Originally Posted by
caaardiff
Having gone through FR's timetable for December for all TFS-UK flights, there will be 54 flights per week, split as 40 operated by aircraft based in the UK and 14 by aircraft based in TFS. They fly to 13 UK destinations from TFS;
5 Airports are operated solely by UK based aircraft (BOH/BRS/EDI/LBA/LTN)
6 Airports are operated by a mix of UK and TFS based aircraft (BHX/BFS/EMA/PIK/MAN/STN/)
2 Airports are operated solely by TFS based aircraft (CWL/NCL)
The Airports that have mixed based aircraft flying the route only have 1 or 2 flights per week from the TFS base. For example BHX has 4 flights per week, 3 by BHX aircraft and 1 by TFS. If there's no slack in the BHX based aircraft schedule, BHX could lose 1 flight per week, or another flight to make way for the TFS flight.
CWL (2 pw) and NCL (3 pw) stand to lose their flights, although various articles state that no routes will be lost. I can't see how they can operate W patterns on TFS without taxiing crews around and putting them up in hotels, which I can't imagine FR paying for!
Would a DUB-CWL-TFS-CWL-DUB be within crew hours?
Could a random routing using 2 aircraft work; Aircraft 1) DUB-CWL-TFS-DUB & Aircraft 2) DUB-TFS-CWL-DUB, also giving CWL a DUB flight a few times a week.
BHX has a spare operational aircraft on a Tuesday only (the 4th based often stays all winter operating at Christmas) and hopefully the Monday away based TFS flight will move to Tuesday. However BHX also served 3 times a week by a Faro based aircraft and once by an Arrecife based aircraft which can't be incorporated into the BHX schedule without the 4th aircraft operating.
I assume there is a 90 day consultation period for the base closures, which then actually allow for flights still to be sold in the short-term even if some are unlikely to operate such as CWL and NCL - TFS (unless of course they open new UK bases). Although I am not sure what the percentage rate is of over-turning a decision during the 90-day consultation period but I bet it is low.
Pete