Emirates quitting Conakry

[globetrotter]

Didn't know of this, from 8th April http://www.emirates.com/eg/english/abou ... dates.aspx

[airazurxtror]

Seeing the outbreak of the Ebola virus which has now reached Conakry, it's the right thing to do.

[woutertheboy]

Seeing the outbreak of the Ebola virus which has now reached Conakry, it's the right thing to do.

It wasn't about the Ebola Virus, loads were too low to sustain flights for Emirates. Partly good news for SN...

[airazurxtror]

Partly good news for SN...

Good news for SN, perhaps - not so good for the cabin crew going there ...

[Flanker2]

How is this good news for SN? There is no overlap with EK there, they serve different markets.
SN doesn't have exposure in the Asian market.
If anything it's good news for AF, SN's fiercest competitor, so it's bad news for SN.

[crew1990]

From the moment that Belgian pax can t fly from DUS FRA CDG or AMS to Conakry via Dubai, Sorry but in my mind this is a competitor less on that route and this is a good new for SN and for all the airlines flying to Conakry...

[Flanker2]

I don't think that EK was serving any of the markets you mention.
It's just not viable, even if EK achieves lower seat-mile cost, it takes twice as many seat-miles to get there through DXB. It's also not attractive from a pax perspective.

A pic in this case says more than a thousand words:




In my mind, EK can only be considered to compete with SN on the East-African market.
They fly to West Africa to serve ME and Asia markets, where SN is nowhere to be seen.
For SN, EK is the enemy of the enemy, as this will only help AF feed more pax onto their CDG-CKY connection.

In case of TK it's a different story, they are also competing on the West-African market because the detour isn't as big.

[crew1990]

I agree that for business pax, this will not change anything as going to Dubai is not convenient at all, but for economy pax, pax travelling to go see there family, if they can save 300 euro they will prefer to fly emirates unfortunately whatever the journey time is.

[Flanker2]

With TK you can save 300 euro's on West African destinations, but with EK you can't.
For EK, it will cost twice as much to transport the same pax, so their tickets is likely to be more expensive than a SN ticket. The detour is just too big.

EK wants to develop their Europe-West Africa share through Senegal Airlines because it's not viable directly.
Even North-America to West Africa is not viable for them.

[Passenger]

How is this good news for SN? There is no overlap with EK there, they serve different markets. SN doesn't have exposure in the Asian market. If anything it's good news for AF, SN's fiercest competitor, so it's bad news for SN.

Not if you live in Belgium perhaps, but if you live in Northern or Eastern Europe and you have to go to Conackry, Ermirates now is one possibility less. Leaving Brussels Airlines and Air France as your obvious choice.

I agree that for business pax, this will not change anything as going to Dubai is not convenient at all, but for economy pax, pax travelling to go see there family, if they can save 300 euro they will prefer to fly emirates unfortunately whatever the journey time is.

Correct. I find it allways amazing to see how much inconvenience leisure and VFR passengers are willing to accept to save on their flights, even for less then half of this 300 Euro.

Just one example: the market share from Afriqiyah and Egyptair for South Africa. On the Afriqiyah 771 crash Johannesburg-Tripoli (12/05/2010), only 2 pax were Lybians. From the 93 pax, 71 were Dutch, 2 were Belgian and 13 were South Africans (on their way to London). They all preferred a transfer in Tripoli above a nonstop flight (KLM and/or SAA/BA/Virgin).

[andorra-airport]

@ Passenger,

I agree with you, but most of the Dutch were on a package holiday (Kras + Stip) and had more or less not much to say about airline / route. But yes, people agreed with that, if they could have a (relative) cheap holiday in return. Afriqiyah was dirt cheap in that time..

[b720]

And if a family of 4 or 5, even 100 EUR makes a big difference, and I guess many families are willing
To detour if the saving is EUR 200 per pax..

[quixoticguide]

Not if you live in Belgium perhaps, but if you live in Northern or Eastern Europe and you have to go to Conackry, Ermirates now is one possibility less. Leaving Brussels Airlines and Air France as your obvious choice.

The detour is to big! And most important the fares to fly with EK where not less then SN, AF, AT or TK.

[Flanker2]

The sense of reality is completely gone on this forum...
Europe to CKY via DXB to "save hundreds of euro's".

For talking about EK so much, it seems that people don't know EK's markets very well.

How is EK going to make a profit selling a AMS-DXB-CKY for 300 euro's less than SN?
Do you realise that AMS-DXB-CKY is 12630km, even longer than AMS-Honolulu?
BRU-CKY is 4873km.

I'm pretty sure that EK would not be cheaper.

I'll repeat it for the last time: EK is not after the Europe-West Africa market because it's impossible to serve cheap and profitably through DXB. Too much detour!

Try to book AMS-DKR: it's not possible. FRA-DKR: barely possible and expensive.
FRA-ABJ is much cheaper with SN.

It's not because it's EK that they can defy the laws of gravity...

EK's market is not just random, it's anything flying between East and West.
EK's market into CKY was mainly driven by potential Chinese investments, but they are not sufficient enough to justify the route as EK can't count on any Europe-CKY pax.
AF will be happy as the pax that EK did have on the route will all come to them.

SN doesn't win a penny out of this as they don't have any presence in China... why do you think I'm ranting about starting flights to China? You think it's random?

This is why EK can't develop West-Africa as much as they did East-Africa.

[Passenger]

The sense of reality is completely gone on this forum...
Europe to CKY via DXB to "save hundreds of euro's".

For talking about EK so much, it seems that people don't know EK's markets very well.

How is EK going to make a profit selling a AMS-DXB-CKY for 300 euro's less than SN?

No need to say (once again) that others don't know what they're talking about.

I can assure you from first hand what others have said here: passengers are willing to make a huge detour, if that saves them 300 Euro.

But if you live in Helsinki or in Moscow and you have to fly to Conackry, what carrier will you use?

By the way : Kras.nl isn't using Afriqiyah anymore for their cheap South Africa tours. They are now using... Emirates.

[Flanker2]

I can assure you from first hand what others have said here: passengers are willing to make a huge detour, if that saves them 300 Euro.

Stubborn aren't you?
I'm the first one who said that pax will take TK over SN to save money even despite the detour.

Unfortunately, it doesn't apply to EK and DXB for West Africa.
The detour is much much much muuuuuuuuuuuch longer than with TK through IST.

No matter how much the pax are willing to detour for savings, it doesn't make sense for EK, the airline, because the cost of carrying that pax is too high to be able to offer an attractive fare.

The problem is hence not whether the pax would be willing to take the detour, but whether it's profitable for an airline to carry such a pax.
The detour on AMS-DXB-CKY is comparable to flying Brussels to Helsinki through Rome... what airline can offer significantly cheaper fares while carrying the pax for a much longer ride?

The detour here is more of a problem for EK than it is for the pax...
It's a waste of a seat on the AMS-DXB sector and equally a waste on the DXB-CKY sector.
Detouring and feeding a pax through the hub that is far away from the direct routing, costs almost as much to an airline as actually flying an airplane off-course by the same amount of detour.

If you want, the "waste" in cost of feeding through a hub is equal to the sum of the average detour of each and every single pax from the direct routing.

Despite that, TK is committed to win market share in Africa. That's why they sell competitive fares despite a longer routing, even if they're break-even.

[b720]

Stubborn? People are willing to detour to save a buck! If a direct flight of 7 hr is 300 EUR mor expensive
Thn a detour with total flight time of 14 hrs, most will detour..and specially if you re paying 4 or 5 tickets.
And yes you can find long detours offered for cheaper than some direct flights.

[Flanker2]

Ok, I get it, you're trying to waste my time.

Now I will waste yours.
Give me examples of long detours that are 2.5 times longer than direct routing and much cheaper.
Good luck!

[Passenger]

Passengers don't care to spend time at an airport or fly around if they can save money. Example:

AMS-JNB with KLM : a journey of 10h 50 min
AMS-JNB with Egyptair : a journey of 15h 10 min (transfer time included)
AMS-JNB with Emirates: a journey of 19h 20 min (transfer time included)

KLM: Amsterdam-Johannesburg KL591 10h25-21h15
Egyptair : Amsterdam-Cairo MS758 16h00-20h30 / Cairo-Johannesburg MS839 23h00-07h10
Emirates: Amsterdam-Dubai EK148 15h30-23h59 / Dubai-Johannesburg EK761 04h40-10h50

Although KLM has less fuel to burn the Egyptair and Emirates, the're the most expensive for this routing.

[Flanker2]

Are you comparing the detour of AMS-DXB-CKY to the detour on AMS-DXB-JNB?
Detour AMS-DXB-JNB is + 28.7%
Detour AMS-DXB-CKY is +151.5%

Of je't draait of keert it's not viable financially to sell such a detour at a lower price. Forget it.


Let's conclude that EK stopping CKY has no effect whatsoever on SN's business, but rather improves the prospects of rival AF.

Try FRA-ABJ and see how much cheaper EK is...