Ryanair winter 10/11
It may be that Bristol's very good run in increasing passenger numbers each month this year except April (the volcanic ash month) is about to experience a bit of a challenge.
I've done a check on the Ryanair timetable for January 2011 and, as things stand at the moment, there are only 55 rotations per week - 51 flown by BRS-based aircraft and four by others (from the timings).
This is down a massive 40% from last winter when there were about 90 weekly rotations.
The main reason is the loss of the 2 x daily Belfast City route and the daily Shannon.
In addition the daily Bergamo has gone (though this had been reduced to 3 x weekly this summer), as have the 3 x weekly Reus, the 2 x weekly Budapest and Rzeszow, and the weekly Turin during the ski season. In addition DUB has reduced from 21 to 16 weekly rotations. There are also other minor changes.
On the plus side, routes operating this coming winter that didn't last winter are Venice Treviso (3 x weekly), Kaunus, Gdansk and Faro (all 2 x weekly).
The current timetable can be operated by three based aircraft, though they won't be fully occupied all the time from BRS, compared with four based last winter (again they weren't fully utilised) and five this summer.