The delays we're due to the security alert being heightned earlier in the week. Everything is back running to normal schedule now.

Does anyone have any factual info relating to the loads Arann are achieving on their new Luton route? This was introduced very rapidly with very little lead in time before the route commenced. I am not anticipating the passenger loads to be good, but who knows?

Luton-Newquay
 

Buster

The CAA provisional stats for July show 699 pax, if the service started
on 3/7/06 as per the press release (did it?) then 36 rotations = 19.41
pax per flight if all the flights operated.

I am not sure if it did start on 3/7/06 but 699 pax is only provisional
but at least a proper indicator.

Pete

OltonPete

Understand there were 32 rotations in July which equates to 21.84 pax per flight. August, to date, is showing a considerable improvement on these figures, but still has some way to go before the operation would be considered a good success.

As BTB said previously, the route was a very late introduction, with virtually no lead time. Since it is almost totally leisure orientated, many would-be travellers had already made their travel plans, some of whom may well have used the service if they had known about it earlier. Better luck next year perhaps.

Does anyone think that an onward connection to EXT would work with the ORK route? Air Wales were starting to get reasonable loads to ORK before their demise. This would seem to me to be an ideal solutuion.

Newquay airport sees BA return
 

Apparently BA are going to announce their return to Newquay with a daily service to LGW. How bizarre given that they are selling BAcon and are retreating rapidly from the regions and then go and announce this.

Are you sure its LGW? pure speculation but could it be the Sh*ttyflyer son of BACON outfit into LCY? cos they are going to need some new routes to make that operation work, the LCY/MAD route is not performing well, pax loads can be very low single figures most days!!!

It would appear it is yes, they going to be in direct competition with ASW so seeing as they operate to LGW I would assume it's the same route.

An old BA ploy. Wipe out the opposition, then drop the route!:(

Unless BA decion makers have gone totally mad (if any more insanity was possible) this just does not compute. Why, when WW has effectively put BA UK domestic operations into extinction with the disposal of BACON, would he/they want to commit financial suicide by putting jet machinery on a (relatively) low-density, low yield route, that is the perfect run for a 50 seat turboprop. Nope, it doesn't make any sense - unless they really are insane!:D

BA spent a lot of time and effort in ensuring ASW were set up to continue the links to PLH and NQY after the PLH base was closed. Would be rather strange for them to now go and get rid of them!

Could this have something to do with the forthcoming announcement which is due from Ryanair.com this week regarding there Newquay operations.

Some suggest that they are going to pull the Daily Stansted route due to Newquay Airport's £5 development levy which was introduced by Cornwall County Council.

It's true
 

Showing in amadeus

Daily LGW-NQY-LGW BA2972/3 'EQV' (a mix of 733/4/5)
LGW-NQY 1250/1350
NQY-LGW 1455/1555

Not shown as operated by Cityflyer either...

Could this not be due to the Flybe deal? A Q400 doing this route after the deal completes would suit Flybe possibily with an EXT stop enroute. Flybe are known to be keen to expand out of NQY and competing with WOW would probably not be a concern:ok:

It's true! Completely mad - BA has lost the plot!

Apparently it is due to start on the 20th March according to the BBC Local news.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/6309819.stm

Good for BA. I think this is a great move and one which could do very well for them.
I strongly suspect it has been brought about by bmi's announcement on LHR-JER. BA found that they could sandwich an extra LGW-JER-LGW roundtrip onto the 737 fleet this summer and had planned to increase LGW/JER. However, with the bmi announcement, I guess this has left them feeling less bullish about growth on Jersey and so they needed somewhere of a similar rotation length to use the aircraft.
A daily midday service from LGW to NQY ought to work OK, and if you look at passenger volumes since Ryanair reduced, you can see why. August saw LON-NQY passenger numbers almost halve - from 23,708 in 2005 to 12,036 in 2006. That's 11,672 fewer passengers due to the reduction in STN services. A daily 737-400 generates 9,114 seats per month and so the capacity influx from BA's arrival is far less than the number of passengers lost from the route. In commercial terms, it ought to be a no-brainer - particularly when you can't use an aircraft that you're already paying for anywhere else, i.e. it's marginal use of the aircraft.
For Cornwall, it's great news. It means the airport is less beholden to Ryanair and its tactics - and I see there was another press release on Ryanair's website about it only a day or two ago. I suspect that other posters' suspicions about Ryanair might be right, but let's wait and see.
The only implication is that I guess Air Southwest might move their handling contract at LGW away from BA! Still, given BA's approach to third-party handling at LGW over the last few years, they might see that as a bonus rather than a loss.
Overall, for once, it is nice to see positive moves being taken. Congratulations to whoever had the balls to push this one through Waterside.

If BA get involved in NQY again it's bad news for everyone in Cornwall and the wider Aviation industry ...as it was post Brymon & pre ASW

Ask BA Cabin Crew what a nice people they are!?

A guy in waterside obviously is patting himself on the back for actually succeeding in persuading BA TO START A NEW UK DOMESTIC MAINLINE ROUTE!:D I take it however BA will use a handling agent in Newquay to cut costs, they'd have to be pretty mental to make the entire EDI base redundant because of BACON, and then open a ground/crew base in Newquay! But who knows, with BA anything could happen. What am I going to hear next, BFS-LHR restarting 6 years since it stopped!

I hear the FLYBE deal to buy BACON will officially be announced on Wednesday (a month late as it was supposed to be 1st January).

Dirty Tricks
 

Is this another one of those dirty dricks thats been pulled in the past.

We need to pull some routes but we need to keep the slots so where should we try.

Well Newquay not far from Gatwick in a jet, and if we can we might be able to push the other operator off the route and there might be more slots available at Gatwick for us to snap up:confused: .