Summer transatlantic charters
The Sanford route was discussed on this board last May and it seemed to be accepted, after initial debate, that the TOM flights would be going non-stop which, so far as I am aware, is what happened. I understand the aircraft were 258-seat former First Choice B 767-300s. Passenger figures for the summer months suggest that the aircraft were nowhere near restricted to 150/160 occupied seats.
Here is part of a post from that time from Baron buzz who is an airline pilot.
The BRS-SFB flights are rostered to operate via MAN for the next few weeks, however it would seem that previous posters are correct in that the company is intending to operate where possible directly. The S09 plan was to operate via MAN, and this is a change fairly late in the day. I think the passengers are still being told its via MAN, and then get a pleasant surprise should they get to go directly.
The performance is close though, and there will be days when ops direct is not possible. Since the flight is only once weekly, hopefully these occasions will not be frequent.
MV, you raise interesting points. There was a school of thought that involving no crew swop and planning the flight via Shannon or something like that would work. Shannon is in the right direction and a fuel stop would be quicker than MAN.
I think MAN is chosen simply because it is an operating base, and problems/crew changes can be solved easily there (relatively). Then, should weather not be a factor flight could be planned to go directly to SFB, rather than stopping in Shannon. This would prevent the problem you raise.
It would seem though, that the company is confident enough in operating directly, and that should performance be an issue, there is enough operating hours available for a stop in MAN, without a crew change. We will see though....
easyJet to Milan Malpensa
It looks as though this route will finish in April - no longer bookable after that.
It started around the time in early 2007 that BACon pulled out of its MXP route from BRS.
Ryanair then came in with its Milan Bergamo and for a couple of years the two competed daily summer and winter.
Last summer and this winter easyJet reduced its MXP route to 5/6 weekly and Ryanair, having gone daily year round since the route's inception, has reduced to 3 x weekly in the coming summer.
So from 14 flights a week to the Milans there will be only 3 flights a week to Milan Bergamo.
When easyJet axed Valencia and Venice Marco Polo Ryanair soon stepped in with Valencia and Venice Treviso. I wonder if they will now increase rotations on their Bergamo route.