Boeing 767s can and do operate out of BRS. When TOM last had summer transatlantic charters from BRS to Florida and Mexico they used the former First Choice B 767s that were configured with fewer seats (270 from memory) than the original Thomson aircraft. This enabled Sanford to be reached non-stop in the last two years of operation. Previously they had an en route fuel stop which remained in place for Cancun and was at MAN.
Now that the former First Choice 767s have left the fleet I assume that those 767s that are left would require a fuel stop even for Sanford.
However, if TOM is to reinstate these routes it seems rather odd that they would not have gone into the question of the viability of the 787. Bristol Airport in a recent communication told me that the 787 can operate from their airport on long haul but the reply went into no detail and the question was left in the air as to whether this would be non stop to the Middle East and to NYC which were the specific routes I asked about.
In 2010 the Thomson MD said that BRS would be in the first group of airports to operate the 787. When this didn’t happen some people conjectured that the incident later that year when a B 767 suffered a hard landing at BRS causing considerable damage to the aircraft played a part in the subsequent non-appearance of the 787. The AAIB report highlighted, amongst other matters, that runway 09 had seen a disproportionate number of hard landings with B 767s and as a consequence some people wondered whether Thomson would operate 787s into BRS.
Given that there is an airport across the Severn Estuary with a runway that can operate larger aircraft on long haul Thomson must be confident that, despite its physical limitations, BRS will give them a better commercial return, or why would they bother even to contemplate using Lulsgate if it was so beset with unresolvable difficulties?