Kuwait Airways plans to serve Manchester, with the new route expected to take off in May. There is currently no official announcement, and it isn’t yet available to book, but it appears in various locations awaiting ‘release’.
What’s the latest?
If Kuwait Airways launches Manchester, it’ll operate twice-weekly from May 3rd with the following schedule (all times are local). It is visible in Google’s ITA Matrix, as shown in the image below, although it isn’t yet bookable.
- Kuwait-Manchester: Tuesdays and Saturdays, KU113, 22:45-04:00+1 the next day
- Manchester-Kuwait: Wednesdays and Sundays, KU114, 05:00-13:40
According to the ITA Matrix, it is due to be operated by the 134-seat A320neo. Kuwait Airways now has six examples, each with 12 seats in business and 122 in economy. At 3,013 miles (4,849km), it’d be the world’s eighth-longest A320neo route in May, based on OAG’s schedules information.
It comes as Kuwait’s second airline, Jazeera Airways, received Manchester slots, according to the Airport Coordination Limited’s summer 2022 Initial Coordination Report. It plans a three-weekly A320neo service, arriving at 12:50 and leaving an hour later, with Terminal 2 allocated. While simple possession of slots doesn’t mean it’ll materialize, it does show intention. Jazeera first mentioned the possibility of Manchester in 2019 – but then COVID happened.
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A 05:00 departure from Manchester?
The timings are suspect. They are very different from all other Kuwait Airways flights to Europe. To ensure maximum two-way connectivity, they leave the Gulf airport in the morning and arrive back in the middle of the evening.
If Manchester goes ahead, it’ll be the only European route in May not to follow this scheduling pattern, casting doubt. It means that it’d have few onward connections, except across the Middle East. Analyzing two-way connections with no more than a four-hour wait in May reveals that only Dubai, Riyadh, Bahrain, Dammam, and Doha would be available.
With over 450,000 point-to-point (P2P) passengers in 2019, these destinations are mainly targeted by Emirates (two-daily A380s), Qatar Airways (18-weekly B787-8s), Turkish Airlines (twice-daily A321s in May), and Saudia (three-weekly to Jeddah; B787s).
Kuwait Airways would have few seats to fill
Kuwait Airways would have few Manchester seats to fill with a twice-weekly service and low-capacity aircraft. It could actively target the Manchester-Kuwait-Manchester P2P market, which totaled approximately 30,000 round-trip passengers in 2019, according to booking data.
Based on the timings mentioned above, it wouldn’t connect in two directions to/from South Asia. It’d not be competing for that lower-yielding traffic – which is great, especially given its low-capacity aircraft.
Instead, it could supplement higher-yielding P2P traffic for a small selection of logical and well-demanded destinations in the Middle East. Although the 05:00 time from Manchester is unusual for a long-haul flight from the UK, it’d mean competitive transit time, such as one hour wait to/from Dubai.
Will the route happen? Let us know in the comments.
With thanks to SPD travels on Twitter.
