KLM doubles their number of flights

adam88

Just seen that KLM have announced that they will increase their fright from two to four before the route even starts.

This route was covered by aer lingus before. Can I take it that that deal to feed into KLM route network will be no more and that KLM want total control of their dublin feeder operations ?

Locker10a

Yeah, I guess KLM being in the SkyTeam alliance don't want to rely on IAG/ONE world alliance to operate their feeder and codeshare flights, and took this opportunity to start doing it themselves!

dudara

2 flights daily to start, increasing to 4 flights from March next year (IIRC), using 100 seater Embraer. Don't know if that will entice the EI business commuters, but it will definitely pull in the long haul crowd

J.pilkington

Good move from KLM, I'm sure plenty of travellers would be similar to me and pick a connection to Asia with klm via schipol any day over having to go near Heathrow / CDG / Dubai / abu Dhabi

Mebuntu

dudara wrote: »

using 100 seater Embraer. Don't know if that will entice the EI business commuters, but it will definitely pull in the long haul crowd

If it's anything like the BA CityFlyer E190 experience to LCY then I'm all for it:).

The_Wanderer

What route?

Missing from OP post!

The_Wanderer

The_Wanderer wrote: »

What route?

Missing from OP post!

Dublin Ireland to Amsterdam in the Netherlands

weisses

13 flights to AMS from Dub daily ... Overkill ?

1123heavy

weisses wrote: »

13 flights to AMS from Dub daily ... Overkill ?

well if you look at paris, barcelona etc, there's plenty of room for 3 carriers and even 4 in Paris' case.

de biz

Great to see KLM but fares are steep compared to EI/FR for point to point but I guess the main push is to feed longhaul.

Noxegon

EI point to point to AMS was >€400 round trip last time I needed it. FR was half the price.

Hopefully KLM will stimulate the market a bit.

homerjay2005

J.pilkington wrote: »

Good move from KLM, I'm sure plenty of travellers would be similar to me and pick a connection to Asia with klm via schipol any day over having to go near Heathrow / CDG / Dubai / abu Dhabi

What's wrong with those airports???????

I flew through Dubai 8 times last 12 months, Heathrow once, Abu Dhabi twice and CDG once and never had any problems in any of them.

DUBAI is an absolute breeze to get through.

J.pilkington

homerjay2005 wrote: »

What's wrong with those airports???????

I flew through Dubai 8 times last 12 months, Heathrow once, Abu Dhabi twice and CDG once and never had any problems in any of them.

DUBAI is an absolute breeze to get through.

Long flight with associated extra hassle of getting on a large plane(everyone has luggage, takes longer to check in, board etc) get off long flight, wait around in a busy airport, get on another long flight and repeat. Plus depending on the time I found Dubai to be a zombie airport where most people are transiting from one long haul to another so sleeping on chairs etc

Versus short flight to Amsterdam then 1 long flight

Obviously the above is different if you have status with the airline which is not the scenario I am talking about

dudara

weisses wrote: »

13 flights to AMS from Dub daily ... Overkill ?

Don't think so. I fly that route twice a week with EI. My junior colleague prefers FR (again twice weekly). Planes are pretty much always fully sold

Noxegon

homerjay2005 wrote: »

What's wrong with those airports???????

I can't believe you asked that about CDG with a straight face!

homerjay2005

J.pilkington wrote: »

Long flight with associated extra hassle of getting on a large plane(everyone has luggage, takes longer to check in, board etc) get off long flight, wait around in a busy airport, get on another long flight and repeat. Plus depending on the time I found Dubai to be a zombie airport where most people are transiting from one long haul to another so sleeping on chairs etc

Versus short flight to Amsterdam then 1 long flight

Obviously the above is different if you have status with the airline which is not the scenario I am talking about

id rather two medium haul flights than 1 short and one longer one.

Noxegon

homerjay2005 wrote: »

id rather two medium haul flights than 1 short and one longer one.

I agree. However, I'd also prefer not to fly several extra hours. DXB is a good connecting point for Singapore and Australia, but it's not so good for places like Cape Town, Tokyo, etc.

1123heavy

Noxegon wrote: »

I can't believe you asked that about CDG with a straight face!

I transited through CDG with Air France and must say it was actually quite a pleasant experience. I don't get the problem?

highlydebased

LHR not quite a nightmare either, especially since EI moved to T2 and T1 is now closed

LiamaDelta

It seems the codeshare is ending with the schedule change in March. I'd imagine this will seriously affect the viability of the Aer Lingus Cork-Amsterdam flights now?

GreenFolder2

I'd agree, CDG is fine as long as there's no on-going strike or work to rule.

adam88

LiamaDelta wrote: »

It seems the codeshare is ending with the schedule change in March. I'd imagine this will seriously affect the viability of the Aer Lingus Cork-Amsterdam flights now?

I was flying to South America earlier this year and just booked flights to Asia recently. Connection from cork was quiet useful

LiamaDelta

adam88 wrote: »

I was flying to South America earlier this year and just booked flights to Asia recently. Connection from cork was quiet useful

When is your flight to Asia?

Locker10a

It would make sense for EI along with Iberia to create a decent schedule of flights between Cork and Madrid, as this would allow many connections between Cork and south America and the southern hemisphere, If Cork has good connections with Heathrow and Madrid then there will be many many connections available to all over the world.

adam88

LiamaDelta wrote: »

When is your flight to Asia?

December

Noxegon

GreenFolder2 wrote: »

I'd agree, CDG is fine as long as there's no on-going strike or work to rule.

The main reason I hate it is that every time I've been there there's been basically nowhere to get food – not even overpriced options.

As I recall the only option in T2F is a tea/muffin stand; that's it.

Jack1985

It's very surprising it took this long from May 2015 (Gov approves IAG takeover) for KLM to take control of their Irish ops. I'm sure people are looking at EI's 4x daily DUB-AMS and 2x daily ORK-AMS services and wondering what happens next to those services.

For the DUB-AMS route with EI, there will be negligible change. The route actually will increase from 4x daily to up to 5x daily on certain days this winter, this after KLM made the decision to launch 2x daily services on the route from the end of October. For Summer 2017, I can see the service returning to 4x daily with EI.

Some of you may have recently noticed in the last 2 years, Aer Lingus put a major drive on advertising in Central Amsterdam, it's worked wonders together with Radio and Internet adverts in Holland. For example this morning and throughout the afternoon a serious amount of passengers (I won't provide exact figures) from;

Boston (EI136, EI138)
Chicago (EI122, EI124)
Hartford CT (EI130)
Los Angeles (EI144)
New York JFK (EI104, EI108)
New York Newark (EI100)
San Francisco (EI146)
Washington Dulles (EI118)

Connected onwards from Dublin on to EI602, EI604, EI608 and EI610, obviously similar figures occurring from Amsterdam to Dublin and on to Atlantic services. There are also strong figures of connecting passengers on other routes from Orlando and Toronto. So removing the KLM feed from those flights on the Dublin services, isn't going to see much of a serious reaction from EI, it will provide more seats for internal connections and P2P pax, as well as those connecting on from AMS with other airlines - most flights to AMS these days are operating near capacity, which caused the company to increase services for Winter 2016/2017.

When we look to Cork it will be something of a different story in my opinion. There is no onward feed possibilities from Cork Airport. Currently the route is catering to KLM connections, other airlines connecting pax and P2P. I don't believe Aer Lingus will be able to sustain twice daily operations without the KLM partnership from Cork, I can see the route diminishing to as much as 9x weekly, which will possibly allow increased service from Cork to Paris as well as other European services, even possibly allowing new routes.

I have to repeat, I find it seriously surprising it took KLM this long to react, they're will of course be a much bigger fish for KLM to worry about on the DUB-AMS sector with this service increase, namely of course FR who rely on P2P who won't take this too kindly.

adam88

Jack1985 wrote: »

It's very surprising it took this long from May 2015 (Gov approves IAG takeover) for KLM to take control of their Irish ops. I'm sure people are looking at EI's 4x daily DUB-AMS and 2x daily ORK-AMS services and wondering what happens next to those services.

For the DUB-AMS route with EI, there will be negligible change. The route actually will increase from 4x daily to up to 5x daily on certain days this winter, this after KLM made the decision to launch 2x daily services on the route from the end of October. For Summer 2017, I can see the service returning to 4x daily with EI.

Some of you may have recently noticed in the last 2 years, Aer Lingus put a major drive on advertising in Central Amsterdam, it's worked wonders together with Radio and Internet adverts in Holland. For example this morning and throughout the afternoon a serious amount of passengers (I won't provide exact figures) from;

Boston (EI136, EI138)
Chicago (EI122, EI124)
Hartford CT (EI130)
Los Angeles (EI144)
New York JFK (EI104, EI108)
New York Newark (EI100)
San Francisco (EI146)
Washington Dulles (EI118)

Connected onwards from Dublin on to EI602, EI604, EI608 and EI610, obviously similar figures occurring from Amsterdam to Dublin and on to Atlantic services. There are also strong figures of connecting passengers on other routes from Orlando and Toronto. So removing the KLM feed from those flights on the Dublin services, isn't going to see much of a serious reaction from EI, it will provide more seats for internal connections and P2P pax, as well as those connecting on from AMS with other airlines - most flights to AMS these days are operating near capacity, which caused the company to increase services for Winter 2016/2017.

When we look to Cork it will be something of a different story in my opinion. There is no onward feed possibilities from Cork Airport. Currently the route is catering to KLM connections, other airlines connecting pax and P2P. I don't believe Aer Lingus will be able to sustain twice daily operations without the KLM partnership from Cork, I can see the route diminishing to as much as 9x weekly, which will possibly allow increased service from Cork to Paris as well as other European services, even possibly allowing new routes.

I have to repeat, I find it seriously surprising it took KLM this long to react, they're will of course be a much bigger fish for KLM to worry about on the DUB-AMS sector with this service increase, namely of course FR who rely on P2P who won't take this too kindly.

EI prices must be very much lower compared to KLM. I'm sure KLM do p2p flights to these emetic an destinations. If I was flying from ams id much prefer a direct flight rather than a stop in fun to change over, unless of course it was much cheaper.

goingnowhere

Yup the EI tram in Amsterdam does the trick, but that was really only advertising flights to Dublin.

The classic cheaper start somewhere else issue in AMS as its a HUB, just like the BA exEU at LHR, so EI is providing the cheap deal with pre clearance is going to beat LHR/FRA/CDG

ORK-AMS remains a KLM codeshare no change there

LiamaDelta

goingnowhere wrote: »

Yup the EI tram in Amsterdam does the trick, but that was really only advertising flights to Dublin.

The classic cheaper start somewhere else issue in AMS as its a HUB, just like the BA exEU at LHR, so EI is providing the cheap deal with pre clearance is going to beat LHR/FRA/CDG

ORK-AMS remains a KLM codeshare no change there

Not after the schedule change in March. If you try to book anything ex Cork on the KLM website it says route not available.

dudara

Jack1985 wrote: »

Some of you may have recently noticed in the last 2 years, Aer Lingus put a major drive on advertising in Central Amsterdam, it's worked wonders together with Radio and Internet adverts in Holland. For example this morning and throughout the afternoon a serious amount of passengers (I won't provide exact figures) from;

Boston (EI136, EI138)
Chicago (EI122, EI124)
Hartford CT (EI130)
Los Angeles (EI144)
New York JFK (EI104, EI108)
New York Newark (EI100)
San Francisco (EI146)
Washington Dulles (EI118)


Connected onwards from Dublin on to EI602, EI604, EI608 and EI610, obviously similar figures occurring from Amsterdam to Dublin and on to Atlantic services. There are also strong figures of connecting passengers

I've been flying EI602/EI611 (occasionally EI604/EI609) for the last year and there has been a noticeable increase in the amount of "feeder passengers". A lot of US, but significant numbers of Asian and Brazilian also.

When we look to Cork it will be something of a different story in my opinion. There is no onward feed possibilities from Cork Airport. Currently the route is catering to KLM connections, other airlines connecting pax and P2P. I don't believe Aer Lingus will be able to sustain twice daily operations without the KLM partnership from Cork, I can see the route diminishing to as much as 9x weekly, which will possibly allow increased service from Cork to Paris as well as other European services, even possibly allowing new routes.

I'm not so sure about this one. I occasionally take the AMS > ORK route if I'm heading home to Cork for the weekend. There are a lot of businesses with operations in Cork, which have operations/HQ in the Netherlands and I think there will still be strong demand for this from business and recreational. However, if it would be best if EI could continue it as a codeshare.

adam88

Just imputed random dates for next year. Ams-jfk return direct with KLM and via dub with EI only 120 cheaper to go via dub. Don't think it would be enough to make me get two flight and have to transit an airport in my way, defo adding three fours hours to your total journey time

L1011

adam88 wrote: »

Just imputed random dates for next year. Ams-jfk return direct with KLM and via dub with EI only 120 cheaper to go via dub. Don't think it would be enough to make me get two flight and have to transit an airport in my way, defo adding three fours hours to your total journey time

Plenty of people don't value their free time at anything (ridiculously).

JCX BXC

I'd happy take a detour through Dublin to save €120. Love to be as loaded as ye

IQO

adam88 wrote: »

Just imputed random dates for next year. Ams-jfk return direct with KLM and via dub with EI only 120 cheaper to go via dub. Don't think it would be enough to make me get two flight and have to transit an airport in my way, defo adding three fours hours to your total journey time

Also a lot of Delta flights to New York / The US from AMS, plus United to f.e. Newark - KLM is most of the time expensive ex-AMS compared to when connecting from somewhere in Europe through AMS. Even people from the Netherlands sometimes take the train to BRU or DUS and start their KLM journey there because of lower prices.

L1011

Carnacalla wrote: »

I'd happy take a detour through Dublin to save €120. Love to be as loaded as ye

Maybe 6 hours wasted on a round trip. 20 an hour. I haven't worked for 20 an hour for some time and I put a value on free time.

Businesses "saving money" on transfers / backtracking is even more nonsensical

adam88

The only reason I'd transit would be if it was massive savings or I had the chance the fly on a machine I hadn't flown on before

Noxegon

L1011 wrote: »

Maybe 6 hours wasted on a round trip. 20 an hour. I haven't worked for 20 an hour for some time and I put a value on free time.

Businesses "saving money" on transfers / backtracking is even more nonsensical

A former employer had a policy requiring the use the cheapest flight option whatever it happened to be.

I''m sure there are many similar companies.

L1011

Noxegon wrote: »

A former employer had a policy requiring the use the cheapest flight option whatever it happened to be.

I''m sure there are many similar companies.

They exist, but they're usually the first to hit the wall when bad times come due to their inability to control costs - staff in transit cost money and are totally unproductive