Skybus have just announced expansion plans with the aquistion of another 19 seat prop, improved ferry services and a new terminal and tower at Lands End to meet the demand of tourists and improved flight reliability in poor weather , what with the loss of the helicopter link at the beginning of November.
Unsure yet when it'll arrive but the building works have been in progress already for some time with the tower nearing completion.
Good for Skybus.
Last edited by PlymouthPixie; 16th Sep 2012 at 10:49.
Its always good to hear smaller companies expand, especially ones so local to me!
It will be interesting to see how the extra aircraft, I assume another Twotter) will be deployed, be it NQY or LEQ ?
NQY-IOS passenger numbers are currently down, But i still maintain that this route would benefit from having a BE and or BA codeshare to allow through ticketing from destinations other than NQY
Skybus is axing the Bristol and Southampton flights next year so they can concentrate on services from Newquay, Land’s End and Exeter.
The company has announced how it intends to deal with the extra air passengers they’ll carry when BIH ceases operations on November 1st and direct flights to Tresco end.
In a presentation at Land’s End airport yesterday that marked 75 years of commercial flights to Scilly, company bosses said they are looking to get a new plane and will recruit additional pilots and crew in order to operate three flights a day from Exeter, four from Newquay and two from Land’s End on the Twin Otter aircraft.
They can seat up to 19 people.
The company will also run up to 17 flights a day from Land’s End on the smaller Islander aircraft which can accommodate up to eight people. That could be increased to 24 each day if there is demand.
Fares, they say, will remain at this year’s rate. Last year the company followed the pricing pattern of many major airlines and varied the ticket prices according to time and availability. Next year, a single fare to Land’s End will cost be between £70 and £80 and one-way from Newquay will cost between £85 and £95 on average.
The single Exeter fare will cost between £120 and £130.
The company say they are investigating the potential for 7-day sailing of the Scillonian in the summertime. Concerns have been voiced over the cost of transporting dogs to Scilly by air. Dogs will be free on the boat.
The Steamship Company recently won the Royal Mail contract. BIH, who had been carrying the post, declined to pitch for the contract.
The company say they will be launching a same-day small parcel delivery service.
The Council of the Isles of Scilly 10 days ago set up a task group and one of their tasks is "to explore new routes with other commercial operators". Seems to me like the Council isn't satisfied what the Scilly Skybus has to offer.
Quote:
New Transport Task Group Released on 07 September 2012 Senior members of the Council of the Isles of Scilly have set up a new Transport Task Group under the chairmanship of Cllr. Dudley Mumford to oversee the implementation of the proposed £4.5m improvement plan for the St Mary's Airport, to improve the general operation and governance of the airport, and to explore new routes with other commercial operators. The recently commissioned Parsons Brinkerhoff report sets out a blueprint for future development. In response to this report, the CIOS will appoint a design team for the airport works and project management services. Evaluation of their findings should lead to detailed designs for runway resurfacing, the reconfigured passenger terminal, new fire facilities and hangar space. The installation of additional navigational aids will allow the fixed wing aircrafts to fly at the same minima as the current helicopter service. The Transport Task Group wants to facilitate and encourage discussions with the existing transport providers and to investigate the possibilities of new transport services.
How does expansion equate to the cancellation of longstanding routes in Sou and Brs? Surely if they are ading another aircraft they need to keep these routes? They will have 4 Twotters in total?
The small table based on the CAA statistics below tells you why Scilly Skybus can't use the four Twotters and three Islanders to other airports on the mainland than St. Just Land's End and Newquay. BIH had the majority of passengers and with them out of business, Scilly Skybus need to uplift 78,000 passengers more per year than what they do today. With their 3 + 3 aircraft today they have only flown 69,000 yearly passengers.
Pretty much all the trunk flying is with Jet 2 & Titan but there are still some turbo prop operations linking in the outlying areas in Scotland & the islands (JER/GCI/IOM)
If I recall correctly, the Channel Islands link in to the Postal Air Network at BOH, IOM links in to EMA. It therefore would seem logical to link IOS in via EXT. No point moving it by road & I very much doubt there would be sufficient mail to make a NQY flight worthwhile.
I was at Glasgow airport this morning I read this thread on my smart phone. At that moment I was pondering as I waited for my flight, how old must the Loganair Twin Otters be...? In the same thinking what about Skybus, what is the age of there's? What is the logical replacement aircraft in the market? I am at pains to think of an alternative....?
Such 'long haul' routes as BRS and SOU have been in place to deter folk from travelling all the way down to Penzance to travel with the opposition however with a Twotter cruising speed of a mere 150kts it takes forever and a day to operate a BRS or SOU rotation whilst the Twotter is a less than comfortable and damn noisy aircraft to fly such longer distances in.
Now there is to be no opposition, indeed no Penzance, so no need to operate these longer routes whilst so many more punters may be carried, in the same timeframe, on 15 or 30 minute sectors in/out of LQE or NQY.
ISC Council might well try to encourage another operator to commence ISC operations but with the fastest aircraft able to operate thru ISC being the 150kt Twotter another operator will struggle to make anything pay being able to squeeze so few rotations in to a day and whilst LQE (Lands End Airport) remains a closed shop to any other operator than SkyBus ... and PLH's closure doesn't assist in this respect!
What's needed is a codeshare, or similar, agreement thru EXT and/or NQY ... Mind you, FlyBE started life, in their JEA & SpaceGrand days, operating Twotters ..... how about putting the clock back?
