Damn right Standard Noise,
And well on course to hit and exceed the yearly target by the looks of things, Also it's made every flight without refueling and has only diverted a couple of times I/B due to bad wx, now wheres my old chum Windsheer gone? Ahh yes he must be in the kitchen getting a glass of water to help those words go down:E
Luv ya really Windy!

Now, now Watabench, no gloating. No need to be horrible to the nasty wee man!

Announced today that from 1 June this year BRS will have another scheduled German route to go with Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen.

It is Dusseldorf.

BA Connect say that Dusseldorf is their most requested business destination from Bristol, so they are giving it a go. Web timetable shows a mid morning departure from Bristol, arriving back mid afternoon (six rotations per week - none Saturdays).

The not-so-good news is that the FRA appears to have reverted to single daily (vide Mayfly), so presumably that is why they have an aircraft available for the new service.

On a different topic, I note that Macquarie Airports have an option to buy Ferrovial's 50% stake in Bristol Airport, and thus own BRS outright, should the Spanish group be successful in their bid for BAA and their part-ownership of BRS leads to competition issues.

Good news on the DUS route, the airport have been banging on trying to get that for a while now.
Just heard that FCA may still have some more tricks up their sleeves, I've also been told that there is an increase in capacity for Summer 07 with XLA and looks 90% certain that TCX will base 07 year round - Future looks bright again for the bucket and spaders at BRS, fingers crossed!

Have heard rumours FCA will base 1 x 757 instead of 2 x 321s from Summer 07, with the reintroduction of a TCX A320 Base

so summer is almost here, no sign of any the new equipment that as you say is needed, except the thing that looks like a milk float with cross country tyres, whats that all about ?. another efficient year to come!!! :ok:

Air Southwest's first flight from BRS-NWI on the 10/4/06 is FULLY BOOKED! looks promising, i feel there is a good chance of it goint 2xdaily!

Bristol Ground
 

Why doesn't Bristol ever seem to make use of a ground frequency?

I find it extremely annoying to be on a two mile final waiting for a 'pretend Nigel' to finish chatting on the tower frequency while I'm waiting for a landing clearance. This happens alot and the tower frequency always seems to be occupied more by ground calls than anything else. What if someone needed to get a mayday call out?

Staff shortages? Training? Costs?

Just get it sorted out I think. Any opinions?

BRISTOL HANDLING
 

Does anybody know of a rumour that servisair has lost the ground handling contract with easyjet and firstchoice at bristol(uk).
Talk amongst easy crews is that this would take place at the end of the summer and menzies is a possible new candidate for the contract.

The latter I suspect, given that the airport authority would need to pay for the additional controllers necessary.:confused:

Yes this seems to be very likely.

In BFS I heard that Menzies will setting up base in BRS later this year and will be handling easyjet.

I think Menzies will take over all easyjet contracts in UK bases at some stage.

Thank God for that. For months the handling has been appalling at BRS by Servisair - chimps could do better.

There has been an ongoing battle with the ramp chimps - the dispatcher and ground staff not involved in baggage handling/pushback are generally quite good, but a big cleanout of grunts is required.:*

Wonder what will change really as BA have their own ground crew & dispatchers but still have servisair baggage handlers & pushback crews.All it means is that check in staff & dispatchers will have the chance to work for a different handling company for possibly less money.

Easyjet have requested as of the 1st of may for servisair to have deadicated easyjet crews to turnround just their aircraft, like servisair have ramp crews at the moment to turnround all aircraft. Easyjet has also reported after watching the ground handling operation by servisair, that there has been a huge improvement of service, turnround times and commiuncation between flight deck and groundcrews before and during pushback. And that they are happy with the service servisair is providing them, they just want them to have a few more staff and more equipement for the extra aircraft which will be based here in july. To bring the total number of EZY aircraft based here to 9, so it looks like servisair may not lose the contract after all. Watch this space and wait til August/September time when the contract released, til then we got another busy summer ahead of us guys!

Does any one know if air southwest will be basing a aircraft at BRS could the 10th of this month when the NWI service starts? Any new charter airlines operating this summer or interesting movements?

It would make a lot of sence to have ground operations at BRS, as it would free the tower up with calls from flightdecks to push and start off stand,etc. To focus on aircraft holding, taxiing, landings, appoarch and finals, etc as in the summer months it can get quite busy with alot aircraft trying to contact the tower all at once.

Hello rampboy.

Yes, WOW will be basing a DH-8-300 at BRS from Monday.

Can't help with the summer charters I'm afraid as I haven't a clue what the full programme is, let alone the carriers.

Summer charters, off the top of my head: on a weekly basis, 3x Air Europa, 3x Balkan Holidays (high season), BritishJet MD90 on a Saturday evening, Pegasus on Monday evenings, Sun Express 757 Monday mornings, Spanair have their usual Ibiza on Friday mornings, Trade Air are back operating the Saturday Split, SN Brussels have the Olbia at least in May, Eurocypria on Sunday evenings, LTE are still around, and the based DP/BY/JN/VZ/MT and KM aircraft. I've probably missed something out!

I've heard nothing but this rumour about S-AIR losing EZY and FCA, I 've noticed a lot of honchos watching the minions lately where EZY are concerned but not FCA, EZY have a massive problem with check-in queues at BRS which could of been easily avoided had they just plonked them into the 2nd check in hall out of the way, unless the airport do something very soon this is going to be awful come 3 weeks time, the poor EZY punters regully queue back to the main entrance doors and into the 2nd hall, its just ridiculous! As for Jetset, well FCA have their GOC's who are there to basicaly make sure service level agreements are met day to day and look after the airlines intrest, watching the goings on they seem to have a great rapport with all at S-Air and seem happy with the service provided, obviously they're going to notice things on turnaround etc that other charters wouldnt as they go out to the a/c, i think EZY are just putting the wind up s-air, there would be a lot of questions asked in s-air head office if their operation in BRS lost essentially their biggest 2 contracts, I cant see them losing either personally I hope for the sake of a lot of jobs that i'm correct!:uhoh:

It really is about time the management at Brs stopped beating arond the bush and coughed up for the dedicated ground controller.
Brs is pretty unique in that its mix of traffic includes very busy scheduled/charter sector, professional training, rotary ops, night freight, and on the weekends during the rare occaisions that the weather is good the G.A traffic also adds to the mix!.
As well as this during the summer months especially, the poor old tower controller has to keep an eye on local ballooning and gliding action as well!!:eek: .I am also bored with hearing "ground frequency closed"on the ATIS for about the past three or four years.
Sort it out