easyJet additional capacity
WATABENCH is correct. There is no spare aircraft at BRS.
The base has ten allocated throughout the year - 9 A319s and one A320 - which goes up to eleven in peak summer from around mid July until mid September.
This summer it appears the additional aircraft will be retained until the end of September. This is certainly what the Bristol Evening Post believes as it included this paragraph in its report on the subject today:
The airline bases ten aircraft at Bristol Airport throughout the year, with an eleventh operating during the peak summer season. But that has been extended due to demand.
The confusion seems to have arisen with the loose interpretation of 'summer' which was clearly meant to refer to the peak summer period.
Expansion judicial review
MV, you're correct that SBAE has 3 months in which to mount a challenge. The whole situation is strange. ..............................Now unless they have recently discovered an irregularity with the planning process, that all parties are keeping quiet about, I would say their application is dead in the water.
bristolflyer,
SBAE's website suggests it is relying on the current government's consultation document on its own airports policy, published in the spring of this year, which criticised the previous government's airports policy as being fundamentally flawed, and SBAE contend the expansion approval was based on the latter government's premise.
I suppose that's how they think they can get around the 3-month rule as they will argue this is an exceptional circumstance.
One wonders what they would do if the current government's consultation document was to be published next spring and the expansion work was already under way.