BRISTOL - 4

[Bartman27]

TUI

Could we be looking at a second based TUI Aircraft for winter 2010/2011

[WATABENCH]

Bingo Bartman,
Given the times and length of the flights on offer, i'm thinking thats a bit too much work for 1 aircraft, given that a SSH or LXR is a good 12-13 hour day. Plenty of W patterns with TUI on the weekend at the mo, but must surely be a more viable and less costly option to utilise the BRS crew and park another 757 in BRS for winter, especially given that the flights are showing for the whole winter season and not cut out of the programme for the ski season as they are at the moment.
As i said in previous post this is a significant rise in capacity for TUI, more than any other regional airport with a TUI base by looks of things.

[MerchantVenturer]

Not sure if I've misread WATABENCH's list but is Malaga down for operation all winter by TOM? Surprised if it is given that both easyJet and Ryanair operate it throughout the year.

Sharm el Sheikh is currently 3 x weekly with TOM, albeit the third rotation only commenced just before Christmas. In addition Thomas Cook and Koral Blue also operate weekly so there are already a lot of seats going to Egypt.

I thought Hurghada was going to start again this winter, though possibly not by TOM.

Luxor was advertised two or three winters ago by Thomson - some of the Flyer coaches even carried a big advert for it across the back of the vehicles.

Talking of the Flyer, the local rag carried a report today saying the preferred route of the western section of the South Bristol Link Road has been agreed by the West of England Partnership and is likely to be recommended to the local councils. It would run from Long Ashton to the new South Bristol Hospital at Whitchurch - by the site of the old airport.

The Flyer would be re-routed via Ashton Vale along a separate new route from the central area to be used by bendy-buses, then along part of the new SB Link Road before resuming its current route to the airport. Incidentally, this could be extremely useful if England is awarded the 2018 World Cup because Bristol City's proposed Ashton Vale Stadium would be a venue.

All this could be in place by 2017 but even if approved by the local councils there are certain to be objections from environmentalists etc, and if the national government changes that could be another nail in the coffin as the idea as grown with the encouragement of the current government.

[WATABENCH]

Hi MV,
AGP definatly in for the season using TOM Airways. Its all in black and white on both Thomson holidays and First Choice holidays website, just need to do holiday searches for each month and you wil see it matey.
Great to see some fighting spirit from TOM, why should they just sit there and get rolled over by the loco's on these routes, not everyone wants a bit piece holiday i guess, especially with the amount of airlines and operators going bust lately, maybe as it's been so in the limelight people are realising what travel agents have been trying to tell them for years, they want a bit of security in their holidays

[cym]

BRS AGP

..and then come Sep the consolidation letters go out offering CWL, BHX or LTN.....

Been there got the teeshirt, all to do with a stab at (optimal) aircraft utilisation......

[santito]

Flew into BRS for the first time in over a year yesterday.

As we all know, the Brussels Airlines route is now operated by Brussels Airlines, but on a BMI Regional E 145 which is a bit strange (Surely BMI operate the route now?) These are the same aircraft that are used at most other regionals now, and are very nice, but I did notice LBA was significantly more expensive on LBA-BRU on the BMI E145 than BRS-BRU under Brussels Airlines on the Avros.... I hope that BRS does not see similar price hikes!

I wonder if BMI are also positioning themselves to take on routes to Germany (Munich/ Duss/ FRA would be good) with the E145 (or other units?) as they are a subsidiary of Lufthansa now...

Fog was awful, but I could just about see the walkway is coming on nicely- it is absolutely HUGE, I was quite taken aback at its size! Just a shame this phase of the expansion does not add any bridges to the actual aircraft.

Security area has also totally changed since I was last there, and seems better laid out now with 7-8 desks, plus automatic gates for the new style passports (These were not in operation though).

[bobsyerunlce]

What gives you the thought that Brussels/BMI may be expanding their routes to include some German destinations? That would be great news if true. I have long thought that Germany is not served well from BRS, unlike for example France is. We have Hamburg (no longer on EZY unfortunately) on the often pricey OLT and Berlin too but Munich, FRA or Dusseldorf would be very welcome.

[santito]

Nothing makes me think that (I have no evidence), just speculating- BMI is wholly owned by LH, LH dropped FRA-BRS- maybe BMI will pick up one of these routes in the future- having just one airline (BMI) with a presence at BRS is cheaper than having both BMI and LH or some subsidiary like Eurowings there.

[airbourne]

Mate of mine just moved to BRS. Looking for somewhere to live. Around Clifden, Hotwells, Redland. Looking for something modern, clean and nice. You know yourself lads, Pilot wants to show the ladies a good time before he gives them the fiver for the taxi the next day.

Anybody know of any classy pads for rent near BRS? Maybe consider sharing with other crew.

Cheers!

[bobsyerunlce]

Good to see a couple more routes from BRS announced today - even if one of them is to ANOTHER Polish destination!!!

Kaunas (Lithuania) is a nice addition (flying Mon and Thurs) from 3 May.
The other destination is Bydgoszcz.

[2J&D]

Nice to see new routes, but why more Polish routes? I am sure they are very nice an Lithuania seems an intersting one, but how about an Athens, or an Instabul for example....Lets see something that us TA's can actually sell to our customers, or destinations that our customers ask us for out of BRS!!

[compton3bravo]

New Routes

2J&D - If you are a travel agent I suggest you do your homework as Ryanair cannot fly to Istanbul from the UK as it is registered in Eire so it cannot fly from the UK to a country outside of the EU unless they have come to an agreement i.e. Morocco. If they still had the old Buzz AOC with UK registered aircraft they would not be a problem.

[cym]

This is going to be one of BRS problems going forward:

The number of available 'viable' routes within EEC is becoming saturated

Aircraft utilisation is key to any carrier

Yields on the more 'adverterous' routes are liable to be poor

Cannibilisation between U2 and FR will then kick in

U2 good carrier who have shown significant commitment to BRS over the years

FR already starting to eat into core routes, ALC AGP GRO & REU (vs BCN)and to come the S10 battle for the Canaries

Will be in interesting year both in px volumes (which we will know) or yield (which we wont) But there can only be one winner.......

No so sure that FR are good for BRS in the long term

[bobsyerunlce]

Given its catchment area, I still think there is plenty of scope for route expansion out of BRS.
The main thing that needs to be done is market the airport as an alternative to BHX or any of London's airports with a budget airline presence. I have flown out of LTN or STN many times due their superior flight network.
I am not for one minute saying that BRS could support the number of flights or routes that these airports do but there are plenty of gaps in the market. Bring back a Scandinavian route or two please FR or EZY!

[cym]

M8 disagree

And think about the bigger picture for both U2 and FR - BHX penetration - forget it!EMA takes care of regional slippage Local market dominace and efficient metal utilisation is the aim of both - cant be 2 winners

[MerchantVenturer]

Ryanair

Ryanair has certainly wrung the changes since setting up its Bristol base in 2007.

Beginning with Poland, the airline flew Poznan, Wroclaw, Katowice, Gdansk and Rzeszow in the first year with Scezcin added after the first 12 months. Katowice and Scezcin no longer operate and Gdansk was also axed but is returning in summer 10.

The load factors on the Polish routes in summer 09 were high - all 2 x weekly:

In the months May, June, July, August and September the loads factors were respectively (%):

Poznan 95, 94, 96, 95, 93
Rzeszow 89, 85, 95, 95, 92
Wroclaw 89, 90, 96, 93, 87

These routes also operate in the winter and November's load factors were
Poznan (78), Wroclaw (76), Rzeszow (70)

Of course we don't know the yields but we do know that Poznan has been increased to 3 x weekly in summer 10 and Gdansk and Bydgoszcz have been added, so perhaps Ryanair views Poland as a good bet from BRS, despite axing Katowice and Scezcin.

Riga (2 x weekly) is a summer route and summer 09, May to September, saw load factors of 75, 88, 94, 90 and 75 so perhaps Ryanair thinks another Baltic State might work.

Five of the summer routes that Ryanair commenced in July 09 have not re-appeared in summer 10 - Cagliari, Trieste, Montpellier, Perpignan and Toulon. Although they have now gone they did feature in the first 'edition' of the summer 10 timetable. Of the routes to France and Italy started last July only Limoges and Rimini are operating in summer 10. Pau has also gone leaving Bergerac and Beziers as the other French routes in summer 10.

Marrakesh continues into the summer for the first time.

Other routes that Ryanair has axed since starting its Bristol base are Eindhoven, Derry, Dinard, Grenoble and Salzburg (the last two winter only). Shannon also goes at the end of this winter but so it does from the other UK regional airports because of the airline's disagreement with the Irish airport.

I agree with cym's assessment that Ryanair is increasingly challenging easyJet at BRS on the summer bread and butter routes and the list of overall viable destinations is not infinite when two major players are operating from an airport such as BRS.

Summer 10 will also see FR operating Palma and Faro, as well as Alicante, Malaga and Tenerife directly against easyJet and, as cym points out, the FR versions of Barcelona to easyJet's Barcelona 'proper'. The two have flown to their respective versions of Milan and Belfast for a while.

Amongst all the chopping and changing that has occurred thus far at BRS I know there are many locals, including me, who are disappointed that no Scandinavian or German route has been tried.

Even so with easyJet currently showing 39 routes and Ryanair 32 in summer 10 it's good for the area to have the choice and one only hopes the airport and airlines will be supported.

[GayFriendly]

FR

A very interesting post indeed Merchant Venturer. I didn't realize there had been as many changes with the BRS schedule since the base was launched. I am up at BHX and agree with previous posters - I don't think FR are good for assured long term growth as they have such a habit of chopping and changing routes as well as falling out with airport managers at a moments notice.

Here at BHX initial base launch fanfare was very positive but two years later we are still at 4 based aircraft and FR have dropped many of their original routes, I think we are 10 routes down on last summer (all of which were incidentally to destinations with no other competitor). Instead, they are going head to head with MON and WW on key sunshine routes leaving some very obvious destination gaps such as BER, MAD and so on (which I believe could be served by FR from BHX)

As far as BRS goes then I think you will see more direct U2-FR head to heads. Having said that at least FR are launching routes to unserved destinations from BRS and you still have some 'adventurous' destinations, here at BHX they have launched IBZ and FAO for this summer both, surprise surprise are already served by other carriers

[2J&D]

Compton 3 barvo - I should have clarified my post as when I mentioned IST I was thinking more of EZY and the general route network from BRS. Thankfully the interest shown in FR and some of the routes they operate to, from my customers is minimal.

As for homework, I must ask some of my other independant agent friends if they are aware of the flying rights of EU and NON EU carriers...I can probably hazzard a guess as what the answers will be...Now if I worked for an airline and you made the same remark, I would have hung my head in shame.

MV - as usual a highly informative post and one which shows the amount of changes that we have seen at BRS over the past year or two. The SAS routes were very well recieved and from what I was told by SAS, Both the ARN and OSL flights were operating with a good load, however the yield might have been another story!. I possibly think the none return of these routes had more to do with the financial sitation of the SAS group at the time. Hopefully we will see them back at some stage. Was lucky enough to do both flights and both were fantastic destinations.

If EZY can pull the VCE flight after it operated for so long, I really see no hope for some of the other routes, which in some cases are duplicated by 2 low cost airlines plus a charter.

Something will have to give...

[santito]

My understanding is that the SAS flights were being sold at very low prices.

However, I would also be very pleased to see these routes re-instated.

Really can't understand why no one is adding more German routes from BRS- Berlin and Bremen are the only cities with frequent flights as far as I am aware.....?

[WATABENCH]

SNN was always a popular flight with FR, Would be great for the new Aer Lingus/Aer Arann franchise to pick the route up, The ORK seems to do well with them.

Press release from a few days ago...

Aer Arann signs franchise agreement with Aer Lingus
(27/01/10)
Agreement upgrades Bristol to Cork service

Aer Arann and Aer Lingus have announced that agreement has been reached to establish a franchise arrangement between the two airlines.

Under this franchise agreement Aer Arann will operate 12 routes from Dublin and Cork. The routes will include current Aer Lingus and Aer Arann routes as well as 3 new routes.

Aer Arann UK's longest continuously serving route of Cork to Bristol, will operate up to six days per week under this new franchise agreement.

These franchise services will be branded as “Aer Lingus Regional” and operated using Aer Arann ATR 72-500 aircraft and crew.