COVENTRY

[jamesp]

been on thomsons home page, for april 09 thom are flying to alc, agp and faro. dont know if this is end of winter season or start of summer. according to aviation news this month thomsonfly has eight main uk airports, cvt being one of them and have six main destinations:- palma, alc, agp, ibz, faro and mahon... cant seem to book a flight to jersey, pisa or mahon for next year!.. fingers cross this lack of destinations is temporary, until tom and fc sort themselves out. so i dont think thom hopefully wont be going to be leaving to soon

[we_never_change]

I understand the Airport are working with Wizz to look at potentiall new routes with Budapest the top of the list

WNC

[SeamusCVT]

Certainly need someone to step in to try to make up the passenger numbers following TOM's scaling back of routes.

Hope the BUD rumour has some truth in it, don't think it would suffer from FR at EMA. Maybe a Tues, Thurs, Sat schedule would suffice.

Would also be nice to see an extra KTW flight added (Monday maybe), capacity for approx 6,000 per month to Katowice/Krakow might just deter another carrier coming on to BHX-KRK as competition.

Hoepfully Wizz are satisfied with their CVT operations (CAA provisional passenger loads show this...don't obviously show revenue generated though), and will be continuing KTW and GDN into next Summer.

[Manston Airport]

Just wondering does anyone know if the little HM Coastguard Islander G-BCEN is still based at Manston and is it away for Mainteance at COV?



James

[Daza]

Would also be nice to see an extra KTW flight added (Monday maybe), capacity for approx 6,000 per month to Katowice/Krakow might just deter another carrier coming on to BHX-KRK as competition.

Sorry to tell you SeamusCVT but BMIBaby will commence twice weekly flights to KRK from Feb 12th 2008 with "more to come" in the summer months
Daza

[SeamusCVT]

Indeed, terrible times though on the i/b. Not sure if too many inbound polish passengers would be put off by the times due to lack of trains/public transport at that time in the morning, hopefully WW will be able to get better slots for Summer. We shall see, WizzAir still got good loads with SkyEurope operating the BHX-KRK route, i just hope it won't be a case of "if only..."

As an aside, the minutes from the latest consultation committee are on the airport website. The current IPF is a deterrent, however airlines are seeing the market potential of CVT, article 6.4.1.1

http://www.coventryairport.co.uk/dow...tober_2007.doc

[A Very Civil Pilot]

Quote from the link above:

Mr Jones reported that he had observed that flights approaching runway 23 from the South had not been taking the direct route, which had implications in relation to costs, fuel and noise.

Which direct route?

[Leofric]

One can only guess what the comment about 'direct route' means. One possibility is that occasionally, due to traffic in the uncontrolled airspace north east of the airfield, inbounds are brought more or less overhead and then right hand downwind for Rw23.

[A Very Civil Pilot]

Is Mr Jones under the impression that we always fly direct to the airport.

When I asked which direct route, ther is a DTY arrival to 23. However as 737 operators we seldom (or never) fly it, as it is outside of controlled airspace.

Everyday is something different depending on ATC traffic levels. We either head west to HON, then get RV to a left hand downwind; sometimes to CT and RVs, and sometimes all around the houses, through the LLZ and in from the other side. It makes descent planning a bit of a guess really!!

[jamesp]

seamus any idea who or which airlines are finding the potental to operate from cvt this or next year... good news if wizz are thinking about bud, hopefully next year. just a thought,, if ryanair, are known to use lc airports outside main cities, would they be considering coming back to cvt or would they just move to ema. just a thought!! they're must be an airline keeping a close eye on tom and thinking where they can take over... i.e barcelona jersey etc....

[Centre cities]

Ryanair Cov

Isnt one of the TOM problems the 737-8 from Cov. If so wouldnt Ryanair have the same problems.


Centre cities

[SeamusCVT]

Yep, 737-800 with a full payload will not be much good out of Coventry...unless you want to give 189 passengers a nice view of the Air Atlantique Electras and DC6s, as well as the Air ambulance as you roll along the runway.

Restricting the payload to around 120 would not appeal to Mr O'Leary at all, just does not fit the Ryanair business model of selling maximum number of seats at lower than the competition prices.

Ryanair also would probably not be the ideal airline for the airport, bearing in mind that some of Ryanair's "lesser" known airports allegedly help subsidise the operations...also with the FR BHX-SNN route it would appear that relations between FR and BHX are improving, so I would expect them to be looking up the A45 if they were interested in the West Midlands.

Jamesp, I have no idea who the airport were talking to at the Routes Conference, I could only speculate which would not really get anybody any closer to any true events that could be happening at the airport.

[call100]

Ryanair also would probably not be the ideal airline for the airport, bearing in mind that some of Ryanair's "lesser" known airports allegedly help subsidise the operations...also with the FR BHX-SNN route it would appear that relations between FR and BHX are improving, so I would expect them to be looking up the A45 if they were interested in the West Midlands.

Ryanair always want everything for nothing...They have lesser airports pay them to fly in expecting the airport to make money from the pax. However this only works for airports that would have few or no pax in other circumstances.
BHX stood up to them, that's why MOL fell out with them, but, he did not pull the Dublin flights as AerLingus would have filled the spaces. They have now opened up SNN, another money spinner. They even tried it on again for free accommodation. They didn't get their way though. I don't think they will try much more out of BHX. Anyway, I would think that it is too close to a major city for mass Ryanair ops.

[cvt person]

[I don't think they will try much more out of BHX. Anyway, I would think it is to close to a major city for mass ryanair ops]
That pretty much rules Coventry out as well then!!!

[HeliCraig]

I don't know.... London Coventry has a nice ring to it for FR ops!!!

Every sding where else is London XYZ, so why can't we join in?

[cvt person]

God thinking perhaps BHX could attract Ryanair by being Manchester Birmingham or even Manchester Solihull!!

[CVTDog]

Just a bit gloomy at CVT now - the airside rumour mill is going full blast about a TOM pullout, hope they are wrong. I have family working on the apron and its very unsettling. They are desperate for more business and we dont need TUI to get the jitters

(plus I need that pm fri flight down to ALC Walsgrave to Alicante in 3 and a bit hours is nice !)

[SeamusCVT]

CVTDog, the link that I previously posted from the consultation meeting of 18/19 October states that businesses are interested in CVT, from meetings at Routes 2007...the issue is the current IPF.

I keep on saying it, but a lot of people like the smaller more personal feel of Coventry (if the flights are on time/or little delay), compared to the sprawling shopping mall-esque terminals of Heathrow, Manchester and such like. This is where Coventry (and many regional airports) has it's niche in the Midlands...and CAFCO-C in my opinion should really look at getting a permanent 0.98 million passenger terminal built (if they want to continue with pax flights) to make the inetrest become reality.

Obviously though whatever I write will have no influence on the powers that be, and i am unaware of all teh legal planning wrangle that would be involved...although going by some of the previous Consultative Committee reports, WDC do seem to be more accomodating to the idea of some form of terminal...will the Tollbar roundabout improvements still be made without any terminal? Will any monies (stated under the Section 106 agreement) be paid out to people affected by the aircraft without any terminal?

Edit: 22:12. WizzAir have now released the CVT-KTW and CVT-GDN flights until mid September 2008...both flights operate on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday

[cvt person]

As I understand it the planned improvements to the Toll bar junction were conceived before the airport developments and will proceed with or without that development.
With regard to terminal development I'm told by someone with planning connections that the airport have probably not applied for permision for a permanent million capacity terminal because Warwick District would probably seek to impose the conditions they agreed for a two million passenger facility, so the airport would have all the conditions and expenditure for half the capacity. I'm told that if the appeal to the High court fails a more likely route is to apply for an identical outline permission to the one previously granted, as Warwick would be hard pressed to explain how circumstances had changed to such an extent that they were refusing something they had previously given permission for. As far as 106 agreements go I'm told that if the building and activity they were imposed on cease to function then so does the 106.

[thomsonfly.com]

CVT is a great base for Thomsonfly, but the renewed focus on the airline's bread-and-butter holiday routes was always going to come as a blow to the pioneering low-cost base. I had heard a rumour from a friend of mine that TOM was courting other airlines to try to take over their presence at the airport, so as to focus on EMA and BHX. No idea who that would be, but hopefully something will work out for the airport, as it's great to use and has some fantastic staff - they just need an airline committed to scheduled city services, rather than just bucket-and-spade routes.