Aer Lingus and DUB-BRS
Dublin-Bristol is Aer Lingus's oldest route, first operated from Baldonnel to Whitchurch on 27 May 1936.
Although Aer Lingus has been on the route for much of the time since that day it's by no means an unbroken run.
In the past 15 years or so the route has had ups and downs in terms of carriers and passenger numbers.
Aer Lingus operated it until 2000 with 2 x daily F 50s against Ryanair's 3 x daily B 737-200s that year. For the next three years Ryanair and BA franchisee provided 5 x daily with 737-200s and DH 8-300s/ERJ145s respectively.
2004 saw the end of BA on the route but Aer Lingus returned with a lunchtime/early afternoon rotation at first, I believe, with B 737s (500s?) then A320s that lasted until the end of 2006. They competed with Ryanair at 3 x daily (4 x daily at certain times). In 2005 Air Southwest (DH8-300s) joined FR and EI with a single daily via Newquay both ways for one year.
From 2007 until 2010 Ryanair had the route to itself and at times operated up to 4 x daily. Ryanair then reduced to 16 x weekly in winter 2010/2011 (2 x daily plus additional rotations on Mon and Fri) and at first advertised this as its schedule for summer 2011.
EI regional then announced it was starting at 3 x daily with ATR 72s for summer 2011 which prompted Ryanair to return to 3 x daily itself that summer. Regional cut back to 2 x daily for winter 2011/2012 and maintained this reduced schedule in summer 2012. Ryanair remained at 3 x daily although on some days the afternoon rotation did not always operate. The coming winter currently sees both Ryanair and Regional at 2 x daily.
The total annual passenger numbers from 2000 to 2011 are respectively:
231,000; 242,000; 224,000; 246,000; 254,000; 289,000; 362,000; 351,000; 314,000; 287,000; 268,000; 323,000.
The best year was 2006 with 362,000 which involved Ryanair at 3 x daily (4 x daily M and F) together with the single EI A320 rotation. This year was also boosted by the closure of Ryanair's CWL-DUB route with the erstwhile CWL flights operating from BRS for a while and Ryanair was changing to an all-Boeing 737-800 fleet..
It does seem there is a seemingly never-ending calculation by airlines to find the optimum number of seats on the route.
In 2011 the arrival of EI Regional boosted overall passenger numbers by over 20% but that was less than the percentage gain in seats. That's been the pattern for most of the time since.
Take June 2010 when Ryanair had the route to itself at 3 x daily. 24,742 passengers were flown that month giving an average load of around 137, load factor just above 72%. In June 2012 the total was 25,914 but from 3 daily Ryanair flights and 2 daily EI Regional, meaning the percentage number of seats filled on the route as a whole was in the low 60s.
History suggests that this may not be the last tinkering we shall see on the route as efforts are made to match seats with demand.
All passenger stats quoted are courtesy of the CAA.