OSTEND

[FLYAIR10]

Hello,
Could anybody tell which (British) airlines plan to start scheduled flights between Ostend-Bruges airport(OST) in Belgium and UK-airports? I read in belgian newspapers that there is quite some potential to set up a scheduled Passenger connection between Scotland (GLA/PIK/EDI) and OST. Also the airport has an EU approved incentive plan to help airlines in starting up scheduled flights between OST and regional airports.
In 2014 , it will be 100 years that WO I started and there will be lots of activities in the Flanders region (Ypres,Langemark,.. ) to remember this fact. Many UK families will come over to visit the numerous manifestations and the old battlefields of WO I (and WO 2 aswell). Ostend airport can be a major "port of entry".
So this could be an opportunity for airlines to set up scheduled connections with the British isles ( and hubs such as manchester and London airport(s) to attract also overseas tourists and business-men from e.g. Canada and USA).
On the other hand many belgians/Dutch/French from the Flanders area are willing to travel to UK/scotland/ireland by air, if the fares are right..
So, if anyone is aware of any airline considering to set up an air-connection with OST,it would be interesting to read this.. Grtz;

[ATNotts]

FLYAIR10

Interesting post, but I fear that the proximity of Ostend to Eurotunnel and many different vehicle ferry routes make flying to the UK ( or indeed UK visitors flying to Belgium) a rather unfavourable option.

For example, you can put 4 people into a car, and get a 5 day return on Eurotunnel for around £ 120.00 (€ 140.00) - so around £ 30 / € 35 per person. OK, so there's fuel to pay for, but provided you are fully tanked in Belgium (preferably with diesel!) you can avoid the higher fuel prices here. I really cannot see any airline, least of all Ryanair who dabbled in Ostend a few years ago, offering inclusive return fares (that is inclusive of all their rip-off add ons) anywhere near those levels.

I was in Ostend only a couple of weeks ago (by car) and clearly you have in OST, a very much under-utilised passenger facility, but a thriving cargo operation and I really cannot see much potential improvement in the PAX side, other than possibly grabbing a bigger share of the IT charter market to sunshine destinations.

I think that Manston in UK suffers from similar problems - proximity to Channel ports, and frankly a pretty small local market.

[EuroChallenger]

Not only the Channel Tunnel, but Ostend has it's own port with a few passengers crossings per day from Ramsgate.

[N707ZS]

He does say routes to Scotland which puts the petrol argument out of the window.

[goldeneye]

The only airline I can see operating to Scotland is Ryanair.

[FLYAIR10]

Thanks for your replies. Of course there is the proximity of the Channel tunnel, but the nearest eurostar station is farther away from Ostend,Ghent and Bruges. Not everyone is travelling with 4-5 people at a time. Also the ferry Ramsgate - Ostend only takes cars,no walking passengers. Catchment area for OST is 3-4 million people.
I never understood why Ryanair started with STN-OST and only that connection. They should be thinking of departure airports farther away from the chunnel such as Glasgow,Edinburg,Dublin to the west and Rome,Lourdes,Barcelona,Faro,... to the South . Berlin to the East. (As manston is doing with MAN & EDI flights by Flybe)
Flybe could be thinking of Manchester-OST. Aer arran/Aer Lingus could be starting up flights to Dublin year round and Shannon in summer.Besides the point-to-point traffic ,that would give some interesting connection possibilities to other UK and European cities ,and even intercontinental such as New York and DUBAI. (Belgium does not have yet a direct connection with this growing city). OST does not have scheduled flights,although the current charter flights are at least weekly and very popular indeed. Last year PAX traffic increased with 10,8 % as compared to 2009(213.000 PAX). So there IS potential ,but someone needs to discover and exploit it properly..

[rareair]

Is there a Tabac in departures? If so I could see a market for a 55 min turn around (just enough time to go shopping) with Aer Arran from SEN. No need to actually enter your lovely country.

There is a market in coach trips from Southend to Adinkerke so why not drop a line to the Stobarts.

Other than that, dream on!

[FLYAIR10]

Hey rareair,

London Southend would be a good connection indeed.There are defenitely some common interests between both airports.In the sixties/seventies SEN-OST was one of the busiest routes in the world! .That's the glorious past of course .But there must still be some immediate opportunities Maybe the stobart-group should invest in ostend airport aswell.
And if the point-point-traffic alone would not be sufficient,consideration is to be given to fit this sector in a longer stretched routing ,offering non-stop or 1/2 stop "through" flights for city-pairs involved.Should be seen as a "package" to be implemented together.
Examples: Edinburgh-London Southend-Ostend-Geneva
Belfast -London Southend-Ostend-Kopenhagen
Liverpool-London Southend-Ostend-Nice
Dublin-London Southend-Ostend-Hamburg
Manchester-Ostend-Jersey-Manchester & v.v.
Birmingham-Ostend-Milan
Newcastle-Ostend-Vienna
etc..
Which airline could fit this in their schedule? Flybe would be in pole position ,but others such as Eastern Airways (second hub on the continent?) ,aer arran,manx2,...might be interested in a part of the routings.
Sometimes dreams come through... and BTW,the above routings would allow UK Tabac-pax to make a quick dash in the Ostend city-center (4 miles)and be back at the airport before the return-flight is checking in.SEN-pax could maybe make 2 trips a day..
Grtz

[FLYAIR10]

OSTEND-BRUGES TRAFFIC FIGURES FEB 2012

Hello,
It has been a while I've been here.
For those interested... see below

Ostend-Bruges International Airport

Traffic figures 2012


Comparison between FEBRUARY 2012 and FEBRUARY 2011

Movements
2,110 in FEBRUARY 2012 compared to 2,435 in FEBRUARY 2011 (-13.3 %)

Passengers
9,153 in FEBRUARY 2012 compared to 9,388 in FEBRUARY 2011 (-2.5 %)

Freight/tons
4,094 tons in FEBRUARY 2012 compared to 5,567 in FEBRUARY 2011
(-26.5 %)


Comparison between the year 2012 and the year 2011

Movements
4,245 in 2012 compared to 4,886 in 2011 (-13.1 %)

Passengers
15,863 in 2012 compared to 16,805 in 2011 (-5.6 %)

Freight/tons
9,142 in 2012 compared to 11,735 in 2011 (-22.1 %)

source:Ostend Airport

[eu01]

Having visited both Ostend and Bruges last year I can only say: enchantee! Especially Bruges is a real gem - for me much more interesting than e.g. Brussels. This airport definitely deserves more attention due to the attractiveness of the region it serves and potential for inbound tourism.

[JSCL]

I fly to Brussels for Brussels usually once a month these days. I decided a holiday to Brugge last year flying in to Brussels. The train from Brussels to Brugge is very good, as is the taxi service from the train station to the hotels in the centre of Brugge.

The airport it seems could do with more attention, but very very seasonal in my opinion. Depending on it's future, I can see BMIR flights working from some Scotland airports to Brugge.

[johnnychips]

Antwerp (ANR) could be considered to be a similar airport to Ostend, the difference being that it can't handle jets. It can only support flights to Manchester and London City.

Belgium is a small country with a very efficient rail network. You can be in Bruges, or actually most places in Belgium about two hours after leaving Zaventem.

Charleroi has developed its own niche handling the low-cost carriers. Even though it has not got a station, you can be in Brussels in forty minutes. It is worth noting that even Ryanair couldn't make STN work to CRL.

The other notable airport in Belgium is Liege, in the French-speaking Wallonia. It is mostly a cargo airport, with holiday flights. Despite being Belgium's third city and being extremely close to Maastricht in Netherlands and Aachen in Germany, as far as I know it has never attracted flights from Britain or other parts of Europe.

[Expressflight]

I believe if JOIN Regional Airlines ever gets off the ground they are planning a Liege to London/Southend service.

[The SSK]

Antwerp (ANR) could be considered to be a similar airport to Ostend, the difference being that it can't handle jets. It can only support flights to Manchester and London City.

I've flown in and out of Antwerp on Sabena 737s.

(and Dakotas, F27s, Convair 440s, Heralds ...)

Natural advantages: I have walked to the city centre in 30 minutes.
Natural disadvantages: I have driven - at legal speeds - from Zaventem to Antwerp Airport in 35 minutes. The direct rail link from Zaventem to Antwerp city is just about complete.

A similar airport to Ostend would be Manston.

[Aero Mad]

I love the use of Manston as an adjective

[Phileas Fogg]

Having lived and worked in the (less than) delightful Oostende for some 2.5 years whereas it is/was a cargo airport that only sees/saw passengers on pitiful summer charters and/or in the event of an occasional diversion it remains an airport in a time warp of somewhere around the 1960's.

They obviously tagged 'Bruges' in to the airport title much the same as a mad Irishman's loco carrier has tagged a city title that people might actually want to travel to/from in to many a regional airfield(s) title, the Belgians and, perhaps, Dutch might enjoy Oostende as a holiday destination but the place is a dump, the tap water comes from the sand dunes, and tastes like it does, and as the sewerage is piped straight out to sea just wait until the wind blows inland ..... the stench is delightful!

And as for dog poo wherever one may tread, ... well that's another story!

[ConstantFlyer]

I can only say: enchantee!

eu01 - Be very careful saying this in Ostend or Bruges. Try 'aangenaam' instead.

[The SSK]

Liege [...] as far as I know it has never attracted flights from Britain or other parts of Europe

For those with very long memories, Sabena flew a daily Heathrow - Charleroi - Liège with, I think, a Beechcraft Queen Air.

Liège has had some odd connections in the past, possibly the oddest by a now forgotten regional airline Paris - Liège - Maastricht, the latter sector being less than 40 km.

[Steviec9]

Oostende is no more of a dump than many equivalent UK resorts - in fact, it's rather more delightful than many I could mention. However, it's never going to be a 'destination' for more than a handful of non Belgian/Dutch visitors.

It's heyday as a passenger airport has passed - as I have said elsewhere and earlier, I often travelled as a child on BAF from SEN-OST and clearly remember both airports as busy. SEN, after years in the doldrums, has re-invented itself as a regional airport serving a small number of high yield routes, using a large catchment area. OST will struggle to do the same - the catchment area is not there and BRU is only 40 minutes away. Belgium is a small country with good surface transport - it really doesn't need more than two international airports, which it has (BRU/CRL) and an additional niche city airport (ANR), the latter which is never likely to be expanded and therefore stuck with small jets and turboprop ops (again, I well remember the DAT F28 service from LHR). OST is probably stuck with its bit of charter traffic and its cargo ops.

The infrastructure at OST tells its history, not its future. Much the same as SNN. Just because you've got a long runway and a lot of land and a fair size terminal as a legacy from the past, doesn't always mean you will have the traffic in the future. Cheaper car ferries did for OST niche operations and the ability of long distance jets to cross the Atlantic without refuelling did for SNN.

[Phileas Fogg]

StevieC9

Yes, but the likes of Skegness don't have an airport proclaiming themselves to be somewhere that they are not!