Originally Posted by
OltonPete
Believed to be Flybe routes although I am not privy to the precise agreement between AF and Flybe (no agreement originally with KLM as far as I know) although it is rumoured that Air France want the majority of the services on Jets.
The major change was when Connect bought Flybe and the EU ruled that the BHX- AMS and CDG were in effect now monopolies and that anyone could take the 5 slot pairs off Flybe on Amsterdam and 3 slot pairs on BHX - CDG if they wanted them.
Something happened but nobody has explained what but Flybe dropped BHX - AMS to 4 daily from 5 this summer and Air France move the first CDG - BHX inbound to 10.25 just 10 minutes after Flybe and it was expected that another airline had shown interest in at least one slot pair on both routes. The rumour was that easyjet considered them but the slot timings were that of Flybe which are BHX based slots and easyjet of course don't have a base at BHX.
It has now ended up a total mess on BHX - CDG as AF have moved their first inbound to 10.25 and outbound to 11,10 leaving BHX woefully short of early morning outbound seats and anyone arriving CDG long-haul at 6am has to wait 4 hours to connect to BHX..
Also last year the 195 operated at least 2 of the 3 CDG's and of course they only will have the 88 seat 175 this summer and AF have left two of the 3 services as HOP despite load factors of 80-90% last summer.
Flybe also quietly added back the 5 daily Amsterdam rotation again indicating another airline might have changed their mind.
The net result on Amsterdam is little change with 5 KLM and 5 Flybe at decent times but CDG is a total and utter disaster offering 88 seats outbound between 6am and 11am - pathetic.
Pete
Thank you Pete, informative.