Graham,
It is mainly rumour/conjecture/wishful thinking, although a bristolian (a man with finger very much on the BRS pulse) did throw out a subtle hint that might allude to FCA in a recent post.
As he put it, we must sit back and have patience.
Must have gone with a part load.
a bristolian said most (the 762s with the 'Bristol' engines) went with a full load and cargo.
Just been on flybe.com and notice that BHD goes down to just one flight a day in each direction after October.
Perhaps they have given best to easyJet at last, albeit easy flies to the other Belfast airport, with 3 daily rotations (slightly less at weekends).
Flybe will lose those who want to fly out and back in the day - not sure how many that would be.
On the plus side the Bergerac is running thoughout the winter (3 rotations per week - last winter it did not start until February), and there is a M, W, F plus (I think Sun) Jersey rotation when Flybe had none last winter. In addition the Bordeaux (4 weekly rotations) and the Toulouse (6) will continue through the winter as last year.
easyJet is also reducing rotations from BRS on some routes this winter, as it is from other airports. For instance, the Budapest will only run on M, W, F and Sun; the Valencia will not run on Tue or Sat; the Pisa will run only on Tue, Thur and Sat for most of the winter; the Nice and Palma will have the same reduced midweek rotations as last winter. However, from mid December the Geneva will go double daily seven days a week until the end of the winter period (last year it went single daily with an increase at weekends).
Despite this, all eight aircraft still seem to be needed to operate easy’s winter timetable from BRS, at least in the mornings and during the day, although the timetable appears to be showing only seven late evening arrivals on weekdays, so perhaps either another route is in the offing, or they have decided to keep a spare a/c for later in the day, or I have misread the timetable (the most likely).
So it appears to be swings and roundabouts all round.
Can anyone in the business guess at Ryanair’s rationale in starting a daily SNN-BRS service in the winter months? Aer Arann reduced their ORK rotations last year to three a week all year round on an ATR (seemed a very perverse decision because loads were high and fares, whenever I checked, were not cheap), and no-one has yet stepped in to fill the void, yet FR suddenly starts flying to SNN out of season and offering far greater capacity.
No wonder outsiders like me peering into the aviation scene are often left scratching our heads.