Nothing spectacularly eye-catching at the moment yeo valley, but the solid progress of recent years continues.
- August CAA passenger figures will probably show 900,000 passengers in a calendar month for the first time in the airport’s history (addendum: CAA stats for August just published showing that BRS handled 905,050 passengers in the month with the rolling 12-month total 8,095,866, up 10.9% on this time last year)
- Rolling 12-month total should be around 8.1 million when August figures released, with year-end expected to be between 8.2 and 8.3 million, a gain of two million in three years
- easyJet early summer 2018 schedule seems to continue the trend of recent years of an extra based aircraft with the timetable showing a requirement for 15 in early June
- Thomas Cook apparently adding a third based Airbus in summer 2018 with TUI continuing with the three based Boeings of recent summers (2 x 757 and 1 x 738) plus a B787 for four days each week
- Latest infrastructure to be completed is the £2.5 million Silver Zone reception building on the south side with the Silver Zone car park extended massively earlier this year
- The airport’s first multi-storey car park which will be on the north side will see construction commence shortly
- One new aircraft parking stand to be built over the winter to add to the three new ones opened earlier this year
- Many rumours persisting that the old terminal building will be demolished next year to make way for more aircraft parking stands
- A £600,000 review of surface connectivity was launched recently funded in the main by the airport and in part by the local authority
- On the minus side WOW is leaving the airport very shortly and doesn’t appear intent on coming back
- Still waiting to know who will replace Robert Sinclair as CEO with the latter off to London City very soon
- The airport is to commence a major review of its master plan shortly that will involve the public, local business as well as airlines and other partners. At the present rate of increase the airport’s planning cap of 10 mppa will be reached within the next few years so ways of accommodating that might feature. As the airport is a major employer in North Somerset it’s likely the local authority will look sympathetically on raising the limit, albeit the usual suspects will object so litigation might again be in the wind (as it was with the airport’s major expansion application a few years ago).
However, despite the tens of millions spent in recent years expanding the terminal in so many directions and ways there are still periods when the passenger experience through the airport is extremely poor because of the numbers involved. That is something else that the airport ought to consider seriously in its review of the way ahead.
Last edited by MerchantVenturer; 22nd Sep 2017 at 19:30.
Reason: Addendum