BELFAST AIRPORT INTERNATIONAL

[BHD2BFS]

Also says that Bristol will be served by a larger aircraft, maybe Belfast will get a 320 permanently

[mart901]

It will pay EZY to make a move with such things now if EI really do go into competition with them domestically. Goes to show competition is the life of trade!

[BHD2BFS]

with ezy adding 4-5 more flights a day, if EI do leave the loss may not be very noticable because am i right in thinking that EI only have about 6-7 flights a day? also this cant be very good news for BE, will we see them reduce capacity on EDI and MAN, obv eazy launching MAN has been very successful

[AIRPORT66]

AIRPORT66

And lets not forget the BHX route.

[mart901]

Yep BE probably have most to loose. EI seem more able to handle price competition when you look at how they handle FR for instance. It will be very interesting to see how the market pans out and will it carry 3 operators on some routes. The bigger city routes like BHX,MAN,LON probably can, I'm not sure about the scottish ones. One thing of course BE does have at its disposal is a flexible fleet including loganair franchise which could be used to maintain frequency whilst reducing capacity.

[frg7700]

It all hinges around LHR IMO.

Will BA stay?

[SecondDog]

It all hinges around LHR IMO.

Will BA stay?

Not likely, EI have probably sussed/been told by BHD that the only BD/BA left over after October will be the EI/BA codeshare. That would justify them going there even if all the other routes fell by the wayside.

[frg7700]

Pretty much my thinking on the matter.

[Mlinnie]

In my opinion I think Easyjet will perform the best on this new competition. But I can't believe Aer Lingus are switching operations to city to serve routes which are already well enough served by BE/EZY what good is gonna come out of this ? Belfast needs to attract new markets, the majority of flights out of both Belfast airports are to the UK and bucket and spade destinations ! Look at Dublin, Cork or even Knock. At least they can sustain a german route even Kerry can ! Look at the places Dublin serve that Belfast don't ! Scandinavia, Germany, U.A.E. and Canada. Basically this is all were you can go from Belfast, UK,USA,Spain,Portugal,France,Poland,Holland that's the only year round destinations available ? Come on catch a grip we want to go to NEW places, not Benidorm for 2 weeks every single year ! Surely there are demand for new services to NEW countries

[mart901]

I don't think any extra competition will harm the consumer or the tourism trade for domestic pax but quite right N.I. needs a broader spread of routes/destinations.

[frg7700]

Needs or wants?

"Needs" to me suggests that there is a demand which is not being serviced.

[Aerlingus231]

If there was enough demand for an airline to make a profit, they'd be there serving those destinations. Fact is there's not, so they're not there.

[clareview]

Airlines do not open routes jsut because a few people are fed up with Benidorm. Airlines open routes where their research suggests there is a profit to be made. That profit requires large numbers of people wanting to fly the route, regularly and,for non holiday destinations preferrably all the year round.

Business is business and its profit that drives business

[BFS101]

Or routes that are profitable, but the airline feels it could get a greater return on an alternative route. Standard phrase from the FR fans. The BHD domestic routes were profitable, but FR felt it could make more money somewhere else. Fact or fiction, who knows??

Was Berlin profitable for EZY?? Perhaps, but maybe they felt the aircraft could be better used doing a rotation down to Malaga?? Prague went from 3 weekly to daily with LS back in the day, then EZY came along. Before long we had no Prague route. Does that mean it was never profitable, or competition and surplus capacity ruined the route for everyone??? Competition, good?? All the time??? Really??

[tigger2k8]

I think the increase of flights by EZY seems like another hint that the move to BHD by EI to perform domestic routes is happening... once WW moved and started competing with EZY on their routes we saw increases in frequencies, this to me, looks like the same scenario, different airline.

I wonder if EZY will keep a 6th aircraft in BFS for winter?

As for PRG, it was once a very popular route, i believe sector length came into it too, as they could squeeze 2-3 shorter flights in with the aircraft.. WW did try BFS-PRG a year or so after EZY stopped the route, but i believe this wasn't very popular

[BHD2BFS]

Will the extra flights in the mornings to London and Glasgow mean they ezy will be basing extra ac

[mart901]

bearing in mind the increases don't come into effect untill the winter timetable would they not be sourced from existing a/c which will have less rotations to perform? what will be interesting to see now will be the reaction to all this from the flybe camp.

[Mlinnie]

Well the is still the whole story with ezy launching two new routes (which I think are more than likely Lanzarote & Tenerife now that Aer Lingus are apparently going) so yeah it could be a possibility that a 6th aircraft is based at BFS, maybe an a320 ?

[tigger2k8]

bearing in mind the increases don't come into effect untill the winter timetable would they not be sourced from existing a/c which will have less rotations to perform? what will be interesting to see now will be the reaction to all this from the flybe camp.

Depends on how they perform the routes, at the minute, in the winter schedule, i think the 5 base aircraft are doing all doing domestic flights first thing in the morning, unless they are not as early morning as you would expect, normally gaps in the winter schedule between 0930 and 1200

If EZY do start ACE/TFS i think the A320 will be required, as it can take more fuel as it has an increase MTOW, i may be wrong but i think EZY's high density A319s with full bags and pax could run into issues

[BHD2BFS]

Are the MPs of NI clueless or is it just bad journalism. Today it has been reported that MPs have stood up to ensure BA maintains Belfast to LHR very important link ( ok so far) and that our BFS-LHR link is crucial to our economy
1st of all can DUP's not fly on a certain green airline
2nd are they aware that BA would be covering the link from BHD and not BFS
It seems as if they will only fly on BRITISH airways that has taken over BRITISH midlands and don't recognize AER lingus
If slots are soo important to BA why don't they say just do 2 rotations a day with a A321 and get EI maintain it's level from BFS