Leeds Bradford: ExtraJet will it ever launch?

[White Heather]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Whoshotjimmi - Brown Air/Capital were profit making. It was not the airline that went bust, but their parent company. When they went bust, they dragged Capital down with them. I take your point about whether this new airline can make it work, but Capital is not a good example as they were doing very well and could have become a major player at LBA had Brown Group not gone into liquidation.

 

[cmj]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

When BMI Regional operated to Copenhagen everybody said it would never work because business passengers wanted a twice daily service. Now ExtraJet is proposing just that people are now questioning if the route would ever be viable at all?

The BMI LBA-CPH route was 'before my time' flying from LBA - did it have a sort of code-share or interline with SAS to connect onto other destination in Scandinavia or was it just point-to-point?

 

[Aviador]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

It's a long time ago since BMI were on the route. If I remember rightly it was a codeshare with SAS towards the end but it was too late to make a difference.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Air UK operated on the route to CPH as well using an F27. Only lasted a year as I seem to remember.

 

[whoshotjimmi]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Whilst I am in full agreement, White Heather, the fact remains that the owners did not run the company properly and were unable to continue to finance the airline effectively. The airline may have been making profit but it was still in debt due to financial mismanagement having become a creditor to prop up the company. Had they been run independently, they may very well have gone on to do very well, however, had they not had the backing of a large, established company, they may not have had the capital (excuse the pun) - or credit rating - to set up and expand in the first place. So I stand by my decision to use Brown/Capital as a comparison.

Another question has popped into my head having read some recent posts. It is suggested that Copenhagen did not work as it should have been twice daily but wasn't. If that is the case, it may be good news for Copenhagen. But, on those same terms, how can Antwerp be expected to work once daily?

A lot of this is not adding up for me at the moment.

 

[Aviador]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Nobody took the bate from my earlier post regarding Ryanair's intention to commence flights to Scandinavia and how this will affect Extrajet if they're planning to serve the same route?

Ryanair plan to fly to Scandinavia next year

I agree with whoshotjimmi with respects to this "not adding up". The initial website the "company" has launched is a free website service provided by Wix. Not that that is necessarily a problem as such but it doesn't ring out professional when the company hasn't yet paid for a privately designed website you would normally expect from a business airline wanting to start out, nor does the website have it's own domain name you would expect from a new company. The proverb "start as you mean to go on" springs to mind.

http://info-james.wix.com/extrajet

The domain name Extrajet.co.uk and .net are registered with somebody who lives at Flat 4, 231 Hyde Park Road. Doesn't ring out millionaire who has the money to splash out on starting up a new business airline?

The domain name Extrajet.com is a premium website address which is currently still available through http://www.dynadot.com, which is rather odd considering it would be a primary website address name for an airline called Extrajet? Anyway, that's priced up aty $1990.00 if anybody is interested? It's a little steep for me to be honest!

The domain Extrajet.uk is registered to somebody who lives at 3 St Ronans Close, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG2 8LF. A property in a leafy suburb of Harrogate but again, doesn't ring out millionaire with enough cash to open up a new business airline.

The following website addresses are all still available. Again, this is odd as you wouldn't want a potential competitor to snap up a similar website name?

extrajet.com Premium $1990.00
extrajet.net Taken
extrajet.org Available $11.99
extrajet.xyz Available $1.99
extrajet.one Available $10.99
extrajet.us Available Requires US Presence $8.99
extrajet.in Available $5.99
extrajet.me Available $8.99
extrajet.link Available $5.99
extrajet.co Available $27.99
extrajet.top Available $2.99
extrajet.co.uk Taken
extrajet.info Available $10.99
extrajet.tv Available $24.99
extrajet.biz Available $10.99

All the information in this post is all freely available on the web.

 

[lbaspotter]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Nobody took the bate from my earlier post regarding Ryanair's intention to commence flights to Scandinavia and how this will affect Extrajet if they're planning to serve the same route?

Ryanair plan to fly to Scandinavia next year

Nobody in their right mind would take that bait Aviador! What Ryanair said a few months back I would take it with a pitch of salt myself, as they have been known to do the complete opposite in fact..

I'm normally one to say give them the benefit of doubt, but seems like people are righting Extrajet off before it is even officially launched as a new company.
If you had read the initial press article that was published by the Business Desk website a few weeks back, it mentioned that the owner is still looking for further financial backers before even attempting to start up operations and that no official dates have been given. Tony Hallwood even said in his BBC radio York interview last week that only preliminary talks had been held between the Airport and Extrajet.
So who's to say this proposed airline won't be renamed in the longer term, Its called 'Commercial-in-Confidence'. Extrajet maybe just a working name for this project hence only having a basic free website has produced so far, It maybe that only the initial concept details have been released so not give away full details to its competitors? It's also worth remembering the problems Humberside based jetxtra had over its naming rights with Jet2 which might happen again with this set up?

 

[whoshotjimmi]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

I will bite about Ryanair in a bit.

I have had a look at more of the information provided. Everything I can see points towards twice daily to both Copenhagen and Antwerp. There is also the matter of the flights that are mooted between Antwerp and Copenhagen. This suggests to me that it would be a two aircraft base with both aircraft flying 3 legs at a time. For example one aircraft will fly LBA-CPH-ANR-LBA with the other aircraft flying LBA-ANR-CPH-LBA, once in the morning and once in the evening. This would keep costs down and make sure the departure times are reasonable across all sectors. The departure times could be enhanced further if the base was at either Copenhagen or Antwerp and would avoid the issue of parking planes overnight at LBA.

The business appears to be based at LBA itself as it provides an LBA address for contact, so maybe an office is being rented on site? The email address provided seems to suggest that extrajet.eu is the preferred web domain and it is not available for purchase which either means it is already registered or does not exist.

There are two pieces of information that are troubling me. The first is that the contact number given is a Danish number which is not necessarily strange by itself but is peculiar when you consider that all other accordance points to LBA. This further leads me to suspect that the plan may even be to base the aircraft in Copenhagen but it still doesn't add up in my head. Why would there be a British address and a Danish phone number?

The other bit of information that is troubling me is that the Extrajet facebook page was only set up a week ago and the "UK Investor Magazine" article attached at broadly the same time. This article states that James Thorpe is seeking £2m investment to start the project. Little bit late in the day perhaps? This may explain why all of the web domains listed are available - no money to put into the project.

As for Ryanair, a year old article from the Ilkley Gazette is hardly likely to be a sign of things to come. They are notoriously haphazard when it comes to this sort of thing and I will only believe they have anything in the pipeline at all when it is written down on paper and the passengers boarding the aircraft. In any case, the routes out of Manchester and Liverpool to Norway are always heavily discounted - often right up to the day before departure which suggests demand to Scandinavia isn't as great as has been described. The wildcard is the base at Copenhagen. If Ryanair were to start up that route, it would be a Copenhagen based aircraft, operating a few times a week aimed primarily at leisure, I would suspect. There is no way they would start up a double daily, business friendly schedule between Leeds and Copenhagen with 189 seat aircraft.

Every piece of information I have read just raises more and more questions and surrounds it in more mystery.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Remember though that Ryanair do not have a Copenhagen base (anymore)

 

[lbaspotter]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Danish phone number is due to Leeds born business man James Thorpe (Founder and CEO of Extrajet) is actually based in Denmark now.

I see there company logo and aircraft livery design has also recently been changed along with any reference to leasing Embraer 135 aircraft from bmi regional as well. Also it looks like the airline does own the http://www.extrajet.eu URL as just noticed it on some marketing pictures.

New Logo

New Livery

 

[Aviador]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Thanks LBAspotter

Figures crossed my scepticism is proven wrong. I am hopeful like everybody else this enterprise will materialise and bare fruit as it will be good for both Leeds Bradford Airport and the Leeds City Region.

It's worth noting that I'll not be the only person searching the web for more information on this. It's inevitably going to happen until the airline is formally launched.

 

[Bigman]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

LBA rule No 1 - believe it when the rubber hits the concrete.

 

[lbaspotter]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Just read an interesting article on a Danish website which is actully in favor of Extrajet making a 2x daily Leeds-Copenhagen and Copenhagen-Antwerp routes work at the proposed high prices.
More surprising was the fact they went on to attack SAS, Saying the route wasnt given enough effort before been dropped in December and that the 2x weekly schedule was wrongly timed as it didn't meet the required business passengers needs. It even went as far to say the route was launched at the wrong time as the economy had still not recovered in this part of Northern England, "to the point it is now at a 18 months later"
Interestly it also stated that Extrajet selecting the Embraer 135 aircraft might be the right type of aircraft to use on such service. This was because SAS were averaging 27 passengers on its flights last year using a mix of the CRJ900 and smaller CRJ200 mainly travelling for pleasure/Tourists.

Like has already been said I will believe it once something is formerly launched by Extrajet sometime soon, so for them to get some of them all important forward bookings. Then next step will be when the aircrafts rubber tyres hits the concrete on Runway 32/14 at LBA hopefully in first quarter of next year.

 

[Crossgates]

Re: Extrajet = New Business Airline setting up @ LBA!

Hi saw a piece in yorks post saying that owner was looking for investors to help set up the route-id be surprised in this economic climate if it happens- particularly as Sas pulled out.

 

[Airplane]

The new Yorkshire based airline flying to Scandinavia from Leeds Bradford from early 2016. To Copenhagen and Antwerp

 

[cmj]

I'm not sure that SAS pulling out is much of an indicator - IMHO they didn't give the route enough of a chance. I remember when BA started the LBA-LHR service the the loads seemed pretty pretty poor, but it seems that they are now pretty good (perhaps other than the last south-bound), the route has been going for a few years now - but it takes time to build up the traffic.

 

[lbaspotter]

Looks like we maybe seeing some kind of an announcement regarding new proposed start up business airline Extrajet next month as the following update was posted on there Facebook page last night.

https://www.facebook.com/Extrajet?fref=nf

We are currently busy working under the radar, the new website and all other relevant info will be released at a "red carpet" event in London in early Nov. Lot's going on!. In the meantime we would love to hear your suggestions as to which other business locations/destinations we should be planning or might want to consider out of Leeds for our 2nd route and why? (or other UK regional airports)
We will put everyone in the picture shortly.
Please all have a pleasant weekend.
JT

 

[whoshotjimmi]

I think someone should be checking their spelling, punctuation and grammar before making public posts to potential business customers.

It doesn't portray the most professional of organisations. :nea:

Still, good luck to them.

 

[lbaspotter]

Here's another update by Extrajet on its facebook page:

Source: https://www.facebook.com/Extrajet?fref=nf

Extrajet
Getting some good feedback on possible routes, but would like to change the question:-

1/. Which countries in Europe do you regularly travel to ON BUSINESS?
2/. To which cities/towns?
3/. How do you currently get there?
4/. How often do you travel by airline on BUSINESS?

 

[Aviador]

I thought ExtraJet routes were already decided.