BELFAST CITY AIRPORT (BHD)
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Belfast
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I've just had a look at the BHD to LHR timetable for July and November on the BA website. In July, they appear to be alternating - one flight operated by BA and the next by bmi throughout the day. By November it's an all BA operation and there are six flights per day. No departure from BHD to LHR between 08.45 and 13.45
Join Date: Jul 2006
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I see BA fares to Lhr seem to start at £54, against £20 for EI from Bfs. I know BA will include one case, but this seems a big difference. How will this play out? Remember a lot of pax are only going as far as Lhr on this service, not all are connecting.
TB
TB
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Fares on BA v EI
True Blue
Its a bit more involved than £54 v £19.99 .
Most airports levy charges on departing passengers including LHR and BFS.
BHD ,unless it has changed recently, is an exception applying the charge to arriving passengers.
Therefore if you fly LHR/BHD , you pay 2 sets of charges - one lot deparing LHR and one lot arriving BHD , while conversely flying BHD/LHR there are no airport passenger charges applied deparing BHD and no charges on passengers arriving LHR.
IF you query oneway journeys on BA.COM ,throughout the month of Aug,the lead-in price for BHD/LHR is £37 everyday .For LHR/BHD the lead-in price is £81 everyday.
If you query a return journey , BA seem to be averaging out the taxes and the lead-in is around £54 eachway.
BMI lowest lead-ins were normally £29 for BHD/LHR and £39 for LHR/BHD and didn-t tend to change so much whether the sector was oneway or part of a roundtrip.Think is probably due to greater sophistication in the BA yield management systems and processes.
You will also see that if you do a roundtrip quote with dates flexible,you
are shown lead-ins over a 7 day period each way.Everytime you change the outbound date the system recalculates the lead-ins for the return journey,usually to match the outbound price.e.g. selected outbound £54.all 7 retun dates had lead-in £54.Changed outbound date to day with lead-in £56 , all return days changed to £56. I think the return sector prices may also vary depending on whether the journey involves a saturday night stay at point of turnaround.
Other points to note.
1/ The EI £19.99 on BFS/LHR incurs a £6 admin fee for most people plus £12 if you check a bag . Thats £38 v £37 on BA. Also on BA you get a free drink and nibbles....EI will charge abt £5 for a G&T and £1.50 or so for nuts or pringles.
2/If you are not parking and are flexible enough with Belfast airports
with a bit of research on both websites ,you can sometimes get the best fare by booking EI for the LHR/BFS leg and BA for the BHD/LHR leg rather than booking the rountrip on either carrier.
3/EI seem to be a lot cheaper if you want a flexible ticket option ( certainly if booking a few weeks in advance ). In Aug BA are quoting £286 each way ,EI are quoting £276 roundtrip. This may change on EI when they are selling the last few seats in the last 5-6 days to departure.
4/ The option to use Avios miles on BA is now available on the Avios website incl the reduced taxes/charges of £13.50 eachway.Also if you are using avios on an international flight frm LHR the BHD/LHR/LHR connections are free.
In summary a lot more research on-line is now required to get the best deal.
Its a bit more involved than £54 v £19.99 .
Most airports levy charges on departing passengers including LHR and BFS.
BHD ,unless it has changed recently, is an exception applying the charge to arriving passengers.
Therefore if you fly LHR/BHD , you pay 2 sets of charges - one lot deparing LHR and one lot arriving BHD , while conversely flying BHD/LHR there are no airport passenger charges applied deparing BHD and no charges on passengers arriving LHR.
IF you query oneway journeys on BA.COM ,throughout the month of Aug,the lead-in price for BHD/LHR is £37 everyday .For LHR/BHD the lead-in price is £81 everyday.
If you query a return journey , BA seem to be averaging out the taxes and the lead-in is around £54 eachway.
BMI lowest lead-ins were normally £29 for BHD/LHR and £39 for LHR/BHD and didn-t tend to change so much whether the sector was oneway or part of a roundtrip.Think is probably due to greater sophistication in the BA yield management systems and processes.
You will also see that if you do a roundtrip quote with dates flexible,you
are shown lead-ins over a 7 day period each way.Everytime you change the outbound date the system recalculates the lead-ins for the return journey,usually to match the outbound price.e.g. selected outbound £54.all 7 retun dates had lead-in £54.Changed outbound date to day with lead-in £56 , all return days changed to £56. I think the return sector prices may also vary depending on whether the journey involves a saturday night stay at point of turnaround.
Other points to note.
1/ The EI £19.99 on BFS/LHR incurs a £6 admin fee for most people plus £12 if you check a bag . Thats £38 v £37 on BA. Also on BA you get a free drink and nibbles....EI will charge abt £5 for a G&T and £1.50 or so for nuts or pringles.
2/If you are not parking and are flexible enough with Belfast airports
with a bit of research on both websites ,you can sometimes get the best fare by booking EI for the LHR/BFS leg and BA for the BHD/LHR leg rather than booking the rountrip on either carrier.
3/EI seem to be a lot cheaper if you want a flexible ticket option ( certainly if booking a few weeks in advance ). In Aug BA are quoting £286 each way ,EI are quoting £276 roundtrip. This may change on EI when they are selling the last few seats in the last 5-6 days to departure.
4/ The option to use Avios miles on BA is now available on the Avios website incl the reduced taxes/charges of £13.50 eachway.Also if you are using avios on an international flight frm LHR the BHD/LHR/LHR connections are free.
In summary a lot more research on-line is now required to get the best deal.
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Northern Ireland
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bmibaby's last day at BHD
Sad to say that there are only 4 arrivals remaining at BHD by bmibaby:
-1745 East Midlands
-1830 Amsterdam
-2050 East Midlands
-2120 Stansted
There are 3 stated departures including WW9771 to East Midlands, 1 to Stansted and one to East Midlands.
And a 4th not on the board, the 737 that comes in from Stansted, I imagine will not leave until tomorrow.
Best of luck to all employee's affected by the closure of operations at the airport by Bmibaby..
EI-BUD
-1745 East Midlands
-1830 Amsterdam
-2050 East Midlands
-2120 Stansted
There are 3 stated departures including WW9771 to East Midlands, 1 to Stansted and one to East Midlands.
And a 4th not on the board, the 737 that comes in from Stansted, I imagine will not leave until tomorrow.
Best of luck to all employee's affected by the closure of operations at the airport by Bmibaby..
EI-BUD
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Yep really sad the place will be a lot quieter. I flew out recently from STN on a near full a/c and back on a busyish flight too. Shame, they just seem to have got it going. BHD does really need an STN connection.
Join Date: Nov 2006
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eastern; yes you are right they did. They operated a daily service summer 1994, 146 service monday to friday, and a F100 on Sat and Sun. To my memory the LBA route shifted over from BFS and at that time there BHD did not have much of history of regular flights to/from London.
At that time we had to rely on BA Super Shuttle, bmi service or Britannia twice daily to LTN all from BFS!!
Looking back on some old literature that I have from the 90's in summer 1992, Air UK were operating BFS LBA, which was running quite a while. In that timetable, Air UK published Jersey European (BE) flights from BHD to LBA, so they 2 must have been co-operating on the routes in some way. As JY were doing 5 to 6 rotations on SH6 per day, whereas UK were doing a daily mon - fri SH6 from BFS!
At that time we had to rely on BA Super Shuttle, bmi service or Britannia twice daily to LTN all from BFS!!
Looking back on some old literature that I have from the 90's in summer 1992, Air UK were operating BFS LBA, which was running quite a while. In that timetable, Air UK published Jersey European (BE) flights from BHD to LBA, so they 2 must have been co-operating on the routes in some way. As JY were doing 5 to 6 rotations on SH6 per day, whereas UK were doing a daily mon - fri SH6 from BFS!
Join Date: Mar 2003
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The challenge I see is that BHD is now almost completely tied to Flybe. Other than the BA LHR link, the only airline that still serves BHD is Manx2 with 2-5 daily flights in a 19seater.
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Minor technicality I suppose but regarding Stansted. To suggest that all of these airlines have tried and failed is a bit disingenuous (sp?).
Ab were really only filling time that an aircraft had spare, there was no real drive to make it a success. FR were very successful on Stansted - loads were strong and allegedly yeilds were good - other routes (Bristol and Prestwick in particular) werent so good and combined with the runway ext debacle they left. Again baby loads on stansted were good but the whole airline has been culled - so again no reflection on the Stansted route. As for BE - well who knows?
Ab were really only filling time that an aircraft had spare, there was no real drive to make it a success. FR were very successful on Stansted - loads were strong and allegedly yeilds were good - other routes (Bristol and Prestwick in particular) werent so good and combined with the runway ext debacle they left. Again baby loads on stansted were good but the whole airline has been culled - so again no reflection on the Stansted route. As for BE - well who knows?
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Belfast, UK
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Heard the previously mentioned rumour on here, that EIR are to commence flights from BHD to LGW, BHX and MAN, the 3 busiest routes from BE. So EIR potentially deciding to cherrypick already well served marketfrom NI. Really, if true what will this achieve??? Cheap and cheerful from BFS on EZY and more business friendly schedules on regional frames from BE and BHD. So this will bring what to the marketplace???
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AB operted B11 from BFS and they were part of the AirBristol group I think, they had AB Shannon also, did they operate the Aberdeen London Express airline between Stansted and Aberdeen some time ago, late 90s I think.... also with B11