DURHAM TEES VALLEY AIRPORT - 4

[Channex101]

if bmi couldnt make MME work with a regional jet, what makes this yank think he will make a 44 seater executive 733 work? i mean, come on!! executive 733.... to LHR!!! lol
Good luck if it gets off the ground, but its no use to joe bloggs who wants to use it to connect to other airlines services from LHR such as any oneworld or star alliance carrier! looks like for now anyone from the durham tees area will have to drive to MAN or NCL to get to LHR!!!

Has FlyBE not considered LGW-MME, might work with 2 rotations to LGW to start with and go from there

[DTVAirport]

There were discussions with Eastern and Flybe regarding a London service but apparantly they prefer to operate from airports...

[skyman771]

"Excelsis!" who would ever use such a name particularly after the demise of Excel. The whole article is clearly a wind up, or as already noted, a mis quoted school fantasy project for business studies.
Anyhow the thing that amused me most is the thought of why 44 seats ? That in basic terms is 3x space per pax. What are they proposing - sleeper seats / beds on a 50min flight, or are they instead proposing an "entertainment area" with a bar & hostess service, imagine this on the early morning LHR stumbling out of the 737 exit to a 9.00am meeting in the city err no !
It's really sad that it is only due to the desperate situaution at MME, sorry DTV, that this article has even been afforded consideration on this forum.
Now Eastern to LCY is more of a possibility...............

[ConstantFlyer]

National Express rail must have been happy to see the bmi route to LHR go. When I passed through Darlington station recently, I looked for any signs telling passengers how to get to MME: I saw none. Nothing. Mind you, if there were such a sign it would be a long one: "Walk 100yds down to the main road, cross over, wait for a no. 12 bus that goes once an hour, costs £3 and takes 30 minutes to get to the airport. Alternatively, take a taxi for about £12." However, a quick look at the train departures monitor revealed a train an hour to "Manchester Airport".

[Lancelot37]

Where did "900,000" passengers come from. I understood that 2006/07 was somwhere near 640,000 and that 2007/08 numbers had dropped by a considerable amount.

[ReadyToGo]

Isn't there a regular "SkyExpress" bus from the station though Constantflyer?

Its been a while since I was in Darlington, but there was a well publicised,but poorly used shuttle last time I was there.

Not to mention the high frequency train service (one a week... on a saturday morning - I kid you not)

RTG!

[ReadyToGo]

Oh and from what I heard, BMI could and did make MME work. The route turned a profit for the majority of flights.

Sadly however, an Embraer or 319 from LBA or MME takes up the same amount of extremely valuable space on the ground, and in the congested air around Heathrow.

50 odd passengers on a domestic shuttle, in a one class configuration, paying around a hundred quid... or a nearly full, shiny 321 or 330 with premium passengers, on a high-revenue flight from Cairo...

Not surprising that the MME/LBA slots disappeared.

RTG!

[aeroDellboy]

The bus service stopped a while ago, I used it a few times and each time was the only passenger.

I can understand bmi using the slots for better paying traffic, but surely without feeder flights, no one from up here is going to use LHR, it's not worth driving to NCL or MAN, might as well just drive to LHR. If getting a connection, might as well use AMS, it will probably be cheaper anyway. And AMS is a much better airport than LHR.

If LHR want a third runway, it is for feeder flights, smaller aircraft, but if there are no feeder flights, there is no point in a new runway.

Heading to Darlington Station to get a train to London now, to just south of LHR...

[andrewmcharlton]

If LHR want a third runway, it is for feeder flights, smaller aircraft, but if there are no feeder flights, there is no point in a new runway.

Except there are other airports who can sustain a service and deliver enough through traffic and as LHR is closing in on capacity a third runway is needed. The lack of a train service is a killer as both incoming and outgoing visitors on LC services find it a pain to get anywhere.

[MUFC_fan]

Arguably the worst business model I have seen between two airports anywhere!

If BMI could fill 44 business seats per flight they wouldn't have dropped it and they offer connections to destinations across the globe!

Build it up to 6 flights a day with 737s?! Good luck! I doubt they will even get the slots. They want BAA to give them slots at the height of the TATL arrivals for a morning arrival and in the evening for a 737! That is opposed to a 744/77W who can make BAA a lot of money in the terminals.

I doubt we will see this last if it ever gets started. I often try to give all the new airlines a good chance and to see how they get on but surely this is a wild idea?!

At the other end of the scale, I feel the best airline opportunity has been taken up and it belongs to Manx2. They have found a niche and I feel this new company may have tried to identify one, but I doubt it even exists.

[ReadyToGo]

This simply has to be a school project or something

excel airways launch site

Its got failure written all over it. "in flight entertainment, fine cuisine"... all in a 50minute flight.

RTG!

Ps. Rather unfortunately, this armchair CEO headlines his page "excel airways launch site" as well...

[SWBKCB]

Website looks better than this one:

Untitled Document

Which seems to be designed by a one-man band from Middlesbrough

[andrewmcharlton]

Our website is comming soon ....

I thought it was only two heads they were meant to have in Boro not two "M"'s.

Only kidding boro lads before you get upset....

Registrants details:

Mbanginu Danny
Brandlberger Str.70
Regensburg
Bayern
93057
DE

[SimJock]

Round Robin

To the uninitiated.. what is there to prevent a Dublin - Teesside - Gatwick - Dublin type of round robin service working, with a 2nd aircraft doing the return direction at the same time ? Thus servicing Gatwick and Teesside to Dublin, but also picking up Teesside Gatwick traffic.

[22/04]

Don't think anything prevents it rather like FlyBe's Saturday IOM/JER/LTN service on Saturdays this summer. Might be difficult to make the timing work for LGW which I imagine would be time sensitive for business and not leisure traffic though.

[andrewmcharlton]

If the routes don't stack up or appeal to an airline as profitable in isolation why would it work as a round robin and who would operate it?

[SimJock]

If the routes don't stack up or appeal to an airline as profitable in isolation why would it work as a round robin and who would operate it?

I was thinking that as Ryanair operate from Dublin to both airports, a linking flight in between might be feasable and utilise existing slots/assets.

Bit more on the Excelsis thing in D&S Times, looking at a £220 return fare to include catering and chauffeur driven car from home to airport.

[andrewmcharlton]

Except there appears to be no such airline and anyone thinking that they can fill business class only on that route is in a dream land.

[tubtruck]

The Ryanair route to Dublin is on its way out

[CentreFix25]

Old news, see this from a couple of months back.
http://www.pprune.org/4792836-post1935.html