Members of the forum I'm here to remind you of the announcement in
October 2023.
New destination Agadir - launched from not only Manchester, Birmingham and London Stansted, but also
LEEDS!
And okay it maybe a replacement of Ryanair to an extent however it's also recently launched it's other NEW Moroccan destination - Marrakech from ...
LEEDS.
Let's have a look at reasons La Palma may not feature from Leeds:
1) The smallest of the large 5 Canary Islands - La Palma is considerably smaller. That therefore limits the amount of hotels on the island which brings me onto point 2 very nicely.
2) Amount of available hotel rooms and/or beds available to contact. That dictates how many times they can fly to the destination (frequency of routes); and from how many bases. Jet2 in peak summer are sending 378 seats to La Palma and 378 seats back out of La Palma. Therefore if you only have 300 beds available what is one to do? Sell it as seat only going against their bread & butter / business model. Clearly they've done some work behind the scenes hence Stansted launching in the Winter - more contracted beds/hotel rooms. Bringing me onto point 3 nicely.
{Dont come at me for that maths - I'm clearly just making it easy for members to understand my point}
3) They clearly have a very smart revenue and planning team. So ... if there is 300 beds and/or rooms available; naturally the business is going to pick where the market is / an airport with a large catchment area. Looking at it MAN is the largest draw in the North so clearly to allow a route to get up and running a businesses (airline/tour operator in this instance) will naturally set it up from there.
4) Fleet availably and what is planned. No one knows this - but one suspects there is some free space in MAN on what one assumes is the 737-800 fleet to operate to La Palma. Meanwhile LBA maybe full with no wiggle room. So would we rather them drop a frequency or 2 to a destination they fly to regular to try this new route for it not to succeed? Drop an Antalya and Dalaman (both very profitable and lucrative) for a La Palma only for Jet2 to drop La Palma as it wasn't a success form Leeds? I'd rather they didn't do that. And from an airport perspective would LBA rather have 2 flights at 378 each or 2 flights at 200-280?
One very niche route (very Germany orientated) , launched from a airport/base with a huge catchment area that will assist in Jet2 growing a presence on a very small island (in comparison to the big 4) with fewer hotels (in comparison to the big 4). Go for it - launch it from Manchester. I'll be happy to see it winter seasonal in a few years from LBA.
