I think CO will struggle to fill a 757 every day from BRS!
How long will it go before they simply merge it with SNN on a split 767 as mentioned above.

At the end of the day, they have to make money, if the passengers aren't there, they will pull or alter the route.

Before any Bristolians jump down my throat and say the demand is there, of course it is, but it will have to be a consistent load factor for it to work!!

Terrier, Think no 8 is coming June isn't it? or is there already 8, i dunno all i see is a sea of Orange at BRS, so are they planning to bring in 2 a/c in june? , i thought no 9 was gona be about Oct time.

Also intresting stuff came out in this master plan, friend of mine went to meeting about it all, No new terminal is planned but a 60-100% increase in current terminal, no runway extention planned, and old terminal coming down in nxt 4 years for more stands, a new office block/hotel/garage all being looked at, as well as more parking
:ok:

Sorry my mistake I ment number 8 (cold, numb digits in the morning!!)

Intresting news about the old (now admin) terminal, Where will all the management Go?!

Heard eventual possibillities of a multistory car park to be built this will obviousley save space. What about building car parks by the Weston Junction and running frequent bus services up to the airport. All of this area is going to be turned into housing eventually why not buy some of it and use it for something productive?

When I first heard the figures 8.1 million by 2015 I laughed as I thought this would be reached well before 2015 things must be slowing down!!!

***When I first heard the figures 8.1 million by 2015 I laughed as I thought this would be reached well before 2015 things must be slowing down!!!***

Things will slow down.
Bristol has seen a hectic expansion of flights in the last 3 years. It will start to slow now - it will obviously keep growing but not in the way it has. Airlines such as EZY will start to refine their programme with the odd additional route/ac.

Windsheer

Please don’t take this as my trying to be clever as this is a genuine question posed in the spirit of trying to learn. How is it likely that if Bristol cannot fill a daily CO 757 to EWR a combined Shannon and Bristol flight could fill a larger 767? I thought that the Shannon area was a fairly rural part of south west Ireland, or is it your view that the SNN end would be mainly travelled by people emanating from the USA, given their historical links with Ireland?

Or is it being suggested there are enough people in Shannon to ‘go halves’ on a daily 767 service with an area of Britain that is the most populous south of Birmingham and west of London, also an area with the second highest GDP in the country outside the capital?

Furthermore, is it envisaged the route would be EWR-BRS-SNN-EWR? Not an enticing prospect for overnight Ireland-bound passengers to have to fly to England first, wait on the ground for an hour or two before hopping over to Shannon to be offloaded. If a stop were to be made at SNN in both directions this would merely make things unappetising for Bristol pax and would it make economic sense for the airline anyway?

I don’t know how the Bristol public would take to a SNN stop, even if it was only on the outbound. The business community would not be keen and some might then go back to LHR for greater choice, as has been suggested. I suppose the success of the route depends largely on business pax anyway. If they can fill the sixteen business/first seats on the 757 each time, then a slightly lower loading at the back presumably would be tolerated.

I have not seen any public statement as to how bookings are going. Is there some suggestion they are not as good as was hoped?

terrier

I don't know if you have read the BRS Statement of Intent. It can be downloaded from their website in PDF form. I commented on some of the points raised in the Statement in my post above.

BRS has had an annual passenger growth rate of 13.3% over the past ten years, more than twice the UK average. It forecasts an annual average passenger growth of 6.3% from now until 2015, thereafter dropping to 2.9% until 2030. This is how 8.1 million pax at 2015 and 12.5 million at 2030 are arrived at.

In fact, it is only in percentage terms that the figures drop spectacularly, and 13.3% would be unsustainable over the next ten years surely.

In actual passenger number terms there wouldn't be that much difference between the last ten years and the next ten: a growth of just over 3.5 million compared to a growth of just over 3 million.

Finally, Ibiza was one of Go's routes when they started at BRS in 2001. With Rome it was the only route out of BRS that Go dropped. Well, we know easy have brought back Rome so perhaps they will do the same with IBZ but, as you and WATABENCH suggest, probably only as a summer route.

One sunny winters eve, WATABENCH was driving through Trowbridge town centre, when something caught his eye, my my my he said, surely it cannot be, as the object got closer his heart started to pound faster with beads of sweat running down his neck, and then there it was, WATABENCH stopped and open jawed admired the site before him, for there in all its glory and not before time was a Continental Airlines billboard poster advertising the BRS-EWR route, Wow WATABENCH said, I've never seen one before, it was a sight to behold.
Seriously though 6 months its taken them to advertise this prestigious route outside of the airport, has anyone else seen any posters before this one?:ok:

Really makes a change Bristol advertising flights from Bristol it's normally advertising BHX services like the BA ones last year!!!

On Airport news the new Echo bar Airside has opened. It will be serving Hot table service food.

Slightly away from topic but these billboards are appearing all over Belfast as well advertising the forthcoming BFS - EWR service from the end of May.

WATABENCH

I was going to mention your very point in my last post but I had already expended too much verbal diarrhoea as it was.

I have not seen any local advertising for the BRS-EWR route other than those at the airport and on airport publications such as timetables.

I remember last year that every Bristol bus seemed to carry adverts either for easyJet or Flybe out of BRS - paid for by those airlines no doubt.

Daft if you ask me though MV, i drove through Bristol the other day and nothing, yet they manage to put one up in Trowbridge of all places, oh well at least its a start, not long know and we might here bout this FCA BRS-SFB with any luck, fingers crossed lads!

In the winter, the existing flight to Ireland goes EWR-DUB-SNN-EWR, and it's on the ground for an hour or so in DUB, then it goes on to SNN, so SNN pax are well used to an indirect flight.

During the summer, both DUB & SNN are being served by 767-400's so the volumes are there, but in the winter, they have been dropping back to the 757, serving both.

That has downsides, the main one being that they can't carry palletised freight in the winter, the 757 is bulk loaded, and by the time the pax bags are in, if they can get 2 tonne in hold 5, they are doing well.

If, and I admit this is pure speculation, but speculation based on using both BRS & DUB for many years, they put a 767-200 on to BRS-SNN, that would allow palletised freight to both BRS & SNN, which would mean they could then develop the freight business from both DUB & SNN, as there would be year round wide body availability. If the loads are there, even a 767-400 could be run to BRS, as with a short hop to SNN on the outbound, there would not be the problems of runway length that might otherwise arise.

Another possible BIG plus is that if they did it right, the BRS pax could be pre cleared by immigration at SNN, and believe me, having done it quite a few times, to clear immigration at SNN or DUB is a real time saver compared to queuing for ever at EWR or MCO or whereever the flight lands first.

Either way, CO to EWR will be a good flight for BRS, as long as it's properly marketed, it should do well, CO are one of the better operators on the North Atlantic run, and there is a lot to be said for not having to travel to London to get the flight.

Merchant - sorry for the delay in the reply!


SNN compared to BRS - two entirely different entities.
Firstly, have you seen the prices on the CO BRS prices, STEEP, Fffing vertical!!
Such is the British mentality, that most westerner's would rather have the cheap flight from LHR or LGW, pay the fuel and the parking, and fly from London ( and end up paying the same!).
Secondly, good faithfull Irish folk have SNN, or DUB to do their longhaul from so there is plenty of demand!
No-one said a 'split flight' had to be 50/50, could be whatever CO fancy!!

Cheers all:=

I think were all getting a bit ahead of ourselves with this CO deal, Going on previous sales experiance, carriers to the US like to test the market to see what people will pay when they open up new routes, CO will be doing this at the moment, prices will eventually come down to the same as you would pay to go out of somewhere like BHX, and lets not forget this flight is a two way thing, it going to attract people from all over the US/South America/Caribbean and Canada, and will probably do ok from Far east pax, who would find NY quite a nice little stop over i would think, The Bristol/Bath area is one of the most prosperous in the UK so who can blame CO for putting on high prices to start with. Also Bristol has a massive Business and Financial centre which houses some large companies who operate worldwide Orange and IBM, to name two, also we have 2 of the biggest tourist attractions in the UK within a 2 hour drive of BRS Roman Baths in Bath and Stonehenge, If you need an idea of just how many tourists visist the area just go into Bath on a Summers day, guarenteed you'll either have a Yank asking you for directions to the 'Rooooyal Puuuuump Roooooms' or a japanese person asking you where he can buy more Fuji Films as he's used his last 24 pics on pictures of you scratching your arse!!(no offense intended to the good people of Japan or the US)
We have some of the most historic cities and towns in the country on our doorsteps Bristol/Bath/Cardiff/Salisbury and Wells to name a few, we have some of the best countryside in the whole of the UK, and probably the best Coastal areas and beaches in the country from Cornwall to Pembrokeshire, I think deep down this route is going to do great both I/B and O/B, As Irish Steve said CO are one of the best at covering the North Atlantic crossings and know their stuff, yeah its easy to mock them for not advertising(hands up) and yes it possibly would be a good idea to stick a 767 on the route, and yes it may possibly have to tech stop(just for you Windsheer) but, i think CO will know exactly what they're doing and we should support them with it all, this is a route we've all been crying out for and now its nearly here we keep haveing a go and putting CO down, we should be praising them for being adventurous and putting their faith in BRS instead of the other place over the bridge.
This has been a party political broadcast by the WATABENCH party, who is probably too tired to talk sense but had a go any way, much like the Labour party really ha ha:ok:

You get my vote WATABENCH in the upcoming general elections!!!

Of course you are right we have some of the best tourist areas in Britain on our door step but because we see them every day we take them for granted, I live in weston and havent been on the beach there for 2 and a half years!!!

Talking about weston-super-mare did you know that the beach race is the third highest viewed event in the British sporting calender (Gran prix is number 1 I believe but I can't remember the 2nd). Who knows with the CO flight arriving if its publicised in the right way there may be more people there than at the Grand Prix!!!

T21

Many thanks to Irish Steve and Windsheer for their comments and explanations regarding CO and Shannon.

As for ticket prices on BRS-EWR, when the route was first announced they caused some unfavourable comment in the Bristol media so, at that time, I did some random price sampling on CO’s own website booking engine. I also checked the price from BHX for the same random dates that I chose. The fares for both BRS and BHX routes were identical.

I repeated the test a couple of months ago with broadly similar results: there were minor differences but sometimes BRS was a bit cheaper, sometimes BHX.

I spent twenty minutes playing with the CO booking site again today (I know I ought to get a life but that's one of the virtues of being a retired old git!) and came up with some interesting results.

Again I put in random dates for non-stop CO flights to EWR from BRS, BHX and this time LGW as well,
taking the cheapest options for each period (BHX and LGW have more than one rotation per day). The following were the return economy fare prices, all taxes and charges included, and in USD funds, rounded to whole dollar.

4-10 June: BRS 932 BHX 923 LGW 858

21-25 July: BRS 1172 BHX 1211 LGW 1147

8-18 August BRS 1172 BHX 1308 LGW 1147

It appears on this evidence that the BRS fares are no more expensive than those from BHX and LGW. Whether BHX and LGW are cheaper via a booking agency or independent booking engine I don't know.

I tried business/first from BRS on a couple of the dates and it ‘only’ came out at 2225 USD for the return journey.

A random period in April from BHX gave 646 USD (BRS doesn’t start until 20 May).

I’m not sure how accurate or meaningful CO’s web seat selector is as regards tickets sold, but some random dates later in the summer that I tried in the seat selector showed on average 20-30 economy seats and 4-6 business/first seats not available (presumably sold).

I don't know whether I am reading this last bit incorrectly and that some seats might routinely be held back and not yet actually sold.

terrier,

The Bristol Balloon Fiesta attracts half a million spectators to Ashton Court each August, and I think the Badminton Horse Trials might be number one or two in UK sporting crowds.

Sorry if that info was incorrect I picked it up out of a newspaper, cant remember which one.

When you go onto Continentals website you can change the country you are from therefore giving the booking dates in the correct order (!!!!) and the price in GBP, but does anyone know if it works out cheeper if your assumed as an American Citizen ie booking from the US page or Uk on the UK page or do the prices differ if your travelling say 20 June BRS-EWR 27 June EWR-BRS or vice versa?

EDIT: Just remebered The figures for attendances was for a single day such as the final day of the Bike Race which I think over 150k people turned up to try and see or compete last year. (How do they count them?)

Some interesting points coming forth - glad to see the BRS prices compete with the LGW's.

If we are talking about landmarks in the west, we are forgetting the most significant - WALES!! Give us our stone henge back you thiefs!
:p

Stonehenge back? thats proposteurous(is that how you spell it) anyway i'd of though CWL airport is as monolithic as you could get ha ha ha.
Did anyone else see the post regarding EMA/BRS becoming 319 bases by end of year? not much about BRS on that posting more EMA, i know Terrier read it, and just for him, the 319s don't have any extra capacity, still 150 as far as i'm aware mate, i shall have to investigate more with my contact at EZY.:ok:

easyJet A319s have 156 seats, an extra 7/8 compared to their 733/73Gs

Cheers Graham, I stand corrected.