Originally Posted by
EK77WNCL
I'm also a regular user of NCL-BRS-NCL, and the schedule is pretty appalling... Even Belfast isn't amazing anymore.
I hope to God that one day Bmi regional will pick up NCL-BRS, I think they could easily work 2/3 daily flights alongside easyjet.
EVEN a twice daily Bmir/Loganair co-operation out of Durham Tees Valley would probably have me, as opposed to dragging myself an hour and a half through Bristol at midnight coming from NCL on easyjet.
The schedule is not at all helpful. The route was for many years the busiest air route between two English provincial cities but last year was overtaken by Manchester-Southampton.
From a high point in the period 2005 to 2008 when annual passenger numbers ranged between 246,000 and 253,000 there has been a gradual decline although the years since 2010 have been relatively static with annual numbers between 165,000 and 176,000.
The worst part of the schedule though is the fact that apart from Mondays it's impossible to do a day trip from either end. Sundays and Fridays in winter both have three rotations, all in the afternoon or evening. Thursday sees two rotations - one in the afternoon and one in the evening - with both Tuesday and Wednesday single daily and Saturday blank. Summer sees marginally fewer rotations each week.
Tomorrow one of the two northbound rotations is sold out and on Monday one of the northbound and one of the southbound are sold out.
You'd imagine that easyJet knows what it's doing but as a former fairly regular user of the route - mainly as a 'day tripper' - it does seem rather an odd set-up to me.
The train operates every hour on a direct route so that might play a part but it's a five-hour journey.
bmi regional does operate against easyJet at BRS on Paris Cdg. easyJet failed to increase its single-daily BRS-CDG despite selling out frequently so bmir came along a year or two ago at 2 x daily and is still there. Another option as Jerry points out would be to use the 2 x daily NCL-CWL with Eastern.