ILS and bartelby - I agree with you wholeheartedly. Leodis… I think Ops Cat has you on that one!
I know that the move to LBA will have severe consequences for the company as a whole which will take a long time to rectify. The move north in itself is not the problem… it’s the resulting vast loss of experience that will inevitably occur as a result. Experience that will not be recovered.
Personally speaking as aircrew, it makes no difference where Ops/Crewing/Rostering/Hotac and all the admin functions are…. it’s simply irrelevant. We turn up in the crew room and make a phone call - it makes no difference where we phone. However, the professional and friendly way our calls are handled, the relationships developed thus far and the overall high level of experience in BOH generally is what makes the difference. The difference is experience which after all, keeps the CAA happy.
Manchester Airport Group owns Bournemouth Airport. They probably paid a fair amount of money to get PM to agree to vacate the office space at BOH prior to the end of the remaining lease. This will free up the land to enable the new terminal buildings to be constructed. This payment no doubt goes towards the LBA relocation or redundancy packages on offer to BOH personnel. My point is why not simply pocket the cash and relocate locally and retain the office experience? This in turn will save the company a lot of money making the high number of redundancy payments and save the inevitable operational problems that will result as new staff at LBA get up to speed. Why the move to LBA? I think simply this… Does PM understand delegation? No. Having everything local to him means he can keep his hands on everything.
Surely there are a number of expansion possibilities at BOH. For example: European Aviation operates the extremely popular Palmair flights, are they going to be there forever? I don’t think so. Could Jet2 pick up those flights? Perhaps. And what about the Engineering possibilities at BOH with regard to in-house maintenance using our own and ex EAC personnel? After all isn’t Engineering and Parts Trading staying in BOH? Where is the logic there? 
I don’t see why we restrict ourselves to being a Northern Airline. Yes, there have been opportunities in the north but would it not make better business sense to put a base where there is an untapped market, regardless of latitude? Do EZ and FR restrict themselves to a particular area – I don’t think so.
Personally, 'if it aint broke don't fix it!' ...... I think that PM has been pretty much on the ball so far with regard to the way he has directed the activities of Jet2 …. Until now that is. I really do think that the loss of BOH will cause serious problems for the airline. It will certainly give the CAA something to get their teeth into at LBA! To all of you at BOH, who don’t deserve this kick in the teeth. Good luck for the future, I take my hat off to you… well I would if we weren’t low cost and I had a hat!! 
LCM
Last edited by LoCo Commotion; 21st Apr 2006 at 19:47.