Go-arounder,
The BA Citiexpress BRS-NCL is operated by a DH-8 as you say.It seems to start and finish the day at Plymouth and, according to the timetable, provides a revenue earning PLH-BRS in the early morning and a return in the late evening. Not sure whether this is the reason why the DH 8 is retained on the BRS-NCL route, given that the ERJ 145 is too 'big' for PLH. I would not have thought so because I can't think the BRS-PLH route is very profitable (the rail and road connections are too good).
I believe that BRS has six ERJ 145s based there now CWL has closed its base, but probably only five are needed to service the current routes structure. This does pose the question as to what is going to happen at BRS with BA. More routes or a prelude to closure of the base?
transwede,
How strong are the BRS BA closure rumours? Any time scale? I haven’t heard any definite rumours, except that one always wonders who will be next, following BA’s recent track record.
At present there are 22 BA rotations from BRS each weekday with a slightly lower number at weekends. These rumours could be self-fulfilling because they might make people like me reluctant to book BA flights from BRS for dates later in the year.
What I will say is that twelve of the rotations compete head to head with easyJet and Ryanair. One wonders how at BA's prices they can go on, although people do seem prepared to pay over the odds to fly to such places as EDI and GLA (five daily BA rotations to each of these Scottish airports - easyJet has three to each).
My son did the BRS-NCL-BRS route a few weeks ago (teatime flight to NCL on a Monday and early evening return two days later) and reported a virtually full aircraft in both directions. And the flights weren't cheap - he took eight of his staff with him on a business trip at fares I would not have paid for leisure purposes.
He works for a major international company that so far does not seem to have pulled in its travel costs too much.