Thomas Cook

[Annie]

I have written to the government about flights to Egypt and was told the only restrictions are for Sharm el Sheikh and that other destinations are at the discretion of airlines so I have been writing to airlines about resuming flights to Luxor from the UK so far I've only had a response from Thomas Cook :-

Thank you for the email you sent to Mr Daugaard who has asked me to reply on his behalf as Chief Airline Officer. It is always good to hear directly from people who fly with us or who have flown on specific routes in the past.

As an organisation we regularly review our routes and I am sure you will understand that if demand does not justify us leaving a route on our programme we have no alternative but to withdraw it and unfortunately Luxor is one of those destinations, the demand is not there. It is still a destination that is on our list of potential destinations for the future but at the current time we have no plans to reinstate it.

We do operate a large programme to Hurghada where we see a lot of demand, I appreciate there is some distance between Luxor and Hurghada but perhaps there are suitable connections available.

I am sorry that we are unable to offer you the route that you require.

Best wishes

Christoph

so in my reply I asked how they knew there was 'no demand' this is the reply :-

We have quite sophisticated tools to analyse the demand of travellers and we have experiences with flying to Luxor from other source markets.

As said, it remains on our list of potential destinations for the future, however not for the near future.

Sorry for no better news. Best wishes
Christoph


Does anyone know what these 'sophisticated tools' are? should we be searching the web for non existent flights to leave a trail?

[HEPZIBAH]

I think it would be less insulting to everyone's intelligence if they would simply make a change from the common response from 'no demand' to 'insufficient demand'.

We all know that there is a demand - therefore 'no demand' just is not true, although we perhaps haven't all been pro-active in contacting airlines and tour companies.

[FarleyFlavors]

To be fair to Thomas Cook, they never said there was "no demand". It was Annie who used the term.

[Annie]

To be fair to Thomas Cook, they never said there was "no demand". It was Annie who used the term.

splitting hairs 'the demand is not there' same thing

[HEPZIBAH]

To be fair to Thomas Cook, they never said there was "no demand". It was Annie who used the term.

'No Demand' is an all too common response from many companies, about all sorts of products etc., not Thomas Cook specific.

As far as I see things, It is only when a company has a product and promotes it, that they can realistcally, if not absolutely, assess demand for it. It is fair to recognise though that companies need to make a profit, or at the very least break even, with any product sold. The product in this case being direct flights UK to Luxor.

Even though there is a demand for UK - Luxor direct flights, the flight and travel companies will have to weigh the commercial viability of that route against all other routes they opperate.

Tourism is a fickle beast and what has high demand for a period can soon slip out of favour for many reasons.

I know it doesn't always feel like it but, in the UK we have relatively easy access to many major travel hubs - both here in the UK and mainlad Europe - we just need to grit our teeth and accept the world doesn't always move to our beat.

[hatusu]

Im not sure of how exactly “demand” is estimated. If something doesn’t exist in the first place there probably wouldn’t be a lot of demand shown for it.
For example if I search for a flight on a specific airline, but there is no flight, I will look at a different airline or a different departure airport. So if 200 people were searching online for a flight from ,say, Manchester, on the same day, but found none, so booked elsewhere, is that flagged up somewhere as “demand” or does it go unseen unless we actually contact a real person and complain like Annie?

[crewmeal]

Many carriers will 'dip their toes in the water' to see what happens on route expansion. Ryanair are good at this. If it works they'll stay, if it doesn't they'll pull out. They're big enough to do this. However they don't fly to Egypt.

Despite that if you have a good marketing team who can promote a destination then they're usually on to a winner, but with Luxor folk have long memories about terrorism a few years ago and it's understandable that carriers are reluctant to restart what was once a popular route. Also Luxor is not really a family destination unlike Sharm, Hurghada or Marsa Alam. Last year when I passed through the lobby of the Winter Pavillion hotel I came across a First Choice Air 2000 notice board being used in the back office.

I'm looking at a 6 week break in the summer based in Luxor and so far Egyptair want around £900 return. They have the monopoly on the route. Yes I can use multi carriers and pay less but it usuall takes 24 hours to get there.

[BBLUX]

Do they have the ability or inclination to review the number of tourists using Egyptair to fly into Luxor? The Cairo shuttle or the direct London - Luxor flight. Every flight we have made on those routes over the last few years have had a majority of British tourists on board.

[crewmeal]

Unless you're entering an American or Australian port you're unlikely to be asked the reason for your visit. Also remember the direct London flight has passengers from Cairo on it as well which are mainly Egyptian.

[carrie]

Well Turkish Air must have done their homework they are starting direct flights Istanbul- Luxor in October.

[HEPZIBAH]

Well Turkish Air must have done their homework they are starting direct flights Istanbul- Luxor in October.

That's interesting because I know many UK folk have been using Turkish airlines/hub to get them to and from Egypt. I think they all ready fly to Alexandria and Hurghada and, I assume Cairo. If they add Luxor I'm sure it will be popular with Brits from the UK too.