As to Stansted, it ought to be possible given a will and some understanding to go back to Plan A which predated the base at PIK. Operate the route from the London end which would allow somthing like this at the Scottish end :

0810-0840
1310-1340
2110-2140

Stansted is their biggest base !

Wizz dropping WAW-PIK
 

Ends October alas. The mass Polish migration is ending.

Wizz are axing a number of WAW routes which seems to suggest issues with Warsaw airport as being the main reason for PIK-WAW going

As previously reported earlier this week
http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airpo...izzair-18.html

skippy
 

Not a good idea IMHO as most punters fly to London for the early board meeting. A 7.00am flight from STN-PIK would be virtually empty and the returns at 8.00am would be too as all the businessmen would have gone BA or BMI to get to their early morning boards.

Ryanair are dropping the Prestwick to Stansted for 30 October.

busy summers and quiet winters for pik.

I can't see the PIK-STN being droped, there are far too many aircraft moved between these bases for engineering purposes. They may reduce the service but if they drop it, they will be flying lots of aircraft up and down empty for maintainance.

is just 12 arrivals for the rest of the day classed as busy (Almost July and into the school holidays) ? must be really quiet in winter....:eek:

Stansted can't be booked after Oct 30 it is being dopped. Passengers numbers dropped 30% in 2009 and there expected to drop more in 2010.

Dropping the Prestwick Route to Stansted would be an interesting move. I can remember when Ryanair were operating this route with a 50% restriction on capacity and they did it with 737-200s! It was quite a frequent route and at its peak I think there were as many as 8 flights in each direction and this wasnt cut back at all until the higher capacity 738s came in.

If the reason for dropping the route is the proximity (far away) to Glasgow of Prestwick, Ryanair need to start asking themselves should they be at Glasgow International? (yes I know there is an engineering base etc at PIK) but if a route that once was delivering 25K+ passengers per month (eg Aug 09 27k) is being dropped; Ryanair need to consider what is the real cost of operating at PIK, ie forfeited opportunities and Revenue. I do think/note that Easyjet has been growing the GLA STN numbers over the last number of year and I understand that some months easy have more numbers on the flights than Ryanair have on PIK.

However, the reason may be that the whole domestic air travel scene is being badly eroded in these recessionary times, It is rumoured that Easyjet is dropping Stansted Newcastle which had been a steady little earner, a route that came with GO. Most like the combination of reduced business travellers and lower yield may be influencing these decisions.

EI-BUD

PIK - STN and the wider market
 

Incredibly, PIK-STN peaked at over 70,000 passengers per month in late 2003. Since then there has been a steady decline in passenger numbers as you can see from this time series plot of CAA data:
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/8886/pikhj.jpg

However, if you look at the wider Glasgow - London market you can see that PIK-STN is not the only route having problems. The market has declined by 24% since its peak in 2003 and is now at its lowest level since the late 1990s. Almost every route between Glasgow and London has suffered, including GLA-STN, which peaked in 2006 when Air Berlin flew alongside Easyjet:
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/7177/longla.jpg

Times must be tough at PIK. It's 10am on a weekday, and the bar maid is going from person to person sitting in the lounge asking if they want anything from the bar. As a frequent FR passenger I'm fairly certain that those who don't fancy a pre-flight pint at 10am aren't going to be persuaded.

Pax numbers at pik will probably be up this year on last year i would expect. Albeit slightly after the icelandic volcano.

Having said that, I will be very disappointed if the route is canned. Have used it as a passenger many times. Its very good to use for connecting to other flights from Stansted. I know that Ryanair doesn't take this into account because it is a "point to point" airline, but the fact is many people fly on to other destinations from Stansted, and some even from other london airports.
It'll be a nightmare for Ryanair crew positioning to/from PIK as well!

The argument made earlier regarding aircraft positioning for maintenance is also valid. However, PIK does serve many of the newly opened bases in bucket and spade destinations so I would imagine the plan is that PIK will maintain aircraft from bases such as AGP, FAO, ALC etc. There will be less need for aircraft to position via STN.

Edited to add: The route being canned is not confirmed just yet though! Lets keep fingers crossed that the exact frequencies for winter have not been decided yet and once they are the route will appear!

The Stansted route isn't the only one that appears to be getting axed. There are no flights to Charleroi in December. I wish another airline would step in and resume these routes from Prestwick.

FR announced today a cut back this winter with them carrying 2m passengers less. Prestwick was mentioned as a base with less frequency so it may well be that Stansted goes.

Contrary to reports about its demise, Wizz now have Prestwick - Warsaw on sale for the winter months. Frequency has been cut by one flight a week to twice weekly.

Glasgow Prestwick Airport

Subsidised railway wants more taxapyers subsidy.
Arrrgh

It's all about "value for money" and nothing about making money !

Staff told today that a 90-day consultation period will soon begin ("likely that there will be redundancies") on the back of a 52% cut in Ryanair's winter capacity. Link to news article here.

I hope those affected gain alternative employment soon.

Just noted that STN is back on the PIK Winter Schedule but at a greatly reduced frequency. There is a once daily flight at lunchtime using a PIK based aircraft with a second late evening service only on Friday and Sunday. I guess it's a lot better than nothing and the timing may result in good load factors.