Bmibaby

[airhumberside]

Where these flights operated for the Six Nations rugby that have crept back into the system?

[mathers_wales_uk]

Bmibaby never operated such flight from Cardiff for the 6 nations but they may had seen the extra flights offered into BRS by Ryanair and by Dublin at CWL and thought they would give it a shot, Similar to what they have done on the BFS?

[8028410q]

It's for the 6 nations in 2010.

Here is the link

8028410q

[GayFriendly]

So they're planning to be around until at least 2010 then

Perhaps this is the direction the airline will head for in the future, reduced focus on scheduled operations and more focus on ad-hoc charters, flying for tour operators and contract work, didn't Aer Arann recently go down this road? I'm not so sure though that their tired fleet is particularly suited to such work without internal refits though

[INKJET]

I'm not so sure though that their tired fleet is particularly suited to such work without internal refits though


Gayfriendly

You clearly haven't been on a baby aircraft for some time then? but i do agree that they are a bit long in the tooth for 3rd party charters, i think you will see more ad hoc sports flights like the MAN Oporto last week.

[mathers_wales_uk]

It's a very good idea and i think the amount of extra revenue they picked up in this years 6 nations flights due to their new t & c's and charges they have decided to make the most of it. I hope that these are on top of the extra flights usually operated to during these days.

[GayFriendly]

Inkjet,

To be fair no I haven't been on a Baby flight since last summer, July 2008 - flew BHX-MAD on an internally tatty and quite dirty aircraft, they have been refitting their fleet since then I take it?

Good luck to Baby if they go down the 3rd party charter route, with the right aircraft and product this could be a good moneyspinner, I think Titan do quite well out of this line of work?

[sweetie76]

GayFriendly

I think you'll find Titan is going to have problems this year when you have the likes of bmi mainline entering the charter market and effectively undercutting them. Titan ain't cheap, when it comes to AOG/ad hoc etc.

I think airlines will have to be pretty desperate before they call the likes of Titan for assistance.

[xtypeman]

Thats why they call Titan and the likes when its desperate. Also dont forget that there are three airlines out of the system compared to last year. XL, EAAC and Flightline. There is also a culture shock from operating a schedule service to being up and ready to operate in an hour. I think you will find Titan have a good mix on there flying.

Sorry getting away from Baby.

[Businesstraveller]

BMI Baby Interiors

I fly on BMI Baby pretty much every week. Some interiors are fairly decent (leatherette upholstery) but most are pretty tired (are they old Britannia interiors?). Last week I was on the front row at 2A - next to 2B which had its seat base missing - how bad does that look to all the boarding PAXs? Oh, and to add to the quality experience the inside casing for my window fell out - classy!

[INKJET]

Businesstraveller

Sorry to hear about the seat base, the cabins on most have been refitted over the winter together with new paint and larger logo, the fact remains that they aren't spring chickens and the number of cabin defects reflect that. They start off OK but the hammer and abuse that they get takes its toll, some of our fleet will carry over 750 pax a day each and they aren't all size 10's

[iwhak]

Happened to travel from BHX to NOC recently on a Friday was about 50 pax on board. Had a look at the CAA stats for January through to March, MAN & BHX to NOC down between 30 & 50%. They must be losing their shirts on these routes. Is this symptomatic of their overall network?

[Little Blue]

In a word , NO !

[OltonPete]

bhx-noc

iwhak

I am not sure where you are getting the load factors from for the BHX-Knock service.

March CAA Stats show 3295 pax. If this is divided by the number of sectors which was 38 (I noted all BHX's daily departures down to work out average pax per flight). My figure has tallied with acarsd with 26 sectors operated by the 733 and 12 by the 735.

I make it an average of 87 per flight and a load factor of 60%.

February was worse at 67 per flight and about 50% load factor

January was 61 per flight or 43% load factor.

It is not great and possibly Baby's worse peforming route from
BHX and I would say if there was another a route to go it would
be Knock but having said that they have released seats for sale
next winter.

Pete

[freightdoggy dog]

Sweetie 76, have you ever flown on board a Titan 737 vip a/c on a charter ?

The interiors,service and catering are in a different league to what Baby could offer. They may be expensive ,but thats the market they are pitching at.

[INKJET]

freightdoggy dog

Titan's VIP interior is very plush and works well for corporate charters, but with only 131 seats on 737-300 the cost per seat is much higher than Jet2 or bmibaby config of 148 (737-300) or 131 (bmibaby 737-500) on a corporate charter it doesn't matter because in most cases you won't have more than 80-100 guests anyway, but going down to the Med or winter ski charter these flights are often fully booked, even if they don't all turn up!

[iwhak]

Olton Pete

Had you read my post I never referred to load factors. I travelled on the route, load was very poor. Looked at the CAA stats and year on year it is way down. I've no axe to grind, just asking the question. Appreciate you looking deeper into it thanks!

[OltonPete]

bhx-noc

iwhak

Sorry, I see where you are coming from.

However part of the reason for the drop is that baby have been
operating between 10-20 less sectors per month per the punctuality
stats but you are right it is still in freefall.

60 services operated in March 08 compared to 38 this year. Even without
the Easter pax in this years figures it is still about 15% drop in load factor.

January was less of a drop from 50% to 43% load factor but still not
good as fares were low.

In fact the load you have described is awful for Friday, one route to watch.

Pete

[sawtooth]

Bhx - Noc

Big drop from the days when MyTravelLite carried 100K on the route with an A320. But there was a lot less capacity into the North of England in 2003, and I guess Ryanair's EMA route has eaten into the numbers.

[OliWW]

Since about 2003 roughly EMA has always had a NOC route, bmibaby operated it, and FR now operate, so either way, there has been flights from EMA and BHX has been able to still expand on that, My travel lite probably got 100K because there was no NOC flight for about a year at EMA before FR took over.