NEWCASTLE - 8

[Beatts]

Flights from Newcastle to Barcelona: Airline switch sees bargain trips for less than £10 - Chronicle Live

[NCL-TRC]

Nothing more than a marketing ploy for a route that was already announced serval months prior to Vueling pulling the route anyway

[EK77WNCL]

I wonder if we'll be hearing any more on any new routes with Ryanair for this winter? They've been bringing out a lot of other European routes recently

[jensdad]

More high-quality, objective reporting by the Chronicle there. That Pulitzer surely can't be long now.

[ash666]

I wonder if Ryanair will soon be doing London Aberdeen?

[EK77WNCL]

Unless brexit flushes LON-EDI/GLA/BFS down the toilet, LON-ABZ and hopefully LON-NCL would seem to be logical next additions to me if domestic is proving worthwhile

[ash666]

Not sure if you got my meaning.

I meant calling Aberdeen a "London" airport in the same way that Barcelona Girona is a con making people think Girona is anywhere near Barcelona.

[GrahamK]

May see more. Seen a the airports route development guy returning on the same FR flight from DUB recently. Who knows. MAD is continuing for winter as announced

[canberra97]

ash666

Girona airport to the centre of Barcelona is 58 miles taking one hour and ten minutes by bus, the same distance between the centre of Milan and BGY.

The distance between London and Aberdeen is 542 miles and nine hours driving so obviously not as close as Barcelona is to Girona hence why 'not sure you got my meaning' because know one would have been aware of what you meant by just typing 'London Aberdeen?'

[EK77WNCL]

Does anyone else see the new Brussels Airlines/Eurowings partnership, and addition of Superjet's as an opportunity?

Bmir transfer the route to Brussels Airlines on the Superjet, ideally x13 weekly. Seat count goes up, seat cost goes down, fares go down. BM move the -135 to x13/14 weekly Newcastle-Frankfurt with Lufthansa codeshare and take things from there?

I'm also wondering if Cobalt might be a flop, Ryanair have run out of ideas and Jet2 have stalled (easyjet stalled last decade)

On the Flybe front, Southampton is getting an extra daily this year, could the second Exeter rotation come back?

[Jamesair]

The February statistics are on the Airport website .

PAX 287,609 (256,120) an increase of 12.3%

Domestic 86,125 (92,148)
IT........... 28,836 (27,506)
International...170,380 (134,401)
Others.....2268 (2065)

[HeartyMeatballs]

So, despite Brexit, NCL have managed a 12.3% increase in passenger numbers. Surely there must be some kind of error.

[canberra97]

It's probably because Brexit or rather Article 50 hasn't been implemented yet.

[HeartyMeatballs]

Oh I see! Thought as much. Maybe someone should have told the airport not to bother expanding the car park saying as passenger numbers will crash post Brexit.

[long_final]

But the £ to € has been negatively affected, which doesn't seem to have put people off, especially when we consider the international increase. I suppose the All Inclusive types who never leave the hotel/take any Euros with them will be oblivious though.
It does seem odd that an airport that's had near enough zero growth or expansion since the start of recession around 07-08 is off to such a flying start to the year. Surely it can't all be down to FR.

[toon22]

... I think you'll find it is all down to Ryanair. First year of Polish routes plus higher frequency on Sun routes, then a lowering of fares by Jet2 and EZY in response - and you have your answer. Unfortunately, most other routes going nowhere.

[HeartyMeatballs]

Maybe these are boom times. The calm before the storm. Afterall after Brexit weren't we told we may have to pay to get into the EU. Ryanair have threatened to pull out all UK based aircraft. Happily all FR flights to NCL are based abroad. It's just a shame no passengers will be travelling on them.

[TSR2]

What a load of scaremongering tripe.

[HeartyMeatballs]

Indeed. Spending money means you don't get as good value abroad. I'm still waiting for the rest of Project Fear to come true.

Interestingly, as Ryanair 'pivot' away from the UK (despite announcing some two dozen new UK/EU routes in recent weeks and adding two aircraft to STN since Brexit) and remove all aircraft from the UK, easyJet & Jet2.com are committing 10 aircraft between LTN & STN in addition to the ever expanding LGW base.

[ATNotts]

Originally Posted by long_final

But the £ to € has been negatively affected, which doesn't seem to have put people off, especially when we consider the international increase. I suppose the All Inclusive types who never leave the hotel/take any Euros with them will be oblivious though.
It does seem odd that an airport that's had near enough zero growth or expansion since the start of recession around 07-08 is off to such a flying start to the year. Surely it can't all be down to FR.

Your average Joe doesn't have a clue on the value of sterling against anything when they book their trip, which many of them will have done 6 - 12 months ago. They only find out the exchange rate when they buy their Euros, or look at the credit card bill when they get home.

It's not so much the here and now airports and operators need to worry about, it's potentially this summer; but more likely winter 2017/8 and summer 2018, as whatever sterling is doing then, and it might indeed be doing very well (is that a formation of flying pigs I've just seen?) some people may base their holiday plans on how hard an unexpected hit they took on their wallets this year. Forward bookings to the USA suggest people are already doing this, but I imagine there's a certain "Trump factor" in play there too.

That horrendous word "staycation" will I expect rear it's ugly head in the media later this year.