Bournemouth Airport
Hi
Yes I am concerned with the lack of activity at Bournemouth Airport,i am no expert and please don't shoot me down in flames with my post,I just want to be able to have an Airport on my doorstep with a whole range of flights and holiday destinations.these are my thoughts.
I'm not sure if the management at BOH really want a busy airport with different airlines and are just happy to have Ryanair as the monopoly.I totally understand the yield side of things but take the Olympic Holiday charter to Heraklion,this is a tour operator flight with the majority of people on package holidays paying good money and the flight was very popular with high loads,this flight has now gone and why?Were BOH management charging them too high fees and they found out Ryanair were paying less?Were they fed up of landing on time then 2 Ryanair aircraft landed and were offloaded and loaded before the Heraklion flight leaving them to depart late?this happened on numerous occasions.so now around 180 people are travelling to other airports to get a flight to Heraklion.Its the same with the Innsbruck charter in the Winter ,this flight once again was very popular with the large skiing community in Bournemouth ,Poole and surrounding areas.its now disappeared and so once again people are travelling to other Airports to fly to Innsbruck. Was this down to cost as well?Barbados fly-cruises had 12 flights but one this year and last one next year why?These flights are still going from London,Manchester,Glasgow,East Midlands etc so what is going on?These kind of people who use these flights will not suddenly decide not to go they will be forced to go to London instead.
Another thing which annoys me is the incoming tourist trade which BOH management does not seem to get.Germans and Austrians love the south coast and and regularly come over on charter flights. Exeter Airport has flights in the Summer but what gets me is that the first stop on the tour is Bournemouth then they travel to points of interest around the South,Why on earth are BOH airport not in contact with this tour operator to get it into BOH especially if the Tour start in Bournemouth?The Airport should be in talks with holiday companies abroad and our local Tourist Boards trying to attract people to our area which would bring in loads of money. Newquay,Exeter,Cardiff and Inverness,Jersey and Guernsey all have these charter flights but they have better management and foresight,yes its hard work attracting this kind of trade but they have done it.It seems to me that BOH management are looking at the easy option of Ryanair all the time.Don't get me wrong I am not against Ryanair and its brilliant that BOH does have a much busier Airport than in the past but It does need to think outside the box a bit more.Newmarket Holidays are doing well as well so it can be done.I would love to know how many people are travelling from BOH to other airports to catch flights this Winter and which destinations as I'm sure there would be enough which would warrant an airline or tour operator flying from BOH in the period Nov-Mar.I certainly know of people who want to fly from BOH but have to go to LGW.
Martin