Evening all,
I've just discovered some old MME timetables in my room, covering the Summer 1999 season, through to the Summer 2001 season, so I thought it would be a good idea to compare back then, with todays flights.
Instead of using the number of weekly rotations on a particular route, I've used the number of flights, i.e. outbound/inbound, so if you want to know the number of rotations instead of the number of flights, half the number of flights displayed, for example, Aberdeen in Summer 2000 had 38 weekly flights, meaning 19 rotations.
I compared each route for each season, and took the one with the most flights and/or larger aircraft and put them in the lists below. For the scheduled routes I combined the winter/summer seasons, for the charters, I kept winter and summer separate.
Scheduled:
Aberdeen (S00) 34=SH60 2=AT42 2=AT72
Amsterdam (S99) 40=F100
Belfast Intl (S99) 28=AT72 (2 departures via NCL, 12 arrivals via NCL)
Dublin (ALL) 14=B732Adv
Jersey (S99) 6=S340 2=E145
London Heathrow (S00) 86=B735/F100
Manchester (S99) 4=JS32
Norwich (S00) 2=AT72
Paris CDG (S99) 24=AT42
Charter (Summer):
Alicante (S01) 4=A320 2=B762ER
Barcelona Girona (S00) 2=B752
Bodrum (S99/S00) 2=A320 2=MD88
Dalaman (ALL) 2=MD88
Faro (S01) 2=A320 2=B733
Fuerteventura 2=B734
Ibiza (S00/S01) 2=A320 2=B752
Jersey (S01) 4=F100
Lanzarote (S01) 4=A320
Larnaca (S00/S01) 2=A320
Las Palmas (ALL) 2=B738
Mahon (S01) 2=A320 2=B752 2=MD83
Malaga (S01) 2=A320 2=MD83
Monastir (S00/S01) 2=MD83
Orlando Sanford (S00) 2=B763ER
Palma (S01) 8=A320 4=B762ER 4=MD83 2=A321 2=B752
Reus (S01) 2=A320 2=MD83
Rhodes (ALL) 2=A320
Tenerife South (S01) 6=A320 4=MD83
Charter (Winter):
Alicante (ALL) 2=A320 2=B752
Fuerteventura (W00-01) 2=B734
Lanzarote (ALL) 2=B734
Las Palmas (W00-01) 2=B738
Lyon (ALL) 2=A320
Palma (W00-01) 4=A320
Tenerife South (W00-01) 2=B734 2=B738 2=MD83
Analysis:
Of all the scheduled routes displayed above which still exist today, all perform better than todays except for Dublin which is about equal to back then.
Of all the Winter charters displayed, only three, the Alicante, Lyon and Tenerife South still exist today, with both Alicante and Tenerife at reduced frequencies. Also, other than those three there are no more this winter.
Once again, there are more Summer charters in the list above than there has been this summer, plus the ones above operated with larger aircraft, with Britannia practically basing a Boeing 767-200ER.
1999 seems to have been a very strong year for us, but after that, things started to slip - even before 9/11 - Aberdeen, Jersey and London Heathrow all suffered frequency reductions, Amsterdam was downgraded from 3x daily F100s to 3x daily FK50s, with Belfast Intl, Manchester, Norwich and Paris CDG all being dropped completely. Barcelona Girona could be our biggest single improvement, as we've gone from a 1x weekly B752 charter, to a 3x weekly B738W scheduled route. Fuerteventura is another route we've lost, as is Monastir, Rhodes, and Orlando Sanford - the latter was made direct for Summer 2000 after going via Glasgow Prestwick the year before.
Overall what we've lost in charter routes we're beginning to build back up in scheduled routes, mainly low-cost ones, but all that the above information shows, is something we all already know - there are lot's of proven routes which are no longer operated that should, and could be today.
One thing I don't understand is, today, with less flights and smaller aircraft, our annual passenger numbers are higher now than then? All I can think of is today we must have much higher load factors?
Regards,
Chris