new base
 

for those of you getting excited about a lisbon base i would suggest you hold off applying if you are not interested in working elsewhere for a good while. the latest rumour is that the new base will be in madrid (although this seems to be changing every week), and you have to stay at your initial base for ar least six months before you can transfer somewhere else anyway. also if you go to a busy base like gatwick (though most are at the mo) you could be waiting even longer before getting a transfer, although this could work in your favour because if you do a year and get senior, you might be lucky enough to go to a nice shiny new base as a number 1.:ok:

The last word?
 

Sorry to bring this up again folks but this sort of thing really gets in my craw!

Mr Dromey, on the 16th of April wrote; 'Crews are all poorly turned out and trained.'

After my post pointing out this was factually incorrect, he wrote; 'Untill then I stand by every last one of my opinions, observations and statments.'

On the 17th April he wrote; 'I have never called into question the issue of safety on any easyJet(or other airline) flight, I do not know enough about the safety standards imposed by the relevant authorities...and the airlines involved. To do so would be highly unfair and irresponsable on my part.'

Later he wrote; OK, for the final time, I never knocked the safety aspect of U2s' training.

But you see Mr. Dromey, you did knock easyJet training. You said; 'Crews are all poorly turned out and trained.'

If you would care to retract that statement regarding training then you will most certainly have the last word.

If, as you say, you don't know enough about safety standards etc, then why mention such things in the first place? Ifyou do not know what you are talking about Mr. Dromey, then why be unfair and irresponsible, as you say, and post here at all?

The latest rumour I have heard is that there will be 2 new bases announced shortly!

Two new bases?
 

Do we know if these are in the UK or mainland Europe?

The most noticeable lack of orange in the UK is of course BHX & MAN, are either of these in the frame now or likely to be in the future?

Both do not have any real major FR presence and in BHX's case probably
never will going by the previous spats.

Both have been accused of not being LCC friendly in respect of charges
(rightly or wrongly?) but surely for both airports it would be a major coup.

I know Liverpool serves the North West for Easyjet but the Midlands is a
different story. The EMA base was inherited from Go and although there
has been some tinkering on the whole Easy have not done much recently.

From the outside (don't work in the industry) it appears that in BHX's case
it is lack of flexibility with charges (or upsetting BA etc) could be the reason or is it simply a case that Easy are just not interested?

OltonPete

OltonPete

I simply cannot see any reason why easyJet would want to enter either the BHX or MAN market. EZY have a good relationship with Peel Holdings who own LPL, and believe have a contract to operate flights from that airport for some time in the future. Why spread yourself across a couple of airports when you can ensure you have a real strongholding in one? Manchester is a major base for other low cost airlines (Jet2, bmibaby, Monarch, BA Connect, flybe) whilst Liverpool is very much EZY's stomping ground despite competition from FR. Similarly with EMA, I can't see EZY setting up from BHX. BHX is well covered by existing low-cost airlines, and if EZY were really to leave EMA (I know there hasn't been much growth but neither have there been rumblings of discontent) surely DSA owned by Peel would be a more realistic alternative?

Does anyone know why easyJet have failed to expand at EMA?
Ops not as profitable as at most other bases? poor relationship with airport management? lack of capacity now Ryanair have made it a base? :confused:

phil_2405

Add STN to EMA ?

This is certainly my understanding of the situation. U2 are very keen to further their existing business relations with Peel and DSA is a most likely development in the relatively near future.

At present, demand is being assessed on the services operating into DSA with the Swiss aircraft and crew.

MAN & BHX are absolute non starters! (IMHO!)

:ok:

Easyjet have dropped DSA-GVA for the summer. I dont know if this was planned or not when the route started but if it wasnt then its not a very good sign for future EZY development at DSA

DSA-GVA was always going to be a seasonal ski route.

STN makes all its money in the summer and very little in the winter. EMA makes very little money at all, so further expansion there is unlikely.

MAN is too close to LPL and the landing charges and slot availabilty would make expantion there unlikely.

BHX could be a possibilty. The competition would produce very low seat yields, so again unlikely.

The UK market is very saturated, so I am expecting to see new crew bases in mainland Europe. Could even be outside the EU.

I think that EZY will put some routes eventually through MAN (and BHX) as a spoiler (a la Ryanair) if nothing else.

Does anyone have an idea when the winter schedules will be released. Am hoping to see GVA - BOH return as I didn't get a chance to use it this winter.
Cheers :ok:

They could base two aircraft to do Italy alone from BHX - a bit of
an embarrassment at present with the sum total - 2 BA Connect 145's
a day (one at weekends) to MXP from airport with over 9 million pax. Probably not enough to support a base but at least virtually no competition. Shame they do Venice and Rome from East Mids (with such high load factors) as I suppose it would be a bit pointless offering the same destinations 40 miles away (though Baby do on some routes).

OltonPete

After losing £50m in the last six months (Sunday Telegraph business news), are Easyjet going to expand anywhere.

Oh not again! Easy make a first half loss every year, and a nice full year profit!! :} :)

If EZY dont expand they will lose even more money. In this business you expand or you die. Standing still would mean Ryanair and the others taking more market share. EZY is comitted to 15% growth this year. A new A319 is arriving every week other the summer. Shame we have no cabin crew or pilots to put on them :(

base leak
 

according to the rumour (leaked from easyjet) one of the bases is BOH Bournemouth. the airport is closing in on a deal and it is thought that up to two aircraft will initially be ear-marked for the airport from autumn 2006. Routes mentioned included France, Spain, Italy and Germany as well as several UK cities (BFS, EDI, NCL)

standing still
 

Well there is very liitle expansion at STN, if any. Could it be said that EZY have the wrong sized aircraft, for if FR are getting better results with their 800's it certainly makes you think that they have.

The reason there is no expansion by easyJet at Stansted has nothing to do with aircraft size, it is a lack of suitable slots at Stansted.

Ametyst

And how did you come to that conclusion may I ask? when other companies do not appear to have a problem.

Ryanair tinkers with its schedule to fit in new flights. They have no plans to add any more based aircraft this year. Other airlines have been able to fit more flights in during slack times on a 'W' basis operating from & to their overseas base. Ryanair and easyJet cannot get any further slots for early morning departures or late evening arrivals. That is how come to that conclusion! In addition Stansted has a cap on the number of movements they can handle.

Easyjet growth slows
 

Here's a story on the financial news wires:

MoneyAM

easyJet, Europe's second-largest no-frills airline, said it carried 2.94 million passengers in May.

This represents an increase of 15.2% on the same month last year.

The Luton-based carrier said May's load factor, passengers as a proportion of the number of seats available, was 83.9%, slightly down from 84.1% in May 2005.

For the rolling 12 months to end-May passengers totaled 31.72 million, up 13.5% compared with the same period last year, the load factor was 84.2%, down 0.9 percentage points, and total revenue was £1.5bn, up 21.1%.

easyJet said although load factors for May were slightly behind the rolling 12-month average this was in line with internal expectations.

'Following strong April revenue results, which benefited from the timing of Easter, the positive performance has continued in May,' said CEO, Andy Harrison.

:)

So where's the slowing of growth?

Aberdeen Fog - Easyjet
 

On Friday, EZY141 from LTN to ABZ diverted due to the harr at Aberdeen. All the other main airlines (BA, BMI etc) got in (just some prop Eastern Airlines etc that didn't, apart from EZ).

Don't Easyjet have ILS on their 737's ?

Got the same flight on Monday (tomorrow) and fog is forecast at Aberdeen again. Not as if fog at Aberdeen is unknown! :ugh:

Does it not depend on specific pilot training / rating ?:confused:

Yep - just because the aircraft is fully equiped - doesn't mean the crew are. If they're new to type and line training their minima can be higher.

For what it's worth, I was the ABZ radar controller on Friday morning and although the BA, BMI, Eastern, etc did get in it was only after they had also gone around once like the easyJet. Unlike the EZY, they held for a bit and once the weather improved slightly the others who had the fuel to wait made a second approach and got in. Bizarrely, the EZY said he was diverting to Prestwick - not sure why they preferred there over GLA or EDI. The only other one we lost was the Atlantic ATP freighter.

So I don't think the question is about aircraft equipment, more about holding fuel.

[Fog isn't a constant cloud. It can drift and has more and less dense areas in it. It is possible to get lucky and find a "pocket" which is above visibility minima and lets you land. But as said above, it's whether you can afford to hang around

All easyJet's 737s are capable of flying down to Cat. 3b limits. ABZ's ILS is as far as I know, only Cat. 1

If the RVR is below easyJet's Cat. 1 minima, then the flight crew cannot commence an approach and descend below a height of 1500 feet with subsequently, getting the ground or runway in sight.

Diversion fuel may also have been a factor.

All the same, it seems bizarre to use fuel to divert to PIK. I wonder how the pax made the trek back to ABZ? I have been on a board BA a/c that have been holding for ages at ABZ for the fog and we popped down to EDI until it cleared. But going all the way to PIK???

Edinburgh and Glasgow were both pretty poor weather wise while Prestwick with it's own little micro climate was clear. I'd say it was sensible to use a couple of kilos more gas rather than go around at your diversion and be forced to call a mayday.

LTNABZ, don't pay pay cheap fares and then complain! You pay cheap, you get a cheap product. End of story!

Exactly how is diverting due to weather a "cheap product"?

Here we go again. A thread that mentions Easyjet and the Pay cheap get nothing quoters all appear out of the woodwork. Not at all a constructive comment and totally off topic. The thread is about a weather diversion not about how much the seat cost on the aircraft!

I think you'll find that the EZY aircraft had the capability to divert to PIK which had solid good weather, and was not restricted to the much closer GLA or EDI with poorer weather. The weather at the time at Aberdeen was below the legal airport minima not the aircraft minima which as EZY always normally has a CAT3a or b minima which is the lowest you'll find.

That any of this be cause for anything but praise and thankfulness is a mystery.

Cheers

WWW

When I was flying easy's B737s they were all CAT111A with a decision height of 50ft and a RVR of 200m, unless, for technical, reasons the aircraft was temporarily downgraded. The diversion policy is that a nominated alternate must be operating in conditions which would allow an approach one category higher than minimum. For example, if the airfield, crew or aircraft were limited to CAT1, then the weather conditions must be good enough for a non-precision approach. And these conditions must be forecast to exist for one hour either side of the ETA at the destination. I suspect that an immediate diversion to PIK looked the safest course of action. Easyjet may be low cost, but it's never been low safety (except for exhausted crews!)

The company claims it saves tens of millions of pounds a year by discouraging the carrying of holding fuel - when conditions are allow- so they are happy to absorb the costs of occasional diverts. These savings help keep air fares low. If the wx at Aberdeen was forecast to be poor then the policy is to take holding fuel; I assume the crew weren 't, or felt the wx wouldn't improve - only they will know.

JB

Aberdeen's ILS's are Cat1 and look likely to remain that way.The ILS equipment supplied by Nats could work to Cat 3 standard,but the rest of the airfield(BAA's ) isn't up to standard.
It's surprising that they haven't tried to upgrade to Cat2,as it's a problem that always happens at this time of year.I guess that driving passengers up and down Scotland,instead of upgrading the Airfield is seen as ok to BAA(Ferrovial).

Sir easyJet
 

From the BBC

Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who has seen his business empire take off over 11 years, has been knighted in the Queen's 80th Birthday Honours list.

Sir Stelios, 39, who is honoured for services to entrepreneurship, dedicated the knighthood to his staff

Well done that man !!!

Good for him & richly deserved!

As an aside, I thought only British citizens could get knighthoods?

"Good for him & richly deserved!

As an aside, I thought only British citizens could get knighthoods?"

Seeing as Stelios has got a knighthood, the answer is either:

a) He is one
b) You're wrong

:E