EU forces Dutch Government to stop flight cap at Schiphol

[Gaelan]

Can you spend miles on Thalys/Eurostar?

Presumably as part of a through air booking, but not on its own.

So yes, I suppose people with miles to spend would be one reason people fly between Brussels and Amsterdam; but surely that's fairly nice.

 

[YorkRailFan]

Presumably as part of a through air booking, but not on its own.

So yes, I suppose people with miles to spend would be one reason people fly between Brussels and Amsterdam; but surely that's fairly nice.

Perhaps some people prefer to get bags checked in and all that done at a smaller airport like BRU compared to Schiphol, which is huge and chaotic at the best of times.

 

[Gaelan]

Perhaps some people prefer to get bags checked in and all that done at a smaller airport like BRU compared to Schiphol, which is huge and chaotic at the best of times.

This too; looks like they do through-checked bags to CDG, but not AMS.

 

[YorkRailFan]

This too; looks like they do through-checked bags to CDG, but not AMS.

Ah, for Air France in that case.

 

[Acfb]

It's simply for passengers to connect at hubs, like Schiphol and Frankfurt, onto long haul flights.

I'm aware of why some domestic connections exist. I have flown Edinburgh-Frankfurt-Leipzig and Edinburgh-Frankfurt-Berlin this year. I wouldn't necessarily get rid of flights like Frankfurt-Hannover or Frankfurt-Munich but really don't understand why Düsseldorf or Stuttgart flights exist. Lufthansa has already got rid of their insanely short Munich-Nuremberg flight and replaced it with a bus.

When Stuttgart 21 is complete - there will be direct trains from Stuttgart Airport to Frankfurt Airport as well.

 

[YorkRailFan]

I'm aware of why some domestic connections exist. I have flown Edinburgh-Frankfurt-Leipzig and Edinburgh-Frankfurt-Berlin this year. I wouldn't necessarily get rid of flights like Frankfurt-Hannover or Frankfurt-Munich but really don't understand why Düsseldorf or Stuttgart flights exist. Lufthansa has already got rid of their insanely short Munich-Nuremberg flight and replaced it with a bus.

When Stuttgart 21 is complete - there will be direct trains from Stuttgart Airport to Frankfurt Airport as well.

Plus, DB and Lufthansa have a codeshare agreement for services to Frankfurt Airport. I think it's for passengers who book a through ticket from Stuttgart to let's say New York, they go to Stuttgart airport, check in their bag, security, etc, land in Frankfurt and have the bag sent through, meaning that they don't have to worry at Frankfurt or deal with the chaos of such a large hub.

 

[Krokodil]

Is there potential for codeshare agreements within the UK? One big difficulty is that most of our airports (Birmingham being the main exception, with Manchester too to a lesser extent) aren't served by long distance trains. Heathrow - our main hub - makes you go all of the way into London, take a bus to Reading, or connect at Hayes for a change at Reading if you want to catch a long distance train.

 

[YorkRailFan]

Is there potential for codeshare agreements within the UK? One big difficulty is that most of our airports (Birmingham being the main exception, with Manchester too to a lesser extent) aren't served by long distance trains. Heathrow - our main hub - makes you go all of the way into London, take a bus to Reading, or connect at Hayes for a change at Reading if you want to catch a long distance train.

Ideally, we would have the Western and Southern rail links at Heathrow. I think the issue is that airlines don't want to codeshare with TOCs.

 

[Gaelan]

The TPE services from Scotland to Manchester Airport seem to me the most obvious candidate, though there are obviously significant reliability issues there at the moment.

 

[AlastairFraser]

The TPE services from Scotland to Manchester Airport seem to me the most obvious candidate, though there are obviously significant reliability issues there at the moment.

The issues are there aren't any flights to Manchester Airport from the Central Belt so there'd be no flights to replace in essence.
Birmingham Airport is a possibility with the direct trains to the Central Belt and flights to Edinburgh/Glasgow Airports, but it might be hard to convince EasyJet to enter into an interlining agreement as low cost airlines typically don't bother with connecting flight tickets.

 

[atillathehunn]

I suspect that if a France style ban on flights is introduced, it would be from the city's main railway station (in this case Amsterdam Centraal) meaning that some destinations could be reached, and the cap could be extended up to 3 hours reaching Dusseldorf.


Air France-KLM has an existing rail/air partnership with Eurostar (formerly Thalys) and DB joined Star Alliance to allow codeshares with Lufthansa.

The French flight ban is a bad comparator.

It is pretty half-hearted, but speaking to your point, it includes a time allowance to get from Paris city centre to CDG (enabling CDG-Bordeaux flights to continue, for e.g.). There would be the same allowance made for getting to Schiphol in a Dutch example.

The French ban also doesn't preclude primarily connecting flights (KLM has strong O&D, but also a very strong connections business).

The ban really wouldn't solve much of a problem at the moment (barely scraping Dusseldorf and Brussels). The other problem an airline would face is the fact they are relying on capacity set by another entity. KLM/AF buy capacity on the Thalys train and have no real ability to increase this in the short-run.

A lot needs to be improved before this is a realistic proposal.

 

[YorkRailFan]

European Commission regulators have welcomed JetBlue’s improved access to slots at Amsterdam Schiphol airport this summer, an issue it says it was ready to intervene over if the US carrier was unable to secure “appropriate access” to the Dutch hub.

While JetBlue was able to obtain slots at Amsterdam last summer to enable it to launch transatlantic flights to the city from both Boston and New York JFK, the services were at risk after tight capacity constraints at the Dutch hub meant JetBlue initially did not secure its requested Schiphol slots.However, the Commission notes: ”JetBlue has improved its slot portfolio at Amsterdam airport during the later phases of the slot allocation procedure and has eventually obtained all the slots it needs to continue operating at Amsterdam airport throughout the IATA Summer 2024 Season. As a result, consumers will not be deprived of choice at a time of strong demand for transatlantic services.”The Commission’s particular interest in competition on transatlantic routes relates to its previous probes into the major airline joint ventures in place on these routes. Specifically this covers the three joint ventures established around the global alliances, namely the Oneworld Atlantic Joint Business (comprising American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia and Aer Lingus), Star A++ (comprising Air Canada, Lufthansa and United Airlines) and the Blue Skies JV (comprising Air France-KLM, Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic).

“As a result of its investigations, the Commission found that, on certain hub-to-hub transatlantic routes such as Amsterdam-New York, the entry of a new competitor or the expansion of an existing competitor was necessary to remedy the distortive effects of the joint ventures,” it says.

”The Commission has actively and closely monitored the evolution of the market conditions at Amsterdam airport,” it says, in particular the impact on competition on the New York route because of both the degree of congestion at Schiphol and the operations encompassed under the Blue Skies JV.

JetBlue’s launch of services on the Amsterdam-New York route last summer added to United Airlines’ existing operation to establish two competing services to those operated by Delta and KLM.

The Commission says that it had “stood ready to intervene with interim measures in case JetBlue did not secure appropriate access to Amsterdam airport” this summer, but welcomes confirmation that the US carrier will continue on the route. It adds that it will ”continue its monitoring” ahead of next year’s summer season.

European regulators ‘welcome’ JetBlue’s summer Amsterdam access

European Commission regulators have welcomed JetBlue's improved access to slots at Amsterdam Schiphol airport this summer, an issue it says it was ready to intervene over if the US carrier was unable to secure "appropriate access" to the Dutch hub.

www.flightglobal.com

JetBlue has also withdrawn their complaint about KLM that they submitted to USDOT in 2023. Good news for all parties involved, including KLM for the reason I mentioned above, apart from perhaps United Airlines as they have some competition (albeit United flies from Newark).