - Fare availability. THis will give you the options to get the fare availability yourself, and there are free options available.

I've signed up for the KVS paid service ($3/month) since I wanted access to Amadeus.

B772 · Member

Apologies for the caps. It was not intentional and i did not realise it amounts to shouting.

Surprising to see so much availability on SQ. CCU-SIN is a medium to high density route and SQ only recently added a 4th flight on this sector.In fact there are rumours that they might further add capacity with a few more flights.Can any one provide information on the actual number of seats occupied on a particular flight.

Good to know that GF is doing reasonably well.

Are TG's loads still very high.

Nimish · Member

B772 wrote:

Can any one provide information on the actual number of seats occupied on a particular flight.

Good to know that GF is doing reasonably well.

Are TG's loads still very high.

I don't think TG flies to CCU any more (did not show up in my search for CCU-SIN). About the number of seats actually occupied, that's easily found through listening to the ATC communication. At least in BLR, each flight has to declare the POB (persons on board) before getting an OK for pushback. Other than that, it's one of the deep secrets that no airline will reveal, or no GDS has information on.

GF is definitely loosing the market since they're still stuck on a few 320's a week. It's the same situation in BLR, where GF is still stuck with 2 320's a week, while EK will start with 8 widebodies (772/332) a week! Imagine the disparity there. So essentially EK will have to create the market, and will reap the benefits if they can create the market, while GF will be content with fluctuating loads on it's occasional 320 service to BLR/CCU!

PALatYWG · Member

Nimish,

But Amadeus.net shows 7x per week for BLR-MCT/BAH on A320 ! Do they really fly 2x per week? Also TG flies 5X CCU-BKK with A300. Flew few times (last was in May 06), always good load... many first time beyond-India travellers (behaviour pattern comparable to the recent NW event at AMS but TG crew just ignore the situation otherwise they have to divert to BKK for every flight!!).

DELAPPROACH · Member

GF flies daily on the BLR-MCT route and the flight goes on to BAH twice in a week.

Regards,

Mayank

Nimish · Member

DELAPPROACH wrote:

GF flies daily on the BLR-MCT route and the flight goes on to BAH twice in a week.

Oops - my bad. I guess I got confused with the through flight to BAH

PALatYWG wrote:

Also TG flies 5X CCU-BKK with A300. Flew few times (last was in May 06), always good load... many first time beyond-India travellers (behaviour pattern comparable to the recent NW event at AMS but TG crew just ignore the situation otherwise they have to divert to BKK for every flight!!).

Ah yes indeed. Quite surprising TG did not show up in my search for options CCU-SIN!