Listening to you aviation/airport/tour ops boys and girls based in the Severn area discussing the possible permutations of based operators and numbers of aircraft I wonder, as someone outside the industry who uses local airports (mainly BRS) on charter flights, no-frills and so-called full service operators, where a full week's work would come from for the extra charter aircraft that are being speculated.
Compared to many other UK airports BRS did well in 2005 with an increase of nearly 1% in its charter pax over the previous year. However, it seems that much of this increase was taken up by BRS's outstanding charter performance in winter: nearly 10% increase in Dec 2005 over Dec 2004 for instance.
So, unless the charter operators can find more 'exotic' destinations too far away for the low-cost airlines to contemplate, it appears to me, and I accept that my lack of experience in the business may make my judgement somewhat naive, they will either have to try to compete as a low cost and/or seat-only carrier, as Thomsonfly appears to be doing this summer at CWL on the likes of ALC and PMI, or wonder how any extra aircraft will be utilised.
BRS seems in an odd position in that there is perceived to be a marked reluctance to operate any long haul charter flights, the very area where the charter people are looking to grow.
Given BRS's popularity on almost all its routes is the runway so much of an impediment to the operating of long-haul charters? I can understand someone like Tui operating its long-haul out of CWL instead of BRS because the longer runway there makes for ease of operation. However, BRS carried 1.3 million charter pax last year which is only 1/2 million less than CWL's annual figure for all pax.
It seems to me that there is a big market that someone else could be picking up. I know of many people in the Bristol area who have flogged up to Gatwick in the past year to fly to places like Florida and Mexico, and others have used the likes of CWL and EXT for transatlantic charters.