George Nugent Travels

There once was a point when both Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports were experiencing year on year growth. Now though, Edinburgh has been racing away from Glasgow in terms of airlines, flights and passengers.

Let’s break down the two main markets at Glasgow and see what has changed over the last few years.

Long Haul Market

Anyone who knows Scottish Aviation would tell you that Glasgow was the city to fly from if you wanted to travel “Long Haul” for a holiday. After all Emirates have served the airport since 2004 and United Airlines since 1998!

Here is everywhere “Long Haul” you could fly from the airport in 2018 alongside the airline who flew the route:

• Cancun – Thomas Cook, TUI
• Dubai – Emirates
• Halifax– WestJet (flight continued to Toronto)
• New York JFK – Delta
• Newark – United
• Orlando Int – Thomas Cook, Virgin Atlantic
• Orlando Sanford – TUI
• Philadelphia – American Airlines
• Toronto – Air Canada Rouge, Air Transat, WestJet

It is also worth noting that Las Vegas and Vancouver were both served until 2017.

Glasgow also hosted a number of charter flights to Seoul in 2015/2016.

Nobody can deny, that’s an impressive list for an airport that handles less than 10 million passengers per year (pre-pandemic)

However, looking forward to 2022, here is that list again with the airlines that have confirmed flights will resume to Glasgow:

• Cancun – TUI
• Dubai – Emirates
• Halifax – WestJet
• Orlando – TUI (the airline are moving from Sanford to Melbourne airport in Florida)
• Toronto – Air Transat, WestJet

Not an impressive list is it? Obviously airlines may announce flights closer to Summer 2022, and Covid Impacted this list. Although the airport was impacted by the collapse of Thomas Cook, both destinations that they flew were served with additional capacity in 2019.

What do the Statistics Say?

Lets start with New York. In 2019 two airports that were marketed as New York were served, JFK and Newark, the latter being in New Jersey but still marketed as a New York route. The passenger figures for both routes are as follows:

JFK: 38,104 (an increase of 12% on 2018)

Newark: 49,228 (an increase of 6% on 2018)

That gives a total of 87,332 passengers between the two airports in 2019. In 2022, the current number of seats available is 0.

Lets also look at another major market in the US, Orlando. In 2019 Virgin, Thomas Cook and TUI all served the route. Virgin and Thomas Cook served Orlando International and TUI serving Orlando Sanford. The passengers figures for 2019 are as follows:

Orlando International: 74,419 (this number will be lower than planned due to the collapse of Thomas Cook)

Orlando Sanford: 17,298

That gives a total number of passengers between the two cities of 91,717, in 2022 the total number of seats available is between 12,384 and 14,835 (this figure is dependant on the variant of Boeing 787 utilised by TUI)

TUI will be the only airline to serve Orlando, and even then the will be serving Orlando Melbourne, a staggering 69 miles away from downtown Orlando.

European Market

This market was growing until 2018, when Irish Airline Ryanair closed their base at Glasgow and culled the routes they served from 23 down to just 3!

Berlin	Bydgoszcz	Carcassonne	Chania
Derry/Londonderry	Frankfurt	Gran Canaria	Lanzarote
Lisbon	London Stansted	Madrid	Palanga
Riga	Sofia	Valencia

This left the airline serving only Dublin, Krakow and Wroclaw, however the airline has since re-added flights to Alicante, Malaga, Warsaw and Charleroi.

5 of those routes moved to Edinburgh: Berlin, Derry/Londonderry, Lisbon, Riga and Sofia

Wizz Air have also stopped serving the airport. In their peak they served: Gdansk, Katowice, Lublin, Poznan, Warsaw, Budapest, Vilnius and Bucharest.

The airline has since launched flights from Edinburgh to Budapest, Bucharest, Gdansk and Warsaw.

Thomas Cook collapsed in 2019, ending service on their 21 routes, this had a major impact on passenger numbers, however both TUI and Jet2 added some additional capacity to cover this.

Flybe collapsed in 2020 ending service on their routes, this without question had a major impact on the airport. Loganair have since stepped in and covered some routes.

Eurowings ended their service to Dusseldorf in 2019

Lufthansa have ended their route between Glasgow and their Munich Hub

Air France ended their flights to Paris CDG in 2017

Blue Air ended their flights to Bucharest in 2021, however, the airline has been struggling financially. Brexit has also had a major impact on the Eastern European Market.

Where have these flights gone?

Air France, Lufthansa’s Munch flights, Wizz and Ryanair all now serve Edinburgh and not Glasgow

American and Virgin Atlantic moved to Edinburgh

Delta, United and Air Canada have not yet provided any updates on their Glasgow plans, however, all three have placed flights from Edinburgh on sale for next summer,

Are there any new routes coming?

Yes

Spanish based airline Vueling have added winter seasonal flights from November 4th 2021 to Paris-Orly operating 2x weekly until March 2022

Transavia have also announced new flights to Paris during summer 2022, operating 3x weekly to Paris-Orly from mid-April.

Correndon who are based in Turkey will be flying 2x weekly to Antalya and Dalaman from April 2022. So although it is a new airline for Glasgow, we are yet to see any new destinations by the airline.

US based airline JetBlue have also been rumoured to be launching a new seasonal link to New York JFK, however, nothing has yet been confirmed.

Why is Glasgow failing so hard at maintaining routes?

Well remember how airlines started bailing out in 2018, well that also the year the airport got a new CEO, I personally do not think that is a coincidence.

The airport has to sell themselves and Glasgow as a whole to airlines in order to encourage them to fly there. However, the airport seems to be failing to do this, bare in mind how easy it is to get from Glasgow to anywhere else in Scotland, so market yourself as a gateway to Scotland!

It is not entirely the airports fault though, the SNP Government pledged in the 2011 election to scrap Air Passenger Duty tax on all flights from Scotland, and guess what, it’s still here. With a mandatory tax on flights, airlines need to pick 1 airport in Scotland and most seem to be picking Edinburgh, despite the fact Glasgow has more take-off slots available, and has more passenger capacity than Edinburgh.

Although it isn’t being helped by the Government, the only people who can help Glasgow Airport are themselves, and they don’t seem keen on doing that.

When an airline is looking to serve Scotland and are focused on bringing traffic into Scotland rather than the outbound market, they will look at the country as 1 market, with outbound leisure routes it is normally split into Glasgow and Edinburgh markets. With the country viewed as 1 market, it is vital Glasgow Airport partners with local business and tour groups to highlight what is on the airports doorstep.

Failure to market themselves in such a way means more often than not, Edinburgh will win routes as more people have heard of it compared to Glasgow leading to stronger bookings for airlines.