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Old 24th Jun 2013, 10:24
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MerchantVenturer

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I believe your figures are in the right sort of area although I made HAJ slightly better, or perhaps less worse, than you suggest and HAM not as good. HAJ was a surprising choice as a route, albeit Hannover is one of Bristol's twin cities.

My alter ego posted this on another website last week:

CAA stats now out for the month in which all six bmi regional routes from BRS operated, albeit some did not start until 13 May. I've taken it that all advertised rotations operated.

Hannover and Hamburg are on 37-seat E135, remainder on 50-seat E145.

Frankfurt 1573 passengers, ave load 19.2, load factor 38.4%

Hamburg 1407 passengers, ave load 14.7, load factor 39.7%

Hannover 458 passengers, ave load 13.5, load factor 36.4%

Munich 766 passengers, ave load 22.5, load factor 45%

Milan Malpensa 672 passengers, ave load 19.8, load factor 39.6%

Aberdeen 2926 passengers, ave load 30.5, load factor 61%

Nothing very satisfying about these figures although Hannover, Munich and Milan only commenced on 13 May so can't be properly judged yet.

Hamburg is the most disappointing on the face of things. It's been running for over three months, albeit single daily to begin with, now double daily on weekdays.

In February its average load was 18.6 and in March 17.6. To have dropped to 14.7 especially in late spring is a cause for pondering.

May was the first month in which bmi regional had the Aberdeen route to itself.


This led to a discussion on the history of German routes at BRS and my alter ego posted this (slightly edited to remove 'domestic' references within that other forum), with particular reference to comparative passenger figures in previous months of May:

In the 13 months that LH (in the form of Eurowings) operated BRS-Frankfurt until the end of April 2009 at initially 3 x daily (21 weekly) with a 100 seat Bae 146-300, just under 100,000 passengers were carried. In May 2008 the route saw 9,441 passengers.

The last full year of BACon to Germany from BRS was 2006.

In that year BACon operated to Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf, with FRA and DUS at 6 x weekly (no Sats) and MUC daily.

MUC and DUS went out at late morning and returned mid afternoon whist FRA left mid afternoon and returned mid evening. FRA and MUC had been operated by the BA franchisee since the late 1990s and FRA had been double daily for a while.

BACon operated the ERJ 145 on these routes and a comparison with the current bmi regional passenger figures is easily accomplished.

In 2006 the FRA route carried 21,315 passengers, the MUC 19,331 and the DUS 9,993 but the last-mentioned route only commenced on 1 June that year.

In May 2006 FRA saw 1,874 passengers (average load 34.7, load factor 69.4%) and MUC 1815 (average load 29.2, load factor 58.4%). Because DUS didn't commence until 1 June I've set down the passenger numbers for that month which were 1,156 (average load 21.4, load factor 42.8%) By August DUS was carrying 1,785 (average load 33, load factor 66%).

I can't remember what, if any, connection availability there was at these airports through BA, certainly nothing like those with LH especially at FRA so the BA and bmi regional comparisons are perhaps more realistic, albeit BA was and is a better known airline name than regional.

I realise I've been talking about passenger numbers and not the yields which are the important factors but it does paint something of a picture of BRS and Germany in the past decade.

The profile of an airline is important. easyJet carries around 80,000 to Berlin most years and in 2012 165,000 to Geneva (there were another 10,000 ski charter airline passengers to GVA as well) whereas the lesser-known Helvetic, although steadily improving its BRS performance still struggles to get to 50% load factor after 18 months of operation between BRS and Zurich with 9,000 passengers in 2012.

When the bmi routes were announced there were a number of comments about the lack of partners/connectivity and how this might impact on attracting passengers as bmi regional is currently a point-to-point airline out of BRS.

The early passenger numbers certainly aren't a cause for celebration on the part of the airline or airport but, ABZ and HAM apart (and even these aren't long standing routes by bmi regional) the others are new, with less than three weeks' figures to sample in the case of three which really have to be put to one side until a much more meaningful sample is available in the coming months.

Incidentally, I've shown the BA and bmi regional E145s as 50-seaters, whereas Mayfly shows them as 49. If Mayfly is right then the load factors will be slightly better than my figures.
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