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Aviation History
1988
1988 - 0850.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT Berlin's commuter market grows WEST BERLIN West Berlin's regional links have expanded dramatically over the last year, thanks to the development of commuter operations. Three commuter carriers are now based in the city, with a fourth planned, reports Mark Blacklock. "I felt it was time Berlin caught up with the rest of Europe and had a regional network," says Capt Dick Twomey, chief executive of Berlin Regional UK. Twomey had long experi ence of the Berlin market with British Airways before he left to set up Berlin Regional as a British carrier with a minority West German shareholding. Berlin Regional applied for six new routes, from Berlin to Basle, Brussels, Copenhagen, Friedrichshafen, Geneva, and Kiel, and arranged a finance lease on two 16-seat Jetstream 31s through Citi bank and British Aerospace. The aircraft are looked after by a small engineering team at the carrier's Tegel base, backed up by Fields of East Midlands, UK, for heavy maintenance. By the time operations were ready to start in April 1987, larger carriers were looking at Berlin Regional's routes. Of the original six, only Copenhagen and Friedrichs hafen are on line, and Twomey has been making short-term arrangements to lease out one aircraft. "We are suffering from hard times because the market has changed," he says. Plans to serve Brussels were dropped when TWA announced its intention of putting a 727 on the route as part of a long-term strategy to establish a base in Berlin. Services to Copenhagen and Geneva started in April, with Basle and Friedrichshafen following in June. Basle and Geneva were subsequently operated as a combined service. Then Pan Am decided to include Basle and Kiel in its own commuter network. Berlin Regional never acti vated its Kiel licence, and saw its load factor on Basle fall from 45 to 14 per cent when the Pan Am Express service started in November. "An *«•$" *• ' il*^ Pan Am's regional service has the advantage of a big name infant route which we were building up was suddenly killed," complains Twomey. Pan Am's Conrad Jacoby is unrepentant: "When you have a major name it creates greater market opportuni ties," he says. Twomey tried out a service on Pan Am's trunk inter national route to Zurich, where there appeared to be a demand for increased frequency, but this will be withdrawn when the second aircraft goes. While Switzer land has not been a success for Berlin Regional, Denmark has, and the twice-daily Copenhagen route is up to a 50 per cent load factor. "We have established a good Scan dinavian market through connections with SAS," says Twomey. "We are fighting hard to develop new markets such as weekend charter work, and to tighten up our operation," he continues. "We are not going to disappear." Twomey believes that commuter carriers should work together where possible, and he has devised an inno vative marketing concept with Berlin's new American com muter, Berlin Regional USA. This is a completely separate company, presently offering an air-taxi service with a Learjet 25D, which intends to enter the scheduled market with a 24-seat Gulfstream 1. The two Berlin Regionals share a common livery and will maintain a joint selling and marketing effort. Tempelhof has been rather a quiet airport since British Airways and Pan American moved out to Tegel, and Tempelhof Airways is now the sole airline user. The carrier was set up as an ait-taxi operator in 1981, using a Navajo and then a Cessna Conquest. A close working relationship devel oped with the Nixdorf computer company, which has extensive business in West Berlin, and whose company executives frequently travel between Berlin and Paderborn in West Germany. This resulted in Tempelhof Airways opening a scheduled service to Paderborn in 1985, using a Nord 262. Dortmund followed in 1986, when a second 262 was acquired, and then Braunschweig in 1987. But, like Berlin Regional, Tempelhof Airways is having to re-evaluate its development in the light of market changes. "We are striving to work with a major carrier, as it is not easy to work on our own," says Kramer. Originally Tempelhof was talking to Pan Am, and a letter of intent was signed for Pan Am to acquire a 51 per cent shareholding in the commuter. This fell through when Pan Am decided to go in-house with Pan Am Express, and Tempelhof is sounding out the other US majors who have recently applied for Berlin. The carrier started scheduled operations with an in-house computerised reservations system, but Kramer now wants to gain access to an international CRS. Paderborn is Tempelhofs busiest route, and the carrier is negotiating for a 40-seater to operate the peak morning and evening flights. An inter national service is planned to utilise the new aircraft during the middle of the day. Kramer is making no announcement yet, but Milan is a possible candidate if Pan Am Express does not get there first. The Dortmund route is suffering from a rival morning Express service, and Tempelhof has appealed to the Allied Air Attaches to refuse Pan Am's bid to increase frequencies. "Dortmund is a good market for one carrier," says Kramer, pointing out that Pan Am and Tempelhof have poor load factors every morning, while Tempelhofs midday and evening flights are satis factorily loaded. Braunschweig did not develop as quickly as expected, and was dropped at the beginning of January, but Tempelhof plans to develop new services to Augsburg and Speyer. Augsburg has been operated on trial using the Conquest, and a full service will be inaugurated when the acquisition of a 40-seater for Paderborn releases a 262. Despite the difficulties, 1987 was a year of expansion for Tempelhof, with air-taxi flights up 27 per cent compared with 1986, and scheduled passengers up 80 per cent to 40,000. Pan Am moved into continued on page 8 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 2 April 1988
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