Southend-2

[DC3 Dave]

I believe Adria have acquired 6 50 seat Saabs. I guess that's the most likely aircraft for the route.

[davidjohnson6]

Paderborn is a pleasant enough place to spend a few hours if you have nothing else to do, but it is not a place that tourists often visit

[Expressflight]

I would have thought their main target market is outbound traffic from the Paderborn area to London.

[Cyrano]

Originally Posted by Expressflight

I would have thought their main target market is outbound traffic from the Paderborn area to London.

Yes, I'd certainly agree. The Adria press release is here and the quote by the Paderborn Airport MD (who is presumably writing a very large cheque to Adria) seems to imply that the schedule is designed to meet the needs of Paderborn-area business travellers. The press release usefully shows the full schedule and it is clear that Paderborn-Zurich is the main priority by a mile, with Paderborn-Vienna and Paderborn-Southend as midday fillers.

[AirportPlanner1]

Originally Posted by Expressflight

I would have thought their main target market is outbound traffic from the Paderborn area to London.

There are also Brits in the area as a legacy from the MOD days where they had a base there. This is why for a few years Air Berlin flew to Southampton (and then Bournemouth) and Manchester until things first started unraveling for them. They also operated daily to STN for many years.

Pre-Air Berlin, there were charter flights from STN a couple of times a week with British World and later European.

When Stobart first launched European routes with the two ATRs, Paderborn was a route I was sure they would try as it seemed an obvious gap in the market having lost all its UK services.

[Barling Magna]

There are also Brits in the area as a legacy from the MOD days where they had a base there.

Aren't 20th Armoured Brigade still at Normandy Barracks near Paderborn....?

[LGS6753]

Pre-Air Berlin, there were charter flights from STN a couple of times a week with British World and later European.

Those flights were chartered from MoD, and BW won the business from Britannia, who had operated them for many years from Luton. Gatow and Gutersloh were amongst other airports served.

[virginblue]

IIRC Paderborn used to have London flights in the past when the old Eurowings served STN and LCY (and prior to that, IIRC, LGW) by way of a Eurowings minihub at DTM or FMO. Eurowings ran a few international routes by feeding an ATR42 at FMO or DTM with pax from PAD and DTM or FMO.

It is a very affluent area with many top tier German companies located there. Wort noting that PAD currently mainly relies on Lufthansa flights to/from Munich and Frankfurt that are well patronized by business travellers. Don't expect any low cost style pricing, not feasible with a Saab 2000.

[rowly6339]

Originally Posted by tophat27dt

Interesting one, talked about last year, but what is there to do in or near Paderborn?

Most of the British military still in Germany are based around the Paderborn area so very handy for troops wishing to get home instead of the drive/ferry/train. I used to fly back a lot when based in Bielefeld but mainly from Hanover as Paderborn didn't have many if any flights back then that were suitable for me.

[tophat27dt]

Originally Posted by rowly6339

Most of the British military still in Germany are based around the Paderborn area so very handy for troops wishing to get home instead of the drive/ferry/train. I used to fly back a lot when based in Bielefeld but mainly from Hanover as Paderborn didn't have many if any flights back then that were suitable for me.

So it sounds like a 70 seater has a good chance to make a profit. Adria are not planning to operate it as a low cost route.

[Fletch]

Flybe/Stobart Service

Having just tried to use the Stobart/Flybe service out of SEN it would appear that the wheels have well and truly followed off, with both operators also seeming to have lost the plot. Was this just bad luck or is this more endemic of problems with their operation out of SEN?
Hefty delays, positioners, cancellations and offloads could easily cost over £50k if everybody makes a claim on just 3 routes tonight.
Credit to the SEN staff on the ground who worked tirelessly despite no support from Flybe. Quite shocking how bad Flybe customer support actually was. And then there were the Taxi drivers....Back to Easy from LGW & STN.

[tophat27dt]

Originally Posted by Fletch

Having just tried to use the Stobart/Flybe service out of SEN it would appear that the wheels have well and truly followed off, with both operators also seeming to have lost the plot. Was this just bad luck or is this more endemic of problems with their operation out of SEN?
Hefty delays, positioners, cancellations and offloads could easily cost over £50k if everybody makes a claim on just 3 routes tonight.
Credit to the SEN staff on the ground who worked tirelessly despite no support from Flybe. Quite shocking how bad Flybe customer support actually was. And then there were the Taxi drivers....Back to Easy from LGW & STN.

I agree the airport taxi company is a disgrace, and I found the crazy drop off car park stressful to use, especially when one only has 3 or 4 minutes to escape through the exit barrier and is sitting in a queue of 5 cars and the front one is blocking everybody because their precious free minutes have expired. FlyBe do seem to be having a continued unlucky run of unserviceabilities with their fleet with no back up aircraft. I often wonder if Stobart Air will one day terminate their agreement with them and find a new partner airline.

[AirportPlanner1]

Er....it’s Stobart doing the flying, if anyone is going to do any dumping it’s BE. Though, as I’ve said before, it’s a bit of a mess because the E195s were BE aircraft.

I did find their ops decisions a bit odd....no idea why MAN couldn’t have operated on time. It could have gone to MAN and back and the GLA flight still wouldn’t have gone out much later than it did, or it could have been sent to Groningen on its return this avoiding cancellation with the EIR replacement flown in from Cork doing GLA. They must have had the crew around to do that.

On the positive side GLA must have had a good load fit there to be 30 or so left behind.

[AirportPlanner1]

More disruption today. The problem E195 from yesterday is still sick about 30 hours later. The afternoon DUB went out late, the return leg was operated by an ATR and the E195 came back empty. The evening DUB was a couple of hours late, MAN and Groningen delayed as well, and GLA was divided into two ATRs.

So 4 ATRs at the moment rather than the normal two

[Fletch]

I appreciate the effect that being a jet airframe down must have on their operation, but passengers getting home 27 hours late on domestic flights isn’t a good long term business strategy. Lots of people on phones rearranging meetings, etc. Stobart really need to get a grip quickly on their flight ops. As an aside, I actually found the airport quite user friendly, perhaps lacking hotel accommodation slightly and customer service staff but overall a decent airport I thought.

[Expressflight]

The Stobart Air SEN operational performance is totally unacceptable at the moment. To announce over three hour delays on the second and third DUB rotations today some eight hours in advance is not the way to go. If you have a seriously unserviceable E195 then you must sub something in and that doesn't mean adding an extra ATR as a sticking plaster. Finding sub capacity at this time of year can be difficult but it's not impossible and they should be doing just that.

[Barling Magna]

It's the sort of amateurishness that SEN was plagued with back in the early 70s - for goodness sake get a grip Stobart and lease in a replacement airframe to act as a standby. The school holidays start tomorrow...........

[EI-BUD]

With Ryanair coming into SEN, and easyJet well established there, you can take it that the need for Stobart(/Flybe) scheduled services will be less necessary. I don't see (/IMHO) this Stobart/Flybe arrangement continuing for long.

I see Stobart (/if they don't join forces with Cityjet/Nostrum, going fully into ACMI. This is again IMHO where their future opportunity from an airline perspective lies, I.e. ACMI, whether they join or not (Cityjet will pursue the EI R contract and this will bring a further need to assess their synergies).

I'm going slightly off topic above, but what does all this mean in the context of these reliability issues, it means their BE contract ends next year(??) And this is not their top priority.

[Expressflight]

The persistently troublesome E195, G-FBEF, seems to have gone to the Embraer facility at LIS this morning for rectification work. Whether this means that a replacement will temporarily be obtained from somewhere or that the delays will continue over the weekend only time will tell.

[fjencl]

Originally Posted by EI-BUD

With Ryanair coming into SEN, and easyJet well established there, you can take it that the need for Stobart(/Flybe) scheduled services will be less necessary. I don't see (/IMHO) this Stobart/Flybe arrangement continuing for long.

I see Stobart (/if they don't join forces with Cityjet/Nostrum, going fully into ACMI. This is again IMHO where their future opportunity from an airline perspective lies, I.e. ACMI, whether they join or not (Cityjet will pursue the EI R contract and this will bring a further need to assess their synergies).

I'm going slightly off topic above, but what does all this mean in the context of these reliability issues, it means their BE contract ends next year(??) And this is not their top priority.

How long do they have the EI R contract for.......??????