Easyjet to create base at EXT

[Ambrosia]

Much excitement at EXT today as news of Easyjet plans to move up to four of its BRS based 737 fleet to EXT became known.

Apparently an analysis of pax origin by postcode revealed that pax from EX (Exeter) PL (Plymouth) and TA (Taunton) postcode areas outnumber those from BS (Bristol) GL (Glos) and BA (Bath) by nearly 4:1.

This together with Exeter Airports superior road access are said to be the reasons behind Easyjet management's decision for this move.

Great news for EXT and Devon.

[TwinAisle]

This would seem to make a lot of sense....

1. Easy are always going on about how full BRS is these days (and who's fault is that?)
2. EXT and PLH seem to be doing really rather well, and EXT in particular always seems to be a bit empty
3. The SW is crying out for some decent lo-cost competition - Air SW are good, but not exactly in the same league, and in any case, their logo looks like a three day old bruise

Good luck to easy - hope they put the new 319s down there - saw one at EMA the other week, and it blinds the lousy old Boeings (duck......!!!!)

TA

[JobsaGoodun]

Mmmmm I'm unsure as to just how realistic this rumour may be.

If true then I would be amazed. Surely Exeter Airport run the risk of losing all the new Flybe services that they have just aquired. Realistically I cannot see them wanting to severely pee off their based operator who has taken the considerable risk of investing in the new routes.

Equally it would surely not be economic for Easy to have 2 bases so close together. The only reason for them to move out of Bristol is if the new Flybe services have really dented their projected booking figures, which I find unlikely as the scheduled Flybe services from EXT to ALC/AGP seem to have caused a minor reduction in charter services at EXT. The likes of MYT have chosen to route some ALCEXT flights via SOU to combine pax loads. I would deduce from this that Flybe's flights are simply replacing those of the current charter airlines with a few more seats available.

We'll see what happens but I would be staggered if this is true!

[MerchantVenturer]

Well those are interesting statistics.

They certainly don't correspond with Bristol Airport's own recent survey which found that only 12% of the airport's 4 million passengers came from Devon and Cornwall.

Greater Bristol provides 25% of the whole south west region's GDP (the region from northern Gloucestershire to the Scilly Isles and across to and including Swindon and Bournemouth/Poole) - source: SWRDA website. It has by far the largest density of population in this region, and yet we are told that four times as many people from the far south west travel from Bristol by easyJet than 'locals'.

If four easyJet 737s (2/3rds of the BRS fleet) moved to EXT that would equate to over one million annual passengers. How would the small EXT terminal cope with those, plus the estimated half a million already expected to use EXT this year?

I would be interested to learn more of Ambrosia's sources in what is apparently a 'scoop' in his first post.

[akerosid]

I recall reading a few days ago that someone in the Guernsey parliament inferred that BE was having financial problems and while this was speedily shot down by BE, I wonder how well BE is actually doing? Being a hybrid low cost carrier (i.e. not fully sure what it's doing) and operating a pretty mixed fleet, could it be that EZY knows something about BE's position. It is after all well established in another BE base, LGW, so if worse came to worse, it could move in on more of BE's territory if it saw an opportunity opening up.

[Silvertop]

So let me get this straight, EZY at BRS has 6 737's, so then they move 4 of them down the M5 to EXT, to save the pax a journey,
Yeah that is really Lo cost!
Dream on

[MEFLYBE]

BE have dug themselves out of trouble, they will be around for a while :)

Regards

Mike

[JobsaGoodun]

Akerosid,

Rumours of Flybe supposed financial difficulties are just that, rumours. I believe there to be no foundation in them at all for the following reasons.

1. Work has begun, at Exeter on the new Flybe maintenance hangar capable of housing up to 3 737/319 aircraft side by side. Such a move would not have been made if money was an issue.
2. A further 2 Q400 have been delivered in the last month from 8 to be delived this year. These would not have been released from Bombardier had they been worried about payments
3. The 'mixed' fleet should all but have dissappeared buy late summer. Each new Q400 delivered coincides with the handback of either a Q200/300. Flybe will then be in entirely the same positon as Easy, utilising a 2 aircraft fleet.
4. BE made a profit last year, although very small and is well on course to record another profit this year...only time will tell when figures are made available.
5. Finally, BE has just sold it's slot holding at LHR for a record £45million. Although I believe that some of this may have gone to the Walker Trust to repay the vast sums of investment required in recent years to keep the airline afloat, it will no doubt have added heathily to the airlines bottom line.

All told I think Flybe are in a very good posiion for this coming summer season. The SOU base is doing very well and load factor on the new Exeter routes should be fantastic if the first weeks bookings are anything to go by. However if they are too good then that may attract the likes of Easy to look more at the prospect of Exeter for route development. Personally I think this unlikely!

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Ambrosia - good name, awful first post.

Utter tripe AND its not funny for the staff at BRS to read such made up fantasy. Even if it causes alarm for a mere moment its still causing needless worry for people. I'm one of them - were your post to be true I would have to sell my house, get my partner to leave her job and move away from all my friends. Imagine my reaction on reading your totally made up posting... It took but a moment to check the facts and dismiss you but nevertheless your moment of PPRuNe rumour baiting does cause distress to people and thats not nice.

Exeter may have superior roads leading up to it but frankly its half surrounded by the sea and nobody lives on that. Bristol attracts pax from South Wales, way up the M5 to Brum, way down the M4 to London and way across all the West Country. Exeter couldn't hope to cover as much GDP as Bristol so its highly unlikely BRS routes would be moved to Exeter.

A Bournemouth rumour would have better legs as being so much closer to London its GDP coverage is respectable.

However, I think you will find that easyJets sights are now very much focussed on continental horizons. Bases in France and Germany are seeing loads in the high high 90%'s and epic forward bookings. Tinkering with an already well performing domestic network is - I imagine - well down the list of priorities.

Cheers

WWW

[WHBM]

The original post seems inaccurate throughout because although access to Bristol is undoubtedly poor (it was the vanity of the city council owners in the 1950s which caused them to turn their back on Filton, which would have been superb for access) but if there's one direction things are reasonably alright from it is Exeter - down the A38 and onto the M5 well into your journey. It's places like Bath that have a hard time getting there for the relatively short distance involved.

[Buster the Bear]

This is news to my easyLand mole, their comment was "Where is Exeter"!

[redfield]

Ambrosia's rumour-mongering is scary! And totally untrue as well. BRS has just redesigned it's stand layout partially to accomodate larger Easy aircraft (737-700's instead of 300's) and if Easy were going to move to EXT, why would they be starting flights to Berlin and Dortmund from BRS this summer? No disrespect to anyone at EXT but don't get too excited. It's not happening.
:ok:

[flower]

I couldn't make any comment on the relocation of Easy Jet with not having been at work for a fortnight and thus no rumours have reached my ears.
However it is most certainly true that there has been a shift in passengers and from where they are coming from. Traditionally Bristol took a good number of customers from the South Wales area , that has changed and the shift is according to postcodes changing albeit only very slightly the other way with some Bristol folk tracking westbound to catch their flights. This I have no doubt is to do with the appalling access to Bristol airport and the extortionate car parking charges. Bristol as well will always suffer from its short runway and there is not a great deal that can be done about that.
Who knows, with the growth of Cardiff and Exeter maybe its not so far fetched to think that there could be a relocation of aircraft to accommodate the fare paying passengers.

[brabazon]

I would be surprised to say the least if the ratio of passengers was as Ambrosia states - more likely to be the other way round.

Anyway here's a report that was done by AviaSolutions for the South West Regional Development Agency:

http://www.aviasolutions.co.uk/pages/swrda.htm

[Pirate]

Wee Weasely Welshman

Was it really necessary to go for Ambrosia's throat like that? This is a Rumour Network, after all. I would have expected better of a moderator.

[Wycombe]

....to be fair, he is a moderator with a vested interest

[MerchantVenturer]

It is absolutely true that the then Bristol Corporation could have moved its airport from Whitchurch to Filton in the mid 1950s but instead chose Lulsgate. One can only imagine the type of airport Filton would be now.

But what do we find? Despite a short runway, a constricted site, poor weather at times, situated on the 'wrong' side of the city it serves away from the motorway networks, railways and main industry sites, Bristol Airport goes from strength to strength and, as far as I know, without any start-up or route subsidies.

Why is this? As I said last night Greater Bristol provides 25% of the government's south west regions's GDP, its conurbation is nearer 700,000 (forget the 400,000 official population, there is another 'city' nearly the size of Plymouth called South Gloucestershire attached to it, as well as bits of North Somerset and B&NES), let alone the satellite towns which push up the immediate population even more. There is no other area in the southwest region that gets near this mass of population.

A recent survey by a firm of marketing consultants commissioned by BRS management found these trends:

The airport’s typical customer is now middle aged and professional, with 54% of passengers aged 36-60, of which 76% are ABC1. (the sort of customer airlines drool over - my italics).

According to the research, among the 4 million passengers that will pass through Bristol International Airport’s doors this year, 50% will live within a one hour drive of the airport, with a further 14% coming from South Wales and 12% from Devon and Cornwall.

This is why Ambrosia's claim that 3 out of 4 BRS easyJet customers come from the far south west was so far fetched. The truer figure is more likely between 1 and 2 out of 10.

Road access is not good but the airport is next to the A 38, not a country lane. If the local authorities that rule Greater Bristol can get their act together the promised connector road between the A 370 and A 38 around the south Bristol suburbs would be a great help to access from the motorways.

As to the runway extension, don't rule it out. There is land available at the east end. Even so the present runway is certainly adequate for current and most future needs and hasn't stopped the airport racing head of its main competitors in the southwest of Britain over the past few years.

As for changing trends, BHX is a good alternative for people living around the north of Bristol if they don't want to cross the city or if they wish to travel somewhere not served by BRS.

One final thought. I found it enlightening how the prospect of BRS losing 2/3rds of its easyJet fleet seemed to be embraced with enthusiasm by one or two not from the Exeter/Devon area.
When people have 'talked down' CWL in the past, certain posters have condemned it - rightly so in my view. Perhaps they should not be surprised if others defend BRS.

And anyone keen on the easy 319s will, I believe, be able to see one at BRS on the daily Berlin run from June.

[jetstream7]

Perhaps Ambrosia could explain where the story of the 'plan' came from and give us an update as 24 hours have passed?

No problem with WWW's post - all about the circumstances (and isn't a mods job to keep the posters inline (even when the mod has a vested interest)).

Pirate, there is a difference between 'rumours' and and unsubstantiated garbage....which is what I suspect Ambrosia's post was...

There's some good stuff in the posts about Exeter and flyBE, so why would the airport want to wind up what I imagine to be its (current) biggest source of income, a company that has already got a real plan in place to increase the number of passengers through the airport...

[skyrabbit]

Such a move by EZY seems highly unlikely.....though I have to say it is mildly amusing to see 'weasley' on the receiving end.

Some people love dishing it out but just can't take it! :rolleyes:

[Pirate]

Jetstream7

I don't want to get into a debate about semantics but a rumour is, by definition, unsubstantiated. As to garbage, that probably only applies if the receiver doesn't like what he's hearing - highly subjective.

[MerchantVenturer]

When someone passes on a rumour in good faith, one would expect that person to respond when others point out the unlikelihood of the story.

In this case anyone with even a nodding acquaintance of the economy and population spread of the south west of England would realise that the idea of 3/4s of easy's BRS pax coming from the far south west a complete non starter. And how would EXT suddenly cope with another million annual pax plus their own expected half a millon or so this year following Flybe's new routes?

I could come on here and say I had heard that Flybe had been bought by Bill Gates who was then going to make a 'too good to refuse' bid for easyJet and operate all the new combined airline's flights out of Newquay. Where do we draw the line?

[WHBM]

Maybe it was an April Fool being prepared, accidentally posted two weeks early ?!

[Buster the Bear]

As the "easyJet to get B747's" is out ahead of April 1st, so this could be a local wind up?

I assume Exeter has 24 hour 7 day a week ATC to support such a move by easyJet? (Buster thinks this is unlikely?)

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Hmmm, it was just the very definite wording of the post - as if there had been a press release and all. I've propogated plenty of rumour on this site over the years so I can hardly protest too much.

It ain't even close to being feasible is the bottom line. Bristol is a 24hr international airport on the UK top ten list of airports. It has made double digit annual growth for a couple of years now and has a couple of years left to go.

The weather isn't a problem and the runway isn't a problem. The biggest problem is the car parking - but then thats true of EVERY top ten airport in the country.

No disrespect but Exeter will remain easyJets 2nd choice diversion airfield and nothing more.

Cheers

WWW

[Little Friend]

WWW,

Wx and runway not a problem-you must be part time!

Move family, sell house and leave friends-you must be a pilot then.

Many years ago I asked the then CP if we would ever get or mix different a/c types-he assured me that that would never happen since it would be the kiss of death to the lo-cost Biz.Pln.

Aviation changes-hope you have a flexible mortgage.

[flyerboy]

Little Friend

I think you'll find that since BRS installed the cat 3 on runway 27, the wx hasnt been a problem.

And as for the topic of this forum as someone has already said I didnt think that april 1st was for another 2weeks yet.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Little Friend, no I am very much full time.

In approaching 3 years of flying full time into BRS I've had to divert 3 times due to weather. Thats not much and each time we've been able to get back in within an hour or so.

Similarly I've only once had to depart without all the bags due to a freakish combination of QNH, temperature, wind and MEL convergence. The 700's and Airbuses would have been/will be fine.

The weather at BRS is interesting by virtue of being 600ft up next to a shallow sea channel on the Western coast. It does quite amazing things, but rarely does it stop 737s from operating. Indeed a couple of times the place has an almost Prestwickian quality - when everyone else is out BRS sits apart in its own little weather system operating perfectly. I've seen it several times Cat 3 everywhere in the UK apart from Prestwick (9000m 11kts/Vrb) and BRS (CAVOK 2kts/Vrb) sat like a castle in the sky above the fog.

Anyway, where's Exeter again?

Cheers

WWW

[Little Friend]

flyboy.

don't get the April sig. of your reply.

WWW,

It must be good at BRS this post has got you all a little worried. Will be airdropping some misery soon-if the Wx is OK.

my reply was only ment to be fun regards the Wx at BRS. I did, for a while, seem to go there alot and it did do its "own thing" as you correctly said-but it can get rough-but where can't and I was in a turboprop, no cat III (not that it made any diff. to me!).....

As for the remark about friends, mortgages I was only alluding to the dangers of making hard statments as to the intention of a company or the industry. Esp. wrt commercial information.

The real agenda is not for the likes of you and me- its do or die.

Your very humble, financially flexible, friend-L

[On the beach]

As a paying pax who visits Devon (like about 5 million visitors a year) at least twice a year and who used to pay to fly from EGKK to EXT (via Brymon twotters), I certainly miss the air link from EXT to the outside world. Perhaps if EXT had professional airport management that actively encouraged airlines to base their ops at EXT, the paying public would support them. And no I don't consider Flybe as a serious airline. When I tried to book a flight from EXT to Edinburgh last year they decided to curtail the service the day before I wanted to fly. So BA got my money via Plymouth. Come on boys, there is a market out here. Easy, yes pleasy and soon, I've money to spend on airline tickets from Edinburgh to Exeter and return in May. Which airline wants my money? 'cos I'm not driving or catching he train.

On the Beach










0
ho:cool: :cool:

[MerchantVenturer]

Flybe are starting daily services from EXT to EDI and GLA at the end of the month I believe.

[Fraudsquads]

As an Easy user from EXT I wonder in which category of its pax I sit.

Am I one of the 12% from Devon & Cornwall or one of the 50% within 1 hour from the airport?

Both fit...BRS is easier to get to from the South West than most other directions anyway. I wish they'd stop dropping the speed limits on the A38 though.

Unless pax growth brings Easy to EXT they'd be mad as much as I'd like the 10 min trip to the airport but a quick drive up the M5 is no problem.

FS