air southwest

[pilgrims]

Rumour has it that the BBC thought the 'Changing rooms' format was a bit old hat , so they came up with an aviation themed version. This is where a designer goes to a UK airfield and revamps an aircraft.
Well it appears they let
'LAURENCE LEWELLYN BOWEN' loose on the first of
air southwest DH8C

First ops start on 26/ oct as Citiexpress last day at PLH today

[MerchantVenturer]

Good luck to Air Southwest when it takes over the routes formally operated by BACx.

It is a sad aviation weekend in Bristol in some ways. First the last commercial flight of Concorde and today the last scheduled flight of a BACx DH-8-300 at BRS.

Brymon Airways was the mainstay at PLH for many years and when the airline moved its operational base to BRS it began the process of transforming that airport from a mainly charter field to one with scheduled possibilities. The scheduled network set up by Brymon led other airlines to realise that there was a market out of the west country other than sun seekers, and skiers in winter. Gradually other airlines dipped their toes in the BRS scheduled water, culminating in the sea change brought about by Go (now part of easyJet).

Brymon operated all its scheduled routes from BRS using DH 8s for most of the 1990s, later to begin the process of re-equipping with the Embraer 145 regional jet.

Now all BACx flights at BRS will be by ERJ 145. I believe the BRS business travellers in particular owe much to Brymon Airways and its DH 8s for having the foresight to begin the transformation of BRS from a charter airport to a position where scheduled services now represent nearly two thirds of the airport’s passenger traffic (for example, of the 463,000 pax who passed through BRS last month 272,000 were scheduled pax and 191,000 charter pax – source: Bristol Airport website).

Flybe continues to operate DH 8s into BRS so the type will be seen there for a while yet.

[marlowe]

Does Air South west have enough crew to operate tomorrow? thought all the cabin crew had gone to mainline at LGW.

[fly-half]

Could someone please confirm why BA CitiExpress decided to pull out of Plymouth Aiport? Is it true that it was because of increased landing fees imposed by the owners of the airport? Or was it simply due to down-sizing of the airline with the removal of (all?) turbo-props from the fleet?

Also, did they used to serve Newquay or is it a new service to be operated by Air Southwest? I know Ryanair flies between Stanstead and Newquay but was there any service operated by BA CitiExpress prior to Air Southwest?

Many thanks guys & gals

[MerchantVenturer]

BACz did operate from LGW to both PLH and NQY, sometimes routing to NQY then PLH, sometimes to PLH then NQY (it was the same aircraft to both PLH and NQY).

BACx originally announced they would be pulling out of the route as from 2005 but then brought forward the date of closure by two years.

Air Southwest took over the route and will use two former BACx (originally Brymon) DH 8s. They have announced plans to extend their network next spring from PLH to Manchester via Bristol.

[fly-half]

Thanks very much - very useful information as I have an interview at the end of the week.

On the ASW website it mentions the fact that they will not be burdened with high airline costs whereas BACX was - do you know if ASW will not be made to may high landing fees at Plymouth because they are in part owned by the airport owners itself? Or do they simply mean lower costs because they are a very small airline?

Thanks

[Shockwaves]

fly-half

How did the interview go?
What are your impressions of the company?

[marlowe]

Anybody got any info on how Air South West are doing? It has been a couple of weeks since start up, as an ex PLH/NQY route user i would like to know how the op is fairing