Let’s say I have a French based airline. If I start flying from Paris/Lyon/Marseille etc to an African airport, for instance Addis Ababa, and from there to Asia, would I still be able to offer connections to my passengers?
I know I would not get anyone from Ethiopia, but would the passengers brought by me from Paris be able to board on a different aircraft to an Asian destination?
Example:
Plane 1: Paris - ADD - Delhi
Plane 2: Lyon - ADD - Hong Kong
Plane 3: Marseille - ADD - Bangkok
All arriving at the same time and departing 1 hour later. Would it be possible to fly Paris - Bangkog with me?
No. If airline is based in France you don’t have traffic rights to transport passengers from Ethiopia or any foreign country. Even for EU treaty countries you can only transport passengers within members states.
That’s not true. You don’t have traffic rights to transport ETHIOPIAN passengers to an other foreign or Ethiopian airport. Passengers traveling from France can also transfer within the same airline in a foreign country (if transfers are allowed), but no other passengers will get on board. It is possible to create something like a “virtual hub” (at least it was possible in the past) or also do a tech stop (that counts like a transfer in the ORS)
You can create a “scissor hub” at ADD. However may I suggest a smaller airport because you might get hurt my passengers going to and from ADD and France.
Of course that works - technically - but you’ll hardly get enough pax with your french traffic rights. Too little demand from/to France to make it really profitable I’m afraid. But you may try it. US or China based airlines doing a lot easier here.
Also, even if there is little demand, most people will prefer nonstop flights. If there is nonstop France-Asia flights, your demand will literally be null.
You (could) operate a scissor hub in an investment open country (such as Somalia) and operate those planes from a subsidiary based there, and also get short-haul feeder demand from there - but again, you need those planes in that airline and not in your mainline.
Plus, East Africa is way out of the way. If you wanted to do this concept, I would recommend Beirut or Kuwait, or even Baku or Tashkent, as it’s much more ‘direct’ of a routing than through E. Africa.
I would also look at ‘Imperial Demand’ to Vietnam and Cambodia that is if you wanna risk this risky business model…
that is if you wanna risk this risky business model…