BELFAST INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT - BFS (Aldergrove)

[BFS101]

Is this becoming the norm now to charge for using the set-down areas at airports, do Leeds and Newcastle also charge for this, maybe I'm wrong??

People will ultimately try and avoid this charge, and will just lead to chaos around the airport, cars randomly pulling in to the side of the road to let the folks out. Like the muppets who still park and wait for arrivals at the roundabout towards the main car park at BHD rather than entering the set-down zone!!

My two most recent flights, both departing through BHD, and have to say a very pleasant and smooth experience, especially at security. Maybe my imagination, but the security staff at BFS usually have an atrocious attitude, like on a real power trip! Terminal at BHD is excellent, although no coffee or tea from Lavazza on Friday morning???

[ESCNI]

Liverpool Airport's drop-off/pick-up car park is free (for the first 10 minutes) and is about 100m from the terminal doors (when they are working!).

...unless, you are a taxi.

[gate 22]

You will have to pay £1 into a coin basket to exit the set down- no free time. Just another reason for passangers to prefer the airport down the road.

What BFS should do is concentrate on getting passenger numbers up thus increasing revenue, than introducing an annoying token tax for clients being dropped off. I mean probably alot of people will not even have a quid in their pocket when running someone to the airport and it will get their back up. What a stupid idea, is MOL on the board now.

[ILS25]

Tigger2k8. The real way for an airport to make money is to keep the passangers, airlines and staff happy and make the airport people friendly. BFS treat all three like s--- and will keep driving passengers (and more) down the road to Belfast City.

The £1 charge for simply dropping someone off will not only disgust the passenger but the good people (who are normally friends and family) doing them a favour. They will go home and quite rightly moan to everyone about the riduculous charge and the media is going to have a field day. This is not going to go down well with the public and will be another few nails knocked into the BFS coffin by Abertis.

I support BFS as my local airport but I am totally disgusted by the way it is being run.

Message to Mr J.D and Abertis. WISE UP you are slowly killing the place.

Message to anyone that agrees with me please post your thoughts, feelings and comments here and maybe it will be brought to the attention of someone that will do something about it !!!

[BFS101]

If all airports are going down this route, you can see why BFS would be tempted to follow and potentially increase revenue. Though if BHD decide not to impliment this, it could be a good marketing ploy to lure passengers away from BFS. From travel related website APH -

UK Airport Charges - APH.com

Some airports such as London Luton are now charging drivers £1 for a 10 minute slot to drop passengers in front of the terminal.This is aimed at reducing terminal congestion and deterring the environmentally unfriendly practice known as “kiss and fly”. Other airports such as Birmingham Airport and Newcastle are also charging a £1 drop-off charge but for 15 minutes.

Charges are a bit swings and roundabouts though. I like to take my car to the airport, so not to bother family or friends, especially if the flight is delayed coming home. For a weekend away, pre-booking at BFS is £4 per day in lond-stay, whereas at BHD last weekend I was charged £23 from Friday morning to Saturday evening in the long-stay, plus a little more for paying by debit card at the machine. I really begrudge that paying difference. I wouldn't dream of leaving my car at BHD for a week or more while away, yet at BFS can be fairly reasonable.

[tigger2k8]

ILS25, yes thats the obvious answer, and passenger numbers should be slightly better than expected this year, although the ash cloud has probably caused around 100,000 PAX less... the whole idea of a business is to make as much money as possible, an airport is a business... airports have been hit hard by the recession then closely followed by the ash cloud... that and throwing money into investments in the airport over the last 5 years (although little of the last 5 years investments are visable to passengers..) they have to get money back somehow.. if you want to send your view across to the airport, i advise you putting it in writing and posting it in, as that goes through "offical" channels..

EZY, who had their morming LTN-BHD divert to BFS today will be grateful of an airport close by, as will FR, BE and BMI... whoever was in the air traffic control tower earned every penny (and more) of their wages today, with all aircraft choosing 07 and the only way to get there is via bravo and travel down 25.... even looking at it all was headache material

eastconsbrook, no more crazy rumors these days?... i wouldn't feel sorry for the staff, id feel sorry for the person who makes decisions they will be sweating a little that all goes to plan, if they cant get the drain repair work finished by the time all the summer charters kick in, it will be very... very interesting

sky's4me, i agree with the hike to the likes of stand 14 or 15 in bad weather, not very pleasant, once the main terminal area has been upgraded i think its their plan to start construction on the pier, however it could be as long as 2013 before its operational....... even if the pier does take that long to come around, by the end of the year or early next year the marshalling and bus driving is to be handed over to the handling agents, so on bad weather days busses will be more available as its no longer up to the airport to find one of their staff to drive them.... the plans BFS have for the future will surely turn it into a modern day airport, sadly the management is hesitating about spending money until the airline business gets back to normal..

each airport has its good and bad points, sort of equals out... probably a good thing both BHD and BFS exist, as it supports a little bit of competition

[Torque2]

Tigger

Code:

with all aircraft choosing 07

all the aircraft 'chose' 07 because there is a tailwind limit of 10 kts for most and the wind exceeded that limit. It would not have been possible to operate both ends due to 180 degree turns not being allowed other than at the turning circles at the runway thresholds so under the operating restrictions ATC coped very well even with the go-arounds on top of the steady stream of diversions.

[tigger2k8]

I wasn't saying atc was doing a bad job or anything, I was pointing out that they definately had a lot of work to do yesterday making sure things went smoothly, choosing wasn't the best word to use though, I understand that the runways are selected depending on winds

[samsara]

There is no doubt conditions at bfs go from bad to worse As the "international" airport for ni the place is a disgrace As someone who has the pleasure of flying pax in from all over europe and indeed the world the first sight of that gruesome ramshackle terminal is to say the least embarrising.As for the taxiway closure approaching the busiest time of the year when there as been months of nothing going on - what is there left to say?

[tigger2k8]

Well a jet2, I'm assuming the LBA flight has damaged 2 of its main gear tyres landing, was able to come on stand under its own power.

Expect some news on some new routes by EZY, for winter / just after new year, some probably will be charters

[victoria73]

the work on the taxi way is well ahead of schedule should be finished week or two as for the set down first ten minutes are free to set down or pick passengers up Ezy had meeting few weeks ago happy with there Bfs operation so rumours of any more movement to Bhd untrue.


do we know what the new Ezy routes are going to be.

[True Blue]

I see further cancellations again at Bfs this evening by Easyjet. I am a frequent Ezy user, but I am beginning to wonder what this airline is playing at. This frequent cancellation of services is beginning to create doubts in my mind and others will be doing the same. If Ezy management do not see these problems and are not taking action to sort it, then in the long run Ezy will be in trouble.

True Blue

[tigger2k8]

the problem is that the standby crews that EZY would normally have active at this time of year are away being trained on the airbus, this includes both flightdeck and cabin crew as far as im aware,... so last week when there was 2 aircraft that went tech and created big delays that threw everything out of balance and messed up crew hours, currently EZY are using staff from other bases when there are problems with crew hours, but they are not staying in Belfast, instead being brought in on flights when needed...

who knows why it was left so late to train them could be poor planning or waiting for a space on courses or something else..

[BFS101]

It was mentioned that reinstating a direct Canada link was a big priority for the airport, with this year and last, the first period for ages with no direct flights. With having muliple Zoom flights per week to Toronto, Vancouver, and for a time Halifax, Air Transat, Skyservice and FlyGlobespan in years past to zero now is completely unacceptable.

Well Canadian Affair have launched their 2011 programme using Air Transat and Thomas Cook, and no flights from Belfast. Other UK regional airports are featured inc Newcastle, Exeter. This is really a bit of an embarrassment in my opinion. Anyone got any information on how the search for a direct Toronto / Vancouver link is progressing?

[ILS25]

victoria 73. Regarding the new set down I heard that you will drive in, set down, and throw a pound into a coin basket on the way out to raise the barrier. No ticket system will be in operation as it is only a through road and is not going to be in the car park (like BHD), so therefore no free time.

You may be right about the first 10 minutes but I can't see how they could do it if there are no parking spaces and no ticket system in operation.


BTW, The rumour is that BHD are also going to bring a similar scheme into operation, but are waiting until BFS do it first so thay take all the fleck from the media, Stephen Nolan etc etc. They then will sneak their scheme in later after the dust has settled.

Don't quote me on any of the above as I can only go with what I hear on the grapevine.

[dublinaviator]

I can't see Air Transat starting flights to Belfast given that they've expanded capacity in Dublin and Shannon. Tbh I think Belfast's only hope of any new long-haul connections will come from Aer Lingus, but they're unlikely to expand their long-haul network anytime soon, and I'm sure won't consider any long-haul routes from Belfast until the Irish economic situation has improved enough.

[BFS101]

While Air Transat expand from Dublin, there is still a huge demand, both inward and outbound from Northern Ireland to Canada. Zoom, while it came so a sorry end, showed just how much demand (potentially very price sensitive) there was with year round Toronto, Vancouver and a limited Halifax programme. Belfast has had a Canadian link for probably appraoching 20 years or more, with Air Canada operating 747, 767 and L1011's in the past, along with a whole string of different carriers.

Like Zoom, Globespan and Skyservice came to a sorry end, although with Globespan the tour operator, rather than the airline, operated from Belfast for many successful years using Air Transat with multiple flights per week.

While a scheduled service would be excellent, and hopefully EI may consider in the future, what we need in the short term is to get a consolidator or tour operator, like Canadian Affair or American Holidays, to restart this route.

[True Blue]

I see within the last day, Goldtrail has either replaced a large number of OHY flights with TRK, or added the TRK as extra flights. This is odd as it seems to be a very last minute decision. These are flights to Bodrum. Anyone any news on this?

True Blue

[dublinaviator]

Originally Posted by BFS101

While Air Transat expand from Dublin, there is still a huge demand, both inward and outbound from Northern Ireland to Canada. Zoom, while it came so a sorry end, showed just how much demand (potentially very price sensitive) there was with year round Toronto, Vancouver and a limited Halifax programme.

Yeh thats a fair point, but you also have to acknowledge that while there is a definitely a market there, most Canadians (like Americans) are visiting the whole of Ireland, not just 1 part of it, and Air Transat are obviously focusing their capacity in Dublin and Shannon in that regard. You say yourself the Zoom flights were price sensitive, and we know now that they were low yielding flights for Zoom, and it doesn't matter if they were able to fill the planes, they weren't making money from the flights. Also many of the flights Zoom operated from BFS, only connected through Belfast and actually originated in the UK, so you can't really use load factor as an indicator of the potential market size for a Belfast-Canada connection.

So again, while there is definitely a market there, its not just for Belfast, but for the whole island.

[BFS101]

Most Canadians (like Americans) are visiting the whole of Ireland, not just 1 part of it, and Air Transat are obviously focusing their capacity in Dublin and Shannon in that regard.

That is true of some I'm sure, but many, in fact the most I hear from are visiting family and friends, in both Northern Ireland or Canada. Northern Ireland originating passengers who want to visit family, I'm sure would much rather have the option of a BFS flight rather than Dublin, or as many also do, connect in LHR with Air Canada from BHD.

Again passengers originating in Canada with relatives / friends in NI, where their family have to drive to DUB, rather than the convenience of a BFS flight, or have to connect on the mainland. With family and cultural links between NI and Canada, (as with the ROI and USA), in my opinion would certainly give enough sustainable demand for at least a weekly flight, if not realistically more, as proven by the years of direct flights up until now. If relatives are coming home from Canada every year or two to visit in Northern Ireland, I doubt they'd be trekking around the whole of Ireland each visit.

Now while I have no information on the profitablilty of the BFS zoom flights, I believe thay started with a BFS-YHZ-YYZ, then went to two per week, the second originating in Cardiff, and also added a Vancouver link, also originating in Cardiff. In more recent years the YYZ and YVR operated year round. I would imagine that zoom saw some profit or reason for adding this capacity from Belfast.

Whether BFS got a dedicated flight, or shared with another UK airport (like the SNN DUB or NCL EXT combinations), I'm positive sustainable demand would be there, especially from the VFR traffic.