South Bristol Link Road
The above road is on schedule for completion at the end of this year. Part of the road length will link the A370 (Bristol-Weston-s-Mare) at the Long Ashton bypass with the A38 (Bristol-Plymouth) just outside the Bristol boundary.
The link road will remove the need for airport-bound traffic from the M5 at Avonmouth via the A4 Portway to have to use the often heavily congested roads through Ashton Gate and part of Bedminster.
The airport contributed £3.2 million of the £45 million total cost of the new road.
Apron Space
Comments in other threads suggest that there is little if any space for further overnight aircraft parking.
Currently there are 13 easyjet Airbuses (319s and 320s), 5 Ryanair Boeing 738s, 2 Thomson B 757s and 1 B 738, 2 Thomas Cook Airbus 321s and around 5 bmi regional E145s based at the airport, plus at least 1 Eastern E145 on the southern (GA) apron for the Airbus corporate shuttle. With the night-stopping KLM Cityhopper E190 this makes up to 29 (not counting the Eastern) overnight parkers on the main apron.
The last two years have seen substantial passenger growth with an additional 450,000 in 2015 and a likely extra 600,000-plus this year (on course for this so far) which will mean around 7.4 million passengers using the airport in 2016.
The airport CEO is suggesting further growth in 2017 although perhaps not on the scale of 2015 and 2016 - my comment in italics, not the CEO's as far as I know - so the question is where will any further aircraft be parked if overnight parking space really is at a premium?
I realise that it's not simply a case of an airport saying we have x number of aircraft parking stands therefore we can accommodate x number of aircraft, as not all stands are configured for every type of aircraft. With the tens of millions spent on improving infrastructure in recent years at BRS it would seem odd if the airport could not accommodate all the aircraft that it needed to service the additional passengers its amelioration work was designed to bring about.
The published plans seem to be to demolish the old terminal buildings, now used as offices etc, and build a new walkway and additional aircraft stands there but that can't be done overnight.
If overnight parking really is 'maxed out' it appears that any further immediate passenger growth could only be achieved by airlines using non-based aircraft away from the morning peak which might be a limiting scenario.
Does anyone know with any certainty what further parking space, if any, there is on the apron overnight?