Bad timming for Sister Island?
 

Things have been quite down in Jersey could this be a time to wake up??
With Guernsey Airport being closed due RFFS problems Jersey could attract a lot more traffic??with anyone wanting to go to Guersey will catch the boat??:ok:
Jersey do not seem to have the same problems as Guernsey so should Jersey act upon this or support them??
Not a good time of year to have these problems let alone with the financial problems as well.:ugh:
This could help Jersey tourism and really damage what little tourism Guernsey might have left after this weekend.:O

BALU:

This is of course an excellent opportunity to cash in on the 'other island', but lets not rub salt into the wounds eh? :hmm:

But anyway, Jersey could make a bit of extra dosh and push up the numbers because of it. But will Tourism/The States move quick enough on it for it to be effective?

P:mad:s up in a brewery anyone?

London City Route and Freight
 

With the rebranding due to take place shortly with Cityjet and VLM will Jersey keep a connection with the Docklands??
With the aircraft daystopping in Jersey for seven hours does not seem a good commercial venture???
I understand that Jersey will lose one of its regular freighters shortly,the UPS contrct flown by Bluebird will stop operating to Jersey by the end of the month.

Who's taking over the Bluebird run, anyone know?


Think positive, maybe Cityjet will up the schedule to LCY using a Scot 328..

Some ideas
 

Jerbourg
From waht I understand the cargo that Bluebird were bringing in to Jersey and Guernsey will be routed via the schedules to the Islands and not be on a dedicated freighter.:sad:

Ref the possibility of VLM stopping the London City-Jersey-London City this could happen, the route being flown by Scot Air but done by the Blueislands aircraft which they lease off of Scot Air, doing the route Jersey-London City-Jersey early morning and late afternoon in between the Swiss flights the aircraft does out of Jersey??:8
This is only an Idea so some of the sectors the D328 does at the moment could be done with the ATR42 as and when the aircrat comes on line.:ok:

I was interested to see that Air Berlin operated a 737-700 from Dusseldorf yesterday; quite an upgrade from the scheduled DH4. Was this a one-off or will the aircraft make a more regular appearance down on the island this summer? Of course, I'm already looking forward to seeing the return of the Lufthansa 735 :ok:

I recall reading that Air Berlin was encouraged by initial demand for the new service, which hopefully makes possible the opportunity for additional capacity or routes next summer.

J-Guy

As far as I'm aware there was always a possibility that the Dash could be upgrade to a 737-700 on the route

Aurigny and Blueislands
 

There was a meeting today between Aurigny and Blueislands bosses about a merger being mooted

Blue Island's Chairman Derek Coates wants his airline to merge with Aurigny.

He made his surprise announcement at a press conference infront of nearly 30deputies.

The States members were there to hear the opinions of the two bosses on proposals to relax air route licensing - both are against the idea and want the OUR to regulate the industry instead.

Derek Coates says States-owned Aurigny must go into private ownership in the future.

Aurigny boss Malcolm Hart says the suggestion had taken him by surprise, but he doubts if a merger will ever happen because the island will want to secure its lifeline slot at Gatwick.

Channel Connect
 

So what is this news about this new company? Is this the merger between Blue Islands and Aurigny? Or is a totally new outfit? Brave to start new services in this current climate!! Good luck to them, lets keep our fingers crossed!!!

I doubt it will happen. It is only Derek Coates' idea. The States would have to agree before anything happened. Hopefully nothing will happen.

It's Coates's exit strategy. For merger read attempt to sell BI, merged with GR, to a third party.

Palmair are back into Jersey this winter with a series of flights to Tenerife via Santiago in Dec , Jan and Feb with departures on a Monday

The flights are on Palmair s new Boeing 737 500 and are being sold under the Palmair / Bath Travel brand with flights originating in Bournemouth bringing in day trippers while the aircraft continues onto Tenerife then returning back to Bournemouth in the evening

Looks like they will be picking up passengers in Santiago as well. Flights not on sale yet but Santiago has been loaded into the booking engine

Any truth in this new company looking at starting on the islands with ATR, 146's and 145's?????

No stranger to JER, its ex BA G-GFFJ... good to see it getting a new lease of life!

Any idea of the frequency etc?

just seen on the news its a fake made up airline by 17yr old:mad:

I am wondering if the airport CEO is now considering a public harakiri on the tarmac to restore his honour as the media are reporting that he sort of wined and dined the kid on a business trip to Jersey....:D

Its a great story huh? But JG feels like a bit of a pillock now (but I suppose he's allowed the odd mistake or 2 though!)

Anyway changing the subject slightly...

There were a couple of rumours around the place last week that environmental campaign group Plane Stupid were planning a visit to sunny JER to protest mainly against BE's expansion in the Island? It may be totally false and I'm sure Plane Stupid don't like to publicise their jaunts too much; but just wondered if anyone had heard anything?

Either way I wonder how they'd get here? Will they be flying, or on that bloody massive Condor with all the black diesel fumes pouring out the back?

Hmm... they must be swimming then.

I don't see why they would want to protest. There's now only about 80 commercial turn-arounds on Saturdays, when it used to be at least double that before adding the private stuff.

A great story.. hell of an imagination! Can't see how BE expansion is a bad thing at JER regarding the enviroment.

Can anyone give an update on the ground handling at JER, ie who handles who? :ok:

Do they think logically like that?

Re the ground handling:

Servisair: Flybe, Sata, Aer Lingus, Lufthansa and most other stuff

Airline Services CI Ltd (aviance ramp): BA, bmibaby, Air Southwest, VLM(until 31st July then to Servisair), Manx 2, and the odd charter.

Blueislands: Self (with aviance ramp for Dornier and I assume ATR ops)

Aurigny: Self

What Next??
 

One is unable to turn back the clock to all those years ago
Summer Saturday movement 450 with 300 on Sundays, now you are lucky to crack the 200 barrier on Saturday with Sunday a little less.
The aircraft are not much bigger than all those years ago with up to 13 differant British Air Ferries Viscounts operating on saturdays which tried to carry the same sort of loads the Dash Q400 carries.
So all in all things are well down not onlt the airport should be concerned but the infrastructsher of the Island.
Well the summer is well under way with the scholls now closed for the summer holidays so where do people go with weather like we are having know stay at home an save in the currant finicial climate??:ok:

The last few years has certainly seen a major decline with BE being the only operator showing any major increase, and they're mostly only covering the routes once operated by others.

Gone are the days where BACX/BRAL/BD etc would send 5 or 6 a/c each from different destinations into JER which would then rotate through the island all day.

Its down to several reasons; most recently the economy and the rise of extremely cheap intra-european travel. Moreover the die-hard pax that used to visit Jersey year in year out (read 'the oldies') are 'dying out' so to speak. Although this sounds sinister its true, and there are less people to fill the charters. Although Jersey is trying to market itself as a destination for the younger couple, I don't think it'll ever truly succeed in this market, and will inevitably see a further decline in the future. This is especially true of the UK market.

Gone are the days of dispatching Aer Lingus 737s or British Midland F100s from the Freight ramp sadly!

Oh for the really old days when Jersey was second only to Heathrow for aircraft movements. I was lucky enough to be employed during the summers of 1963/4 as a ship’s papers runner for Jersey Airlines and then as a Traffic Officer for BUA(CI) for 10 months in 1965. During these times there were a constant stream of aircraft arriving and departing especially the weekends. I remember well some of the more memorable days with for example six Eagle Vikings arriving from Blackbush for a large company’s (Colgate?) staff outing at 5 minute intervals, appearing at high power, climbing up over the 09 threshold having let down over the sea to get under the surface level cloud or days with gales necessitating the use of runways 31/13 with the traffic lights by the BEA maintenance hangers or very occasionally the north/south runway which was (just) usable by the Dakota. Then there were days when an anxious watch was kept on the steeple of St. Peters church – if the top was visible then there was a good chance of aircraft arriving.

All this was done within the confines of the old airport building with a small side extension where the present departures hall stands where BEA had their check-in area. Many was the time when there were several hundred people sleeping on the terminal floor when flying was canceled for the day.
There were three handling companies in those days, BEA, Jersey Airlines (BUA(CI)) and Channel Airways, the busiest being BUA. We worked with a shift of around 6 traffic officers and a slightly larger number of loaders and seldom got the chance of more than a 5 minute break in an 8 hour shift which was often extended considerably. There were many great characters who I subsequently saw for many years after when I had become a BEA pilot and was on turn-round there.

Of course the aircraft capacities were much smaller then the majority being Heralds, Daks and Vikings and a few Viscounts. Some were considerably smaller such as the Dove, Heron and Marathon. The largest aircraft we handled were the Argonauts of British Midland with 70+ seats although BEA used the 100+ Vanguard from Heathrow. A rare sight was a PanAm DC-6 which did ad hoc cattle charters to the USA via Shannon.

In those days the popular beaches like St. Brelade's were crowded like anthills with standing room only at high tide. Then came the era of cheap package holidays to the Med. with guaranteed weather and little chance of a night on the terminal floor and the movement numbers have been on the decline ever since.

Argonauts
 

The BM Argonauts in the summer temperatures used to file FL70 up to EMA. They struggled to cross Alderney at FL50 or above - as requested by ATC - and then to make FL70 by the Jersey Zone boundary at 50 North. Wonderful Merlin sound on take off though!

It appears that as of the winter schedule, Flybe will add a seventh weekday flight between Jersey and Gatwick. The Gatwick based Q400 will replace that currently rotated down from Manchester to allow for an early morning arrival (08:30) into Jersey and a late evening departure (19:30) to London. Manchester will revert to a lunchtime service. The addition of an earlier arrival, over an hour earlier than is currently available with Flybe and British Airways, I think is welcomed, especially for the business community.

Doncaster, Luton and Newcastle also continue during the winter.

Only heard about this one today:

"Incident: Flybe E195 near Jersey on Aug 10th 2009, flaps problem
By Simon Hradecky, created Monday, Aug 10th 2009 20:48Z, last updated Tuesday, Aug 11th 2009 06:17Z

A Flybe Embraer ERJ-195, registration G-FBEC performing flight BE-953 from London Gatwick,EN to Jersey,CI (UK) with 82 passengers, diverted to Exeter,EN due to flaps problems while on approach to Jersey. The airplane landed safely in Exeter.

A replacement Embraer ERJ-195 registration G-FBEB reached Jersey with a delay of 1:45 hours."

VLM Fokker 50s
 

With the VLMs intergration into Air France and KLM with two Fokker 50s now in Cityjet colours could Jersey be about to lose the London City link??:{

From what I understand there is to be an annocement in the next two weeks on the intergration of VLM into the bigger company, with some of the cut backs on some routes flown by VLM could Jersey be facing one of these cut backs??:{

Be prepared for BI to step in. They might as well do something with that 42

or maybe perhaps SZ who have shown an interest in increasing routes from LCY

They do already operate into JER from PLH and BRS and to LCY from NQY & PLH



CS

Jersey Competion Regulatory Authority fine LH £25,000
 

The old JERSEY - 2 thread seems to have disappeared into the ether, perhaps the mods would like to rename this JERSEY - 3 and start afresh?

I caught this on the BBC News earlier: BBC NEWS | Europe | Jersey | Competition law fine for airline

What do we think about this? It seems a sure-fire way of getting LH's backs up at a time where JER is trying to hold onto the routes it has. Although technically LH should have informed the JCRA about the takeover, it seems a little short sighted in that the service to JER is not changing in any recognisable way, and that this action is in no way going to improve LH/BD/WW's relationship with the island.

£25,000 is of course peanuts to a company the size of LH, but it has to be remembered that this figure is likely to be a sizable chunk of the profits WW make into and out of the island. That is if WW are operating profitably here at all...

Although the States of Jersey have been generous to BD in the past, subsidising the now defunct JER-LHR service, I just cannot see how this is in any way constructive? Perhaps they'd rather see WW pull off the routes and leave BE to take them over with even higher fares, like so many others in the past?

Rules and regulations?
 

That is Jersey for you funny laws down there I think??:{
From what I can make out on the news when they were talking about this story they show a BMI Baby B737, that must have got a few babies noses??
Rules and regulations how can anyone keep up with all these this is the new way of moving on.:ugh:
Get more pin striped people in the office making up rules and on a fat salary when the people on the shop floor have to try and make thinks work and get all the abuse and get payed very little.
Where next for the Island?? Summer 2010 not that far away and they need to attract more cumstomers in view of this story new airlines might have a rethink just in case they fall into a trap??:*

Meeting
 

I hear there was a big high powered meeting at Aurigny yesterday?
If so what will it be all about.
A takeover??
The Hart not in it any more??
Not looking good I hear, we will have to wait until the local papers tell us all what this is about.

I know they are making GCI ticket desk staff redundant & reducing hours, maybe there is more to to come?

I would like to see the return of BOH services.

Back in 1991/2 (which is ages ago i know) JEA used to have 2 daily flights and 3 on Saturdays with F27's in the summer and SH-360's in the winter. Connections went to Paris, Dinard etc.

There must still be some kind of market to the BOH catchment that is incremental to the Southampton, Exeter and Bristol ones.

This is one 'easy win' i would have thought - for the island to push this kind of service.

How realistic are my desires?

This has been mentioned elsewhere, but Flybe are to operate weekly Saturday flights to Prestwick and Durham Tees Valley during the summer of 2010. It's obviously good to see these destinations return, especially Prestwick, which hasn't operated in a number of years.

Othewise, browsing over the timetable, Flybe operations for next summer appear much the same as last. The full schedule is not available yet so there still may be some changes to come.

On another note - VLM/CityJet will operate both charter flights to Frankfurt and Hannover.

Bournemouth is the only airport in the UK not served in the summer season by a flight of some sort to Jersey

From Dan Air operating up to 12 return services in the summer all those years ago now on a weekend with the 748 , viscount and 111 to nothing now is such a shame

Remember seeing the Bournemouth ramp full on many a Saturday when un expected fog hit the islands with DC9 , 111 , Viscounts , Hearalds and 748 all parked up waiting for the weather to clear !

Aurigny had a good market when they tried it a few years ago but Blue Islands saw them off only to go to Southampton to compete against Fly Be who are pushing them out slowly now

Even a Saturday charter service would be good with Channel Island Holidays which has the market organizing it would be good , if they can get Lydd , Manston and Oxford on board then surely Bournemouth with a small 50 seater flight for the Bournemouth " Blue Rinse Brigade " would be good

The aircraft are not much bigger than all those years ago with up to 13 differant British Air Ferries Viscounts operating on saturdays which tried to carry the same sort of loads the Dash Q400 carries.



Regret there werent 13 differant BAF Viscounts - it just looked like that.

The Bournemouth 'Blue Rinse Brigade' are either too old to go anywhere or go to Spain. Face it, the CIs are pretty much a niche market these days (a shame, I used to live there). The flights are expensive, the weather is uncertain and the tourist infrastructure is (sorry about this, but it's true) crap.

Dan Air JER/GCI - BOH
 

All thos DanAir flights were filled with SAGA holiday punters, many of whom were bussed into BOH from the midlands and elsewhere.

Jersey's problem today as an airport with similar pax numbers to those of 30 years ago, almost unheard of in the airport business, is that the island has been (quite reasonably) unable to compete with most tourist hot spots on price or weather. So the Airport serves the needs of the (relatively few) locals and business visitors year round, with the smallish tourist boost to numbers in the summer.

From an airline perspective the islands are not attractive to anything but the smaller niche operators - the low cost carriers will take some cream in the summer, but are unlikley to appear through the mists in the winter.

No change forecast

FF