cuthere apparently that was always the plan from the Press Conference

So literally a doubling of opening hours, no doubt that will be funded by the grant too?

Cheesymark, the Gov piblicity on the route released last night clearly stated the flights would begin on March 26th. Hence my surprise.

EI-BUD. Exactly.

There are numerous airports around the world with very few scheduled flights that are faced with the same challenge. While it obviously drives up costs, it does not mean that all employees sit around idle for seven hours. As much as this will suck, they will have to work split shifts.

No I agree I was surprised as when then first talked about the PSO they were looking for the PSO to start on 26th March. It was a very strange press conference especially around the funding with COD paying 12%

Parking up for 8 daylight hours makes no sense however holding out for additional funding from the Stormont route development fund as opposed to just the Westminster Department of Transport PSO (which only supports London routes) makes perfect sense.

Watch this space.

It is not unusual that a PSO operation sees the aircraft sitting on the ground for a long time (see, for example, DND-STN). As the operation is subsidised, normal rules of economy do not really apply. Plus two rotations daily probably makes crewing easier and there is no risk that additional flights at the airline's own commercial risk mess up the PSO operation (my guess is that there are penalty clauses in the PSO contract).

rumoured that the airport are now chasing a service to manchester, could BMR do this in between STN service?

Would there be time to do both Manchester and Birmingham between the PSO flights, both of which were named as priorities for the route development fund.

Alternate days maybe?

The airport economics look a little " challenging". The early shift see the London out a 6 then sit around till it comes back at 10, then nothing till the Ryanair Glasgow flight arrives at 3 pm and a flurry of activity to see off the Glasgow flight at 4 along with the London flight at 530, then sit around till 9 ish. 17 hours open all for a maximum of 50 passengers each way twice a day plus the Glasgow passengers . Its hard to see how this is worth the £3.8M subsidy plus the airport losses when there are 2 perfectly good airports just down the road ? If the airport was turned in to a sporting facility it would have the same number of jobs and there would be no loss of connectivity due to the close proximity to the other airports without the rate payers having to pay out millions. bb

Some more positive news LDY-LPL increased frequency to 4 x weekly from November.

Good news, have you a link? Could BMI-R do alternate days to BHX & MAN? 3 days to MAN on the days that FR aren't flying the Liverpool route?

Great news.

The North West is a very deprived region as it is, any removal of services is devestating and anyone who takes joy at seeing this happens can only be described using the word "Schadenfreude"

bad bear, Where does the suggestion of turning it into a 'sporting facility' come from? Are there proposals to do so, and what sort of sporting facility would take up the size of an airfield? (I'm an interested observer from afar but don't follow the NI media :) )

Flew Stansted to Derry yesterday, flight was rammed.

Not surprising, a 6pw route isn't dropped suddenly because of loads.

Literally all Ryanair flights are rammed with 95 per cent load facors systemwide (even discounting no-show that Ryanair traditionally counts as well):

So by that logic, no route should ever be dropped by Ryanair. But 95 per cent load does not necessarily mean that you make money. I need to travel tomorrow domestically in Germany and just for the fun, I had a look at Ryanair's offering. 36 hours before departure they were selling tickets for 25 GBP. So the plane will probably be rammed, but not earn money.

Which is generally the case when Ryanair has competition. Ryanair don't significantly discount fares on long established routes with no competition.

Skyscanner...

£69 return, free bags, sandwich, g&t, check in, seat reservation...🙂