easyJet at Belfast City

[danielmellor]

Thought Id Start a Thread about This

Whats everyones views on this

Good Thing?
Bad Thing?

They Evetually gonna move all domestics over?

[racedo]

Why ?

There is existing Easyjet thread where it can be discusssed.

[danielmellor]

If your not gonna say anything useful DONT say anything at all

[Cloud1]

Daniel - unfortunately racedo has a fair point and I fear that this sort of comment will not be the first so prepare your wall of defence

It depends how you look at it:

Commercial perspective for EZY - Good thing as BHD is more central and offers a more convenient service for their business passengers subject of course to suitable flight times etc. It will allow them to focus on an area which, whilst already covered quite well at BHD (business market to London), they seem keen to do.

Commercial perspective BE and BD - Bad thing but not the end of the world, as Luton does not really offer as many connections compared to LGW or LHR.

Passenger perspective - Good thing as they may see fares drop on different carriers as the competition heats up

Spotter perspective - well it will make a change from seeing a Q400 on the approach or a B738 over the threshold??

Anyway some people may think I am talking nonsense which is fine, but this is what I feel.

C1

[ILS25]

Definately a bad thing. City has enough and should be left as is before it turns into an unstoppable monster. Infrastructure around it will not support much more (roads, car parking etc) and the more the city get, the more they will want. Easyjet will not move anymore routes to the city from BFS, Luton was just a warning shot for Abertis (who to be honest need a good shaking, the way they run BFS is shameful). On the other hand BFS really need to pull their socks up and get it into their heads that they are not the only option, regardless of what the government white paper states. IF the city gets the PAX cap lifted and the runway extension, BFS are in serious trouble.

The relevent authorities need to look very carefully at all factors as expanding the city much more would spell disaster for employment at BFS. If you look at job numbers in 2004, BFS had 4000 pass holders and a throughput of nearlly 4m PAX. In contrast Belfast City employed 800 persons with a throughput of nearly 2m PAX. The industry norm in 2004 was 1000 direct jobs for every 1m annual PAX. This info is from an official document.

If city expand the job losses at BFS will be serious compared to the extra employment at the city. BFS are already cutting staff numbers and are looking at every way possible to cut costs.

Can anyone answer that if City do get their new runway, will they install a CAT III ILS and AGL system. If not, and BFS are forced to shut its night time operations (to cut costs). If there is an emergency at night in LVP conditions where will the aircraft land ????

[davidjohnson6]

Easyjet has a fairly significant operations at BFS (as opposed to BHD). Is there actually enough space at BHD for Easyjet to move their entire Belfast-UK operation into BHD ?

Adding 2 flights per day to Luton is one thing.
An additional 25 flights per day to other UK airports might be a little more than BHD can handle in one single changeover without "hiccups" occurring. Operating a split base at a relatively small city Belfast (this is not London or Paris) will also incur costs. If routes are moved, it is likely to be the ones with a higher proportion of business-orientated passengers rather than leisure-focussed

My understanding is that the use of BHD is an experiment to gauge customer reaction, test out the BHD infrastructure, maybe put a little bit of pressure on BFS management over costs, and also determine whether by flying to BHD customers would be willing to pay a higher fare
Flights start in January - I would expect it to take until March before any reliable conclusions can be drawn

[cheesycol]

Can anyone answer that if City do get their new runway, will they install a CAT III ILS and AGL system. If not, and BFS are forced to shut its night time operations (to cut costs). If there is an emergency at night in LVP conditions where will the aircraft land ????

Huh? Assuming this is a serious question, then at the nearest suitable airport. That could be anywhere, generally limited by a flying time (e.g. one hour) at the OEI cruise speed.

Should you need to land asap (unlikely) then the category of the ILS becomes reasonably unimportant. The VOR may prove a little more challenging however!

[tigger2k8]

has been discussed many times in the easyJet and Belfast thread

unless EZY get an aircraft into BHD in the morning for an 0700 depature on the BHD-LTN service then its useless for business passengers.. as far as i can recall the earliest anyone can be in LTN AIRPORT is 1000... to be honest i think it wont work out and they will either split the service between BHD and BFS or return to BFS... cutting one of the most popular EZY London routes in half just doesnt make sense

this is a warning shot to Abertis, thankfully BFS is going through redevelopment now (should have been done years back) things can only improve... the thing i fear the most about allowing BHD the extension is job loss, after all like already mentioned theres 4000+ people employed at BFS... even the loss of say 10 flights per week could lead to job cuts in shops, operations, ground handlers, airline staff, security, cleaners, engineers... list goes on

BHD does a good job at domestic flights and BFS does a good job at both... should be kept the way they are

if EZY was serious about moving flights they would do a BHD-AGP, which as far as im aware their A319s could perform on BHD's runways?

and yes, i do favour BFS as i dont want to have to travel into Belfast especially at busy times... nightmare

they cant compare the routes when:

1. Different flight times
2. Different number of rotations (cut by half)


ofcourse this is only my opinion, and may be wrong..

[IJM]

has been discussed many times in the easyJet and Belfast thread

As Racedo pointed out in the second post, only to be shouted down by a stroppy OP.