Member Info for Thumper1127

@Prime. Totally agree. The ball is coming loose in the scrum it would appear, limit order placed for a small top up for LTH.

Wizz update next Thursday, Jet2 the following Wednesday. I think those are more relevant to EZJ (loads, demand, forward visibility etc).

Definite reference on the IAG bb that weaker transatlantic demand is the issue.

There was mention on Radio 4 earlier that fewer people were flying to the US. If this is the key issue, EZJ and others are not affected of course. Ready and waiting for any significant drop.

@Xhita. Prep me a room, I’m on my way!

@Tourist. Interesting you say that; if you haven’t, look back at my recent posting on loadings last Sunday on flights returning from a few holiday destinations. I was really surprised they were that high.

Interestingly I’ve been thinking of taking a short break from my local airport, Southampton. I can’t do it now due to work but I looked at out tomorrow to Alicante, back on Monday. When I last looked the out and back flights for both days had 625 out of 744 seats sold; a load factor of 84% which, for the time of year has got to be good especially as a proportion will be holidays rather than flight only. The fact that you are not tied to 7 days gives great flexibility; long weekend, whole week, Monday to Friday etc.

@Xhita. Any thoughts or updates from your perspective?

@Sollers. As always, if it does I’m buying!

No, I am firmly a faithful! It’s just that if it drops significantly I’ll be topping up again for my LTH.

@Prime. Any significant drop, especially to the fabled 450, will see me topping up. Hope not of course but as was once said “if the ball comes loose in the scrum…”

@Aspers. Thanks. No bad news there then. IAG on Friday I believe.

Being the end of the half term week I thought I’d have a dip in and see how flights back from a few holiday destinations were doing. I picked Faro for today coming back to Gatwick, Luton, Bristol and Birmingham. 7 flights are A320s, 1 is a A319 and one flight to Luton is sold out so I’m going to be cautious and assume it is a 319. So total seats = 1614.

Total unsold seats, amazingly, is only 42! So that’s a load factor of 1572/1614 - 97.4%!!!

Alicante to LGW tomorrow all sold out (3 flights IIRC).

Alicante to Bristol today sold out

Alicante to Bristol tomorrow. 1 sold out, remaining one 169/186 - 90.9%

Faro to Bristol today and tomorrow (1 each day). Sold out. Also sold out next Sunday.

Given that, no doubt, a significant proportion of this will be EZJ Holidays and not just flight only EZJ must be raking it in!

Very aware that I could be accused of ramping here; I’m not, just reporting some hard facts. Yes, it is the end of half term week so a premium week but “making hay while the sun shines” springs to mind. Load the coffers up to get through the lean(er) months.

Worth keeping an eye on the trading updates over the next few weeks prior to 25th.

It would be interesting to get @Xhita’s view.

Weekly update on Southampton to Glasgow loadings Sunday 26th October to Saturday 1st November

3 days A320

3 days A319

Total seats = 1026

Sold = 958

Load factor = 93.4%

Seats sold over and above A319 capacity = 72

A319 equivalent load factor 886/936 - 94.7%

All three flights using an A320 loaded well above the A319 capacity.

As previously stated, I’ve been tracking the Glasgow to Southampton direction to get a balanced view. Rather than detail each direction I will, from next week, show the total figure for both directions combined. So here’s the scores on the doors:

6 flights A319

6 flights A320

Total seats 2052

Total sold 1915

Load factor 93.3%

Seats sold over and above A319 capacity 132 (the highest I’ve seen!)

A319 seats 1872

A319 sold 1783

A319 equivalent load factor 95.2%

All 6 A320 flights sold in excess of A319 capacity (all in double figures).

These are all encouraging figures IMO but I note that the load factors for today are both sub 90% and it is the lowest absolute number of passengers for a Saturday since I started tracking on 31st August.

GLA for the coming week.

The EZJ results are in 25th of course. I thought I’d check to see if there were other relevant updates before that which could potentially have any read over. It is a ChatGPT search, I haven’t checked individually.

Ryanair 3rd (“estimated”date)

IAG 7th

Wizz 13th

Jet2 19th

Have I missed any obvious ones?

Re the budget, wouldn’t it be ironic if, having given the nod to airport expansion, Reeves raised APD again?!

@La Marie. It will vary of course but there is a reference in the book easyJet Rising that once a flight reaches around 70% then any additional passengers are carried at negligible marginal cost. That’s not the only factor of course (no point in loading 100% all at £30 a seat) but I think it is a reasonable benchmark. A few weeks ago EZJ had a fare of over £400 for a one way flight on the Southampton/Glasgow route still with 7 days to go. I thought they’d have to drop the fare but in the event they sold over 30 seats at that fare and flew with circa 20 unsold seats. So the load factor was sub optimal but from a revenue perspective no doubt a good move. I find it all fascinating.

I’ve subsequently checked and realistically the only opportunity is Gatwick to Newquay. Ryanair already cover this from Stansted around weekends. Eastern are/were doing three return trips a day. Given the road/rail journey time from the London/Sussex area it may be worth a punt for EZJ for an out and back but other than that I don’t see anything else. Apart from the Gatwick slot itself but given that, as far as I’m aware, EZJ intend reducing their overall slots at LGW I’m not sure they’d want to grab the space. Cornwall could do with a daily London flight one way or another.

Just had an alert to the above. No more detail yet.

@Hav100. That’s pretty consistent with some of the analysis I’ve been doing as an add on to my tracking of Southampton/Glasgow loadings where A320s have been used. Rather than just looking at the Southampton/Glasgow element I’ve also been looking at the whole day cycle. My original interest was whether it was worth using a 320 rather than a 319 where only one leg loaded above 156 seats. I recently had an instance where the circuit was;

GLA - SOU

SOU -GLA

GLA - BRS

BRS - GLA

GLA - AYT

AYT - GLA

IIRC only 2 of the first 4 flights loaded in excess of a 319. But the outward and return Antalya flights had about 6 free seats outward and 1 on the return. And, of course, the last two would presumably have been heavy on EZJ holidays traffic.

So, looking at a single out and back leg could make you wonder whether a 320 is justified; but looking at the whole day cycle paints a very different picture! I’ve seen similar with a Southampton/Glasgow circuit which also covered Barcelona.

I’ve only just noticed that declared short positions have reduced dramatically to just 1.08%. Bodes well?

Weekly update on Southampton to Glasgow loadings Sunday 19th to Saturday 25th October

2 days A320

5 days A319

Total seats = 1152

Sold = 1081

Load factor = 93.8%

Seats sold over and above A319 capacity = 29

A319 equivalent load factor 1052/1092 - 96.3%

A slight reduction over previous weeks but still very respectable loadings in my opinion.

This coming week it reduces to 6 days a week so it will come in under 1000 sold. Anecdotally, when I look forward at prices I see fewer “green dates” (that’s the low fares) on the near horizon. For example, for next month there are 26 flight; only 2 are currently green. I don’t have hard evidence but seem to recall that it used to be the case that the next month could see a lot more in green. So I can only surmise that this has become a more established route and May now be attracting passengers who may previously only considered Gatwick.

All the usual caveats of course and totally SP agnostic. I’ve been doing more analysis (whole day cycle where 320s are used for example); no doubt too much detail for this board but it does reassure me that EZJ are very good at planning and yield management.

GLA for the week ahead.