What makes you think Air Southwest can make a success of the route with a 50 seater if Eastern couldn't do it with a 29 seater?

I can't understand why Eastern upgraded the aircraft from an 18 seater anyway if the route wasn't going very well?

The fare prices might come into it :) Eastern £170+ rtn, Air Southwest would probably be ~£50 rtn!
Eastern presumably upgraded due to the falling number of J32's in their fleet, they are withdrawing them, so it made sense to put a J41 on it, also they could swap/change the BRS aircraft with the ABZ aircraft if it needed to go to ABZ/HUY for maintenance

mmeteesside

Firstly regarding the Bristol it's a shame they are dropping the route. But when you look at it it was the wrong airline really considering easyjet up the road. Air southwest would be better suited to the route with a better price structure but I doubt they will come.
I don't know what will happen with the spare j41 but I doubt a BRU at the moment, very late to announce one to start operating in early may. Remember an aircraft that is not being utilised is costing money. My bet is this and it could be totally wrong. The j41 will go and do the Newcastle Cardiff route.

ON a brighter note this morning was hectic with 24 plus movements by 9am. Picture this all stands full so aircraft were being held on taxiways until space became available. Lots of missed slots though and ground handling were struggling to keep up.

How the hell did MME get 24+ movements prior to 9AM?

Football Flights again :)

(HapagLloyd B738 and Flyjet B752 yesterday)

XLA 738 came last night, out this morning
XLA MD83 in/out this morning
TCX A332 in/out this morning
TCX B752 in/out this morning
MYT A320 in/out this morning

Add these to the 2 Baby 733's, KLM F70, bmi A319, 2 Eastern J41's, TNT 146, and 2 RAF C-130's and you got yourself a nightmare at DTV!!

mmeteesside

MME Teesside why a nightmare? They're at long last listening to me battlecry!!!! Shame about the Bristol, hows about Bournemouth?

bmi at Durham Tees Valley
 

Thought I'd have a rant at them.
If anyone from MME, bmi or bmibaby are listening please feel free to comment.
Firstly why does the bmi website not have links to the baby website when you try and book a flight to Paris from MME? The baby website redirects you to the bmi website when you try and book Heathrow through baby so why not the other way? Instead bmi says you have to fly via Heathrow. This will be losing them business, maybe not much but it will be.
Why does the Heathrow have to be relegated to just 3 flights a day and with embrers as well. It was proven that when they went to 4 flights a day that they picked up close on an extra 33% more passengers. Having just one flight a day into London on a saturday is just ridiculous.
When are bmi going to decide what they are doing with the Heathrow at MME? Because if they are trying to kill the route they are doing a good job of it. If you want off bmi step aside allow baby more flights into Gatwick and allow KLM to take up those who want to interline.
There, rant over for now!

Firstly, bmi's new business model lost them a lot of passengers, hence why they can't fill four rotations per day with A320's anymore, secondly, there are two rotations on a Saturday and lastly I agree with you about the website redirection thing.

DTVAirport I don't think the change of the business model has lost them that many passengers, actually the drop in passengers in march compared to the previous year is due to the drop from 4 to 3 flights a day.
Also there is only 1 flight a day into London on a saturday from MME, so please check your facts.

I know for a fact there is two flights per day on Saturdays because I've just booked bmi MME-LHR-MME for 03 June, leaving in the morning on BD331 and returning in the evening on BD340.

yeah one flight out in the morning that returns in the evening, just one rotation.

Oh, I see what you mean, sorry.

Onion

Why don't you try the bmi baby website ? ;)

Only one flight a day (Monday to Friday BD332/333) will be operated by an Embraer 145, from 1st May,the remaining two services will continue to be Airbus operated.
Yes, the pax figures have plummeted, mainly due to the NBM plus the departure time of the BD331, as bmi in their ultimate wisdom gave the LHR slot to the inbound RUH service, hence the BD331 now arrives at 0915 which is no use for the business people and leaving onwards connections very tight.
GNER pounced on this by offering £29 first class fares each way to Kings Cross, with a journeytime of 2.5 hours.
baby have looked at more LGW services but there are no slots available at LGW.

Onion, I have to agree with everything you have said about bmi. All I can think is that they are running LHR into the ground so they can use the slots for longhaul, and have baby do 3 times a day LGW. (what else are 2 737's going to do through the winter? ;)) From bmi's point of view, it will probably make them more money, but it would an absolute huge blow to the airport to lose the link to LHR.

bmibaby have swapped some flight times around from 1st June, Alicante, Jersey, Knock affected, but the biggest change is the Paris now leaving at 07.25 Mon-Fri, which is good, anybody know any particular reason for the changes?

I see in the AIP, that the RT callsign has changed to 'Durham', so Teesside no more at all! (apart from on the road signs, arrivals,departure boards etc!:}

Is everyone using the new callsign??

It will always be "Teeside" to those of us from there!
 

I wonder which genius gave someone a funny handshake then paid themselves a generous cash sum to think up "Durham Tees Valley"?:*

"Durham" callsign
 

This is causing a lot of confusion.

e.g. position 5 miles North of Durham (City or airport?)

Helicopter inbound to Durham (City,airport or county?)

etc,etc

The sooner it is changed to something more sensible (Teesside springs to mind), the better!

Hi fellas!,

So was that an easy airbus training last week?,seemed to be here all day...first time easy at MME?...any charters due in for the match on Thursday,(or is it wednesday?),heads a bit fuzzy,drowned my sorrows yesterday!!!,...would certainly be a nightmare if BMI stopped the LHR,there would be uproar from business leaders and the media,do you think they would actually do it?,...forgive me if I am wrong but is there some sort of "protection" for the LHR regarding the slots?

Up the Boro!
Holgate:)

Northern Hero

I know that the airbuses are still doing two rotaions a day, I also know that the departure times are not helping, but reducing capacity by about 25% in march compared to the previous march resulted in the 5000 less passengers on the route. I know bmibaby do a paris from MME but bmi clearly don't. bmi will fly to paris but only through LHR. Why can't bmi redirect you to bmibaby's website? They tell you in their timetable that they have codeshare flights and even have a different coloured symbol for them, sowhy not show bmibaby flights, baby do it for bmi.

holgate

There was protection in place on the LHR but I think that has run out. The airport and bmi some years back agreed that the LHR would be kept on at a certain level of service but I believe this agreement ran out some time ago, maybe wrong.
Regarding the easyjet crew training on Thursday last week no it's not the first time they have crew trained here.

Not sure regarding the callsign but those in ATC would be better placed to say how things are going.

Onion,

Thanks for the reply regarding the LHR,...I am sure I have read that the agreement between the airport and BMI also stipulated that BMI would be the only jet service operating to London....often wondered why Ryanair havent approached the airport regarding a stansted service,....reckon it would be a winner,look at the easyjet NCL-STN,4 services a day!......
....nice to see the globespan 767 today, was it crew training?,only sight of it was at 11am,..closley followed by a C-130.Do you think baby would be interested in the Bristol when Eastern stop?

Cheers
Holgate:)

holgate

Not sure if bmibaby would be interested in a bristol, but maybe a cardiff but I think that it is a little wishful thinking really. An operator like Air Southwest would be better suited.
Regarding a Stanstead service, have always thought it would work but I think part of that agreement with bmi was that no other airline came in and did a London service with a jet. So missed the boat with ryanair I think. Even so I think any airline operating along a lowcost line would work well. Maybe an Air Southwest type operation again!
Didn't see the 767 so can't comment, sorry.