I'd be surprised if this was tweaking to be honest, maybe your contact at Ryanair ops could confirm?
I was looking through last years numbers for the two routes there to see how they held up in the summer season - but apart from in the height of summer (i.e. August) when loads were high I'd say its borderline whether enough people have been using them to justify bringing them back seasonally next year.
Bristol (and the south west of England & south Wales as a whole) looks a bit like the Edinburgh/Scotland market to me, there's definitely demand for a service, but probably not enough demand to justify a 738. One that the regional airlines may well look at as they would not have Ryanair competition to contend with, similar to flybe currently at Edinburgh. Leeds I'm not so sure about, if there is a regular service to both Manchester and Liverpool I wouldn't see too many airlines queueing up to offer a competing service to Leeds. Many of the passengers on that service have been enticed over from Manchester by cheap Ryanair fares.
Securing a new service from Manchester is more important than ever now though.
On the up side, the summer schedule is really kicking into gear now - 24 aircraft movements scheduled for tomorrow involving 11 different destinations from six different airlines including flights to and from Edinburgh, Reus, Lanzarote and two to & from Faro. Arrivals and departures boards looking nice and full which is good to see.
Last edited by Kinocker; 25th May 2011 at 21:25.