Marriott adds its 36th (?) hotel brand in deal with Sonder

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• Ken says:

  20 Aug20 August 09:19

  The enormously successful Premier Inn ?

  Attempting to grow in a single market makes much more sense than being spread over several countries.
  They are attempting to double in size in Germany in roughly 18 months, then presumably will look to double again in the following couple of years.

  Enough to keep anyone busy.

  • Swiss Jim says:

    20 Aug20 August 14:19

    Look at its owners’ share price history. Hardly successful.

    • Rob says:

      20 Aug20 August 14:46

      It’s an outstanding model, to be fair, which succeeds with no loyalty scheme or other incentives and relies exclusively on (most of the time, and all the time in the ones I use) a very high quality product which spends money in all the right places and keeps cost down by not spending it needlessly in others.

      It is unfortunately too big now to really integrate with the big hotel brands. IHG etc isn’t looking for 800 UK hotels and virtually nothing outside it. I mean …. if Hyatt bought Premier Inn it would add a ludicrous 60% to the size of the company and totally misshape it.

      • Swiss Jim says:

        20 Aug20 August 15:01

        Share price down over every sensible recent period you want to look at. Dividend yield poor. In what way is that an outstanding (business) model? I agree it works for guests but as an investor? No.

        • Colin MacKinnon says:

          20 Aug20 August 15:26

          @Swiss Jim Shares at a year low today, so…..

          £1800 for 64 shares, gets you free breakfasts as a shareholder perk.

          Nine nights a year as a couple is a 10% return – plus c3% dividends.

        • Ken says:

          20 Aug20 August 22:38

          The restaurant/ pub side is a drag, however as far as the hotels go, you can have a great business model but the general macro environment will trump it.

          Uk based consumer businesses have had a tough time over the last 5 years and I struggle to see signs of a huge upturn.

• john says:

  20 Aug20 August 09:45

  Tarom only fly a babybus A318 to LHR so they might not have the demand to make London work.

• Dominic says:

  20 Aug20 August 10:28

  Taken a look at Sonder seems to have some Dubai hotels, including some slightly bizarre arrangements.

  “Sonder JBR The Walk” appears to share a building (and pool access) for “Rixos Premium” JBR but at a significantly cheaper price. Will they really keep Marriott customers utilizing Rixos facilities (if I’m seeing this right)?!

  • Will says:

    20 Aug20 August 11:08

    I stayer there when it opened, 5 bedroom apartment something like 300sqm for £250 a night and full access to rixoz facilities.
    Floor to ceiling panoramic windows looking out at the palm.

    Very nice property.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      20 Aug20 August 18:05

      Actually looking at their properties this is a really positive addition. Look far more upmarket than any other “long stay” brand Marriott has.

• HH says:

  20 Aug20 August 10:41

  I’m surprised there’s only one A380 flight as whenever I see Avios availability it’s on the A380. I guess the QSuite flights are more popular? No complaints from me — I prefer the reverse herringbone for daytime flights and the onboard bar is a nice bonus!

• ADS says:

  20 Aug20 August 11:11

  “the site that was My Hotel Chelsea on Chelsea Green”

  rather cheeky of them to claim 35 Ixworth Place as being on “Chelsea Green” !

  • Rhys says:

    20 Aug20 August 11:15

    Rob added this in!

    • ADS says:

      20 Aug20 August 11:30

      ha ha – i’m guessing Rob spends too much time with estate agents 🙂

  • Mouse says:

    20 Aug20 August 20:04

    Just looked up Chelsea Green… it must be the most pathetic public park in London!

    • Rob says:

      20 Aug20 August 20:23

      It’s not a public park! It’s a gap between two roads.

      • ADS says:

        21 Aug21 August 10:24

        I pass it regularly and rather like it!

        it’s amazing what a few trees and a little bit of green grass does to lift people’s spirits

• Dev says:

  20 Aug20 August 11:21

  Im sure the slot sale was Kenya Airways to Oman Air for $80mn … not Air France/KLM. This was prime morning slots that Kenya Airways used for the overnight to Heathrow and day flight back to Nairobi. It also shows the nonsense of an airline being handed a “freebie” that that they can sell, only to gain a 2nd pair of slots some years later.

  (Kenya Airways has operated a 2nd LHR flight for last couple of years using ad-hoc slots. They will not be far off from getting it permanently which they can sell off again if they choose to do so!)

  • Rob says:

    20 Aug20 August 11:23

    Our 2016 article says AFKLM.

    • Dev says:

      20 Aug20 August 11:28

      not the most reliable source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/a-look-at-the-biggest-airport-slot-deal-in-history-where-75-million-changed-hands/ar-AA1mG6bJ

      “Oman Air’s LHR slot deal
      The Gulf carrier aspires to expand its operations like the three big Middle Eastern airlines, namely Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways. In 2016, the airline spared a large chunk of money to purchase a slot pair at LHR. The sought-after morning slot cost the airline a whopping $75 million. While the initial news suggested that the slot was purchased from the Air France-KLM Group, it was later confirmed that the airline bought it from Kenya Airways.”

      • Dev says:

        20 Aug20 August 11:29

        https://www.businesstraveller.com/news/2016/03/02/kenya-airways-sells-its-only-heathrow-slot/

      • Rob says:

        20 Aug20 August 14:19

        Our article would have been contemporaneous, so if everyone was saying AFKLM then that’s what we put!

• Nick says:

  20 Aug20 August 12:01

  I doubt QR will want to pull out of Gatwick now, unless there’s another significant downturn like covid, because of the increased catchment area it gives them. I think their strategy would instead be to add a third flight and then if anything possibly consider STN as well. The focus at LHR will be optimising their departures at times that most suit them (swapping slots with other airlines if necessary). Then they can market both frequency for LHR and convenience for both.

  • chris w says:

    20 Aug20 August 12:28

    Surely QR’s strategy at Gatwick is twofold, just like Emirates:
    – Offer additional capacity they can’t offer at Heathrow
    – Service the catchment area around Gatwick that don’t want to fly out of Heathrow

• Londonsteve says:

  20 Aug20 August 16:08

  I’ve not flown the route but I’m sad about Tarom quitting Heathrow after over 60 years of unbroken service. They’ll have had grandfather slots and were a piece of Heathrow’s history, like other eastern bloc carriers, many of which are now sadly defunct. I totally understand the commercial rationale to sell the slots as they’ll have likely struggled to generate a good yield on the Heathrow route with little in the way of connecting traffic to or from their own flight due to their alliance having little presence at Heathrow, but it does speak of the dysfunctional London aviation market that these circumstances have even come to pass. Without the incentive of the huge sale price for their slots, as a state run carrier they’d have likely maintained flights to Heathrow for reasons of prestige and because it provided a piece of essential connectivity for the Romanian economy. No sovereign state wants to be entirely reliant on a foreign carrier, in this case BA to provide feeder services to Europe’s largest aviation hub. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t launch flights from Gatwick as that’ll be even less yield generating for them with near zero opportunities to pick up transfer passengers and routes to Romania are now totally dominated by LCCs, mainly Ryanair and Wizz.

  • PeteM says:

    20 Aug20 August 17:48

    This is kind of how I felt about Czech Airlines (three daily slot pairs!) and Malev, but guess times change…

    • Londonsteve says:

      21 Aug21 August 16:13

      Indeed. I used to be a regular with Malev to Budapest, at one point they had flights from LHR, LGW and STN all at the same time, but that predates the arrival of LCCs on the route which only took off after Hungary joined the EU in 2004. None of the eastern bloc carriers managed to maintain or develop a long haul network other than LOT, so they became largely dependent on point-to-point travellers, then the LCCs came and ate their lunch. Still, I do think a flag carrier integrated into one of the 3 global alliances can theoretically still do decent business flying to Heathrow, the issue for some of these cash strapped airlines is that the potential sale price of their Heathrow slots is an exceedingly tempting way to put cash in the bank. Ironically, it ultimately seems to hasten the demise of the airline in the longer term as the damage done by no longer flying to Heathrow is eventually larger than the cash injection derived from selling the slots. It’s the typical situation of flogging the family silver to repair the roof. It didn’t work for Malev or CSA as evidenced by their eventual bankruptcy and it won’t work for Tarom either. LOT and Bulgaria Air who maintain Heathrow flights are not likely to vanish.

      • Londonsteve says:

        21 Aug21 August 16:18

        Tarom might have been better served selling the slots to BA at a potentially lower price on the condition that they support their entry into One World. Then, if and when they start flying to LGW, they’d have BA’s network from there for connecting passengers and they can codeshare on the LHR-OTP BA services.

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