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Old 10th May 2014, 08:58
  #2461 (permalink)  
 
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Hotel

Just an observation but where the afore mentioned 'premier' car park work that has been carried out in the last couple of weeks and if you look at the plan for the hotel location they both appear to be occupying the same ground !!!, so that isn't looking good, mind you they only specified work starts in July but failed to state what year.

I do wish they'd just get it and the multi storey car parks built, we have CWL and EXT with new owners who seem to have big plans and before you know it they'll be snapping at our heels and between them they can do a lot of damage to us and it'll be the early 80's all over again with Bristol trying play catch up, Too much complacency with the 'they'll never catch us up now' mentality.

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Old 10th May 2014, 13:25
  #2462 (permalink)  

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I'm certainly no apologist for BRS. My association with the airport is as a relatively local resident and as a passenger user of many decades and, although in general I find the facility suits my needs very well for short haul and some long haul via hubs (there are times when the London airports or sometimes BHX make more sense for me for long haul), I'm not uncritical at times, but that's the case with most if not all airports I've used when being picky.

I believe strongly that BRS has been extremely fortunate in the high quality of its senior management beginning with the late and legendary Les Wilson, with seemingly supportive owners since privatisation. For too long in city council ownership the elected representatives didn't know whether they wanted an airport or not and some wanted to be rid of their loss-making airport entirely. The same applied to the loss-making docks at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury which have also enjoyed a remarkable renaissance since being handed by the city council to the private sector (on a 150-year lease in this case).

The master plan of a decade ago that included the huge outline expansion plans now approved was delayed in execution for several years mainly by the need to overcome the many objections raised by the highly-organised opponents. The recession then took a hold on the economy with the inevitable negative affect on the aviation industry although BRS was affected later and to a lesser degree and began to recover earlier than many regional airports in this country.

Nevertheless, passenger numbers did not keep pace with the original master plan projections after 2008 which is a major factor in the pace of the infrastructure expansion as the airport had always said it would be carried out incrementally as passenger traffic increased.

In fact, in recent years such things as additional aircraft stands and the central walkway that's nearing completion have seen some of the expansion planks put in place, and since part privatisation in 1997/full privatisation in 2001 there have been numerous amelioration schemes of one sort of another with, at an estimate, approaching £100 million spent in that time.

16 months ago two frameworks of 13 contractors were signed in order to avoid the costly and time-consuming EU procurement rules when the expansion plans moved forward. The extension of the main terminal to the west appears to be moving forward - I read somewhere recently that work will begin within two years - with a design contractor appointed two years ago.

I'm not aware of any plans by EXT and CWL to match this scale of infrastructure expansion apart from the Western Gateway proposals at CWL which at this stage appear no more than a wish.

Given their track record I'm confident that BRS will be expanded by the current management/owners as demand dictates. It's just a pity that the physical limitations of the place present such an obstacle to what could be realistically achieved at a more suitable site, but that's the fault of previous generations and BRS is not the only airport in the wrong place by any means.
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Old 10th May 2014, 20:15
  #2463 (permalink)  
 
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It really is the most terrible shame that both BRS and CWL are not shut down and replaced with a proper airport by the Severn somewhere. I know this is old ground. I'll get me coat.
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Old 11th May 2014, 07:58
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It really is the most terrible shame that both BRS and CWL are not shut down and replaced with a proper airport by the Severn somewhere. I know this is old ground. I'll get me coat.

Much better idea than Boris Island far more accessible to 90% of the population, I'll dream on
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Old 11th May 2014, 12:48
  #2465 (permalink)  

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I'm certainly not against the idea of a Severnside airport in theory although the practical aspects might be more challenging, as well as political and nationalistic sensibilities relating to the actual location.

The ideas/schemes put forward in the past have usually featured an airport on the Welsh side of the estuary although a Pilning (north of Bristol) airport was considered and rejected in the 2003 government white paper on the future of civil aviation.

Some have linked the much discussed Severn Barrage idea with a Severnside airport enabling road and rail traffic to cross the estuary on the barrage. The Barrage seems to have more support in Wales than it does on the English side of the river, not least because it would emasculate Bristol's port facilities.

Had earlier generations exercised a greater degree of prescience and co-operation (although in fairness few if any people prior to this century could have seriously predicted how busy airports such as Bristol would become compared to their previous somnolent existence decade after decade) Bristol Airport might now be FZO/EGTG instead of BRS/EGGD.
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Old 18th May 2014, 12:10
  #2466 (permalink)  

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easyJet BRS-CDG

At the end of March at #2396 I drew attention to the fact that easyJet is now the only carrier between Bristol and Paris with a single daily rotation to CDG and that by the weekend several days in the week ahead had already sold out on either the inbound or outbound sectors, sometimes both.

This trend has continued ever since with next week the most extreme yet. CDG-BRS is sold out for the next seven days from today through to next Saturday, and BRS-CDG sold out today and next Friday.

Effectively this means that there is no Bristol-Paris service next week for most people now looking to book, because the majority would want to travel there and back from whichever end they began. This is undoubtedly excellent business for easyJet because the fares on the five days where there is availability on BRS-CDG are not cheap with the highest shown as £238.74 next Saturday.

I wonder how many people who have had to look elsewhere in recent weeks may be lost to the route in the future and whether someone like bmi regional might be looking at a possible opportunity. Their fares would normally be higher than easyJet's but with the current monopoly on the route it can be seen that some passengers have to pay a large premium to travel with easyJet. I know that costs/availability of slots at CDG or even Orly come into it but Flybe quickly stepped in to increase its daily Exeter-CDG to double daily when it became apparent that Air France was leaving BRS.

Ryanair

The news this week discussed in the CWL thread regarding Ryanair commencing a weekly Thursday TFS-CWL this winter might or might not have an effect on BRS in the future.

FR has presumably calculated that its won't seriously dilute its BRS-TFS which will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays this winter with easyJet operating the route on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I wonder why FR didn't opt for a day when it had no BRS service. The timings of the BRS and CWL routes are both morning services, albeit CWL begins at the TFS end, so there is not even the possibility of adding an extra half day's holiday by flying from one airport and returning to the other.

On a more general note, it will be interesting to see if this is the beginning of a change of Ryanair policy for Severnside. It hasn't really kicked on at BRS in recent years. Some routes come and go and last summer the base was reduced from five to two aircraft, apparently because of a failure to agree peak hour and overnight parking charges with the airport, although rotations and routes were not reduced in number through the use of non-based aircraft for the majority of flights.

This summer the base seems to be three aircraft with the other rotations again operated by non-based aircraft.

It may be then that CWL will see an increase of FR routes in the future. If it does it remains to be seen how this will affect its BRS network. Ryanair might be using the CWL initiative as a shot across the BRS bows to persuade them that it (Ryanair) calls the tune and to remember that, or it might be a move to spread the Severnside load ............on Ryanair's terms.
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Old 18th May 2014, 13:40
  #2467 (permalink)  
 
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MerchantVenturer,
You raise very interesting points in your post.

When FR had limited European routes and flew Dublin - Murcia as one of its earlier Spanish routes, it then launched Dublin - Alicante, ironically on the same days at the same times. I have no doubt this was a closely measured comparison and various stats measuring everything from sales to yield to no of customers checking the pricing to the level of ancillary services booked by passengers on respective was powerful data.

I'm not a Ryanair insider so I don't know for sure. Though I'd say the CWL TFS route will be very good exercise. If hypothetically the data shows that CWL is more attractive for holiday fliers (eg) then they may ultimately treat CWL as the secondary airport for BRS... Look shat is happening at Milan and Brussels. I can see CWL bring the secondary airport for BRS and a host if destinations being served that are not ex BRS , the idea to closely match BRS for this experiment on a similar route makes perfect sense ...
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Old 18th May 2014, 15:14
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Ryanair

I guess you mean a little bit like how they now operate from Liverpool and Manchester. A lot of the more regular running major city routes go from Manchester eg. Brussels, Madrid, Milan, Rome. Plus Manchester has a higher frequency on the typical sun routes like Alicante, Malaga, Palma etc. than Liverpool.


Liverpool is now a more random mix with a lower frequency on the Spanish sun routes but more in the way of the traditional smaller Irish, French and Eastern European airports.


I'm not sure IF Ryanair do eventually open a base or at least expand more significantly in Cardiff whether that will cause a similar split between Cardiff and Bristol. I'd say that as Bristol is arguable the "primary" airport of the two that major city routes such as Milan and Barcelona would be more likely Bristol than Cardiff. However Bristol doesn't seem to have all that many city routes with Ryanair. For instance they still use Girona rather than Barcelona El Prat and other cities like Berlin, Rome, Venice etc. they don't operate at all. I'd say EasyJet is probably the reason why.


Unless they add more city type routes from Cardiff, I can't really see a split between certain types of routes/markets that would suit Bristol/Cardiff. I think Cardiff could end up replicating something along the lines of Bournemouth's network of almost exclusively summer sun routes to Spain and the Canaries, with little effect on Bristol.
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Old 18th May 2014, 23:54
  #2469 (permalink)  
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Any news on the rumours about Turkish Airlines starting a route to IST? It's been a while since I heard any news.
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Old 19th May 2014, 10:56
  #2470 (permalink)  

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Turkish Airlines - Istanbul

I've not heard anything recently.

Turkish has been expanding aggressively in recent years with BRS thought by some to be the next likely recipient because there is no direct Middle East connectivity from south west Britain with the smaller Turkish Airlines aircraft to Turkey likely to be a better fit commercially and operationally than the larger aircraft used by the MEB3.

The ubiquitous Simon Calder gave the rumour legs in a piece in his newspaper at the beginning of this year.

Perhaps a more realistic appreciation of the situation was put by anno aero in a feature about BRS last year which can be accessed via this link:

Bristol Airport set to hit 6m passengers again; easyJet rules the roost

The BRS routes director told anno aero at that time, “We work very hard to match the right airline to the right route. We are not in the business of encouraging new routes which are not sustainable for our airline partners, so we will sometimes sacrifice short term gain in favour of finding the right fit.”

anno aero believed then that the airport might turn to Turkish Airlines if the operational performance challenges proved too great for the MEB3 to overcome.

Realistically then Turkish seems far more likely than an MEB3 future presence but the timescale is hard to estimate.

Ryanair

Many thanks for your thoughts EI-BUD and FRatSTN.
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Old 31st May 2014, 21:05
  #2471 (permalink)  

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Thomas Cook Airlines

It seems the arrival of the two A 321s has not coincided with the best of fortune at BRS in the past week, as reported elsewhere in this forum.

Last Sunday the lunchtime flight to Zante was replaced by a Small Planet B 737 leading to over 60 passengers being unable to board and being taken by road to Gatwick where they eventually left over 12 hours late.

The following day the afternoon flight to Bodrum was delayed over five hours when a TCX B 757 had to be positioned in to operate the flight.

Today the flight from Enfidha due at 1330 is delayed with an eta shown as 2231. Furthermore, it's being operated by a Transavia B 738 which, if the scheduled A 321 was booked to be anywhere near full, will presumably mean some passengers were unable to board the flight. I don't know what flew out to Enfidha this morning.

The afternoon and early evening flights for the two A 321s out of BRS to Turkey are shown as 'departed' on the BRS website.

bmi regional

Doesn't appear to be any availability to Milan Malpensa on the bmi regional website from November.
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Old 1st Jun 2014, 09:35
  #2472 (permalink)  
 
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Not a great week for charters at BRS. Both TCX flights today showing next info and TOM Enfidha nearly 6 hour delay.
TCX had 2 aircraft in yesterday to operate to Enfidha. The flight was split between Transavia and what appeared to be a private 737.
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Old 1st Jun 2014, 10:16
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Looks as though the TOM Enfiidha is a 'W' flight with Luton that has picked up 6hr delay ex LTN
Airborne LTN with 8hr+ delay

Last edited by ericlday; 1st Jun 2014 at 13:45. Reason: Airborne update
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Old 1st Jun 2014, 11:48
  #2474 (permalink)  

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Thomas Cook Airlines

This morning's flights to Ibiza at 0600 and to Palma at 0645 are both shown on the airport's website as 'Delayed Next Info 1400'.

However, the 1300 to Zante, normally flown by the aircraft operating the IBZ rotation is shown as 'boarding'. There is no information against the 1350 to Dalaman, normally flown by the aircraft that operated the PMI rotation.

A poster on the Thomas Cook thread says that the airline has five leased aircraft today: a Vueling A 320; a Multiflight B 733; a Transavia B 738; a NEOS B 738; an Air Greenland A 330.

The TOM Enfidha is flown as a 'w' as already stated. The two based TOM B 757s are also currently showing slight delays of about an hour inbound from Malaga and Arrecife respectively.
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Old 1st Jun 2014, 14:05
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Whats happened now re this morning's TCX delays? IBZ showing as cancelled the PMI has disappeared of the departures board??
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Old 1st Jun 2014, 16:50
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Both the TCX7006 Ibiza & TCX7052 Palma are showing as cancelled when I just had a look at the Bristol departure board.

Both return flights on the Bristol Airport website are showing as delayed.

The Palma Airport website is stating that TCX7053 is expected to depart to Bristol at 22:55 (11hrs 45 mins late) with the arrival from Bristol expected to arrive at 22:00.

There is no record of the TCX7006/TCX7007 on the Ibiza Airport website which is likely to mean it was cancelled.

Even if the Zakynthos managed to depart on shedule it is not meant to arrive back into Bristol until 21:20 meaning a relief aircraft is likely to be flown into Bristol to operate the delayed Palma flight unless passengers have been bussed to an alternative departure airport.
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Old 1st Jun 2014, 17:04
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so does anyone know what's happened to this morning IBZ passengers- outbound and inbound?
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Old 1st Jun 2014, 20:40
  #2478 (permalink)  

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TCX

No idea, Welsh Bobby, although a poster on another aviation forum says he was at Leed-Bradford today when a Multiflight aircraft (presumably the B 733 mentioned above) brought in a load of passengers with TCX/BRS labels who were waiting for coaches. Maybe these were from Ibiza. The coach trip would have taken twice as long as the flight.

At least this afternoon's rotations to/from Zante and Dalaman operated normally.
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Old 1st Jun 2014, 20:44
  #2479 (permalink)  
 
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TCX BRS-PMI

Apparently Pax on the above were bussed to MAN.

They made the MAN Flight wait for 4 hours while these pax were bussed up!
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Old 1st Jun 2014, 21:16
  #2480 (permalink)  

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TCX

A poster on another aviation forum who is in a position to know has just posted that Titan will operate BRS-IBZ-PMI tomorrow and return with a B763, with a Privilege B757 from MAD operating BRS-CFU tomorrow.
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