Flybe and German routes
 

Just following the Flybe thread elsewhere, and it appears that they are busy applying for slots into DUS and FRA from EXT.

Interestingly, they've asked for (but yet to receive) 4 daily slots for an EXT - FRA service. By all means call me machiavellian, but could this be a spoiling move?

It seems unlikely that Flybe want to operate a 4x daily from EXT-FRA, and it seems unlikely that they'll get the slots at FRA to operate such a service meaningfully. However, it would allow them to cry foul if another operator did look at running (say) an EXT or even, BRS, to FRA 4x daily service and did get the slots, maybe because they were already a big slot holder at FRA.

On a less conniving issue; I guess it's the end of The Terraces lounge. I wonder what will appear in it's place, or whether Servisair will expand out to cover both areas?

I think it is more likely to be an application for 4 slots, but two each way, as in a twice daily service.

Regards

Mike

B_T

The Flybe thread talks about the airline applying for four daily slots for SOU-FRA and two daily slots for SOU-MUC.

The only mention of EXT there is the EXT-DUS slot application for one daily rotation that I spoke of earlier.

The SOU-FRA application is definitely for four return flights and the SOU-MUC for two return flights, both on Embraer 195 equipment.

The EXT-DUS application cites a DH-8-400 route.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the BRS route development office right now.

They have invariably come up trumps in recent years. Can they do something again?

There seems to be a general opinion on this thread that Fly Be will pulling out of Bristol, and given that they now have a large operation up the M5 in BHX, and their head office is a similar distance the other way in EXT, that may be right. However this contention appears to be based on the idea that Fly Be merely have to decide between operating the West Country routes out of either BRS or EXT, and I’m not sure it’s that simple. The problem is that if Fly Be pulled off the Bristol routes I'm fairly sure they’d be taken on by another operator who would be a far more formidable and committed competitor than BACON (admittedly not difficult as the only people less committed to flight operations than BACON were the Bristol Airport anti-noise lobby and Greenpeace), so the question for the Fly Be management becomes; will an EXT - FRA/DUS/MXP/ZRH be viable when somebody else (say a large orange airbus) is operating to the same destinations out of BRS? - and I would suggest the answer to this question is no, because if these routes were viable out of EXT, Fly Be would have already had a go when the only competition from BRS was a BACON 145. The logical extension of this argument is that if Fly Be want to continue operating these routes out of the West Country then it is going to have to be BRS.

One other thing; BACON wanted to operate twice daily BRS to FRA, with a morning and evening rotation to allow business people to get there and back in a day. Unfortunately the only slots available were too close together and so BACON reverted back to a single daily round trip. The point is that unless something has changed the way slots are allocated at FRA then the application for four a day out of SOU, mentioned in an earlier post, is just a case of blowing smoke into the wind.

Lufthansa have already been looking at BRS and CWL, this might help them to make up their mind. They certainly won't have any problems over slots!

MB

Easy Jet to base 10th aircraft at Bristol ?
 

Looking at the Easy Jet thread,it is speculated that another airbus will be based at Bristol. If this is the case is it likely that some of the ex BA routes will be taken up.

It's more than speculation.

The easyJet company report lists the based aircraft for next year, base by base, and BRS is listed to get its tenth A319 - there is a link to the easyJet report in the easyJet3 thread.

BRS and LGW are the only UK bases to get extra based aircraft next year - the others will go to mainland Europe bases at MAD, MXP and GVA, although three new aircraft will be distributed 'tactically' so presumably could go to any base.

In one of the BRS consultative committee meeting minutes MD Andrew Skipp said easyJet was committed to an extra based aircraft a year, but clearly there will come a time in the future when this won't go on, or will it. ;)

I just hope they've got enough people to fly all the aircraft. :ouch:

There are a number of 'tactical' spare aircraft on the network which could be used at BRS if there were significant commercial opportunities arising from BACONS demise. The 10th aircraft was planned some time ago and is therefore nothing to do with the Flybe thing.

I operated one of the first Go aircraft into BRS and have always been suprised that so few people flying the BA livery ever jumped ship into Go/easy. It will be sad to see them go, diversity is a good thing. But the writing was on the wall in 6ft high lettering after the first year sensational success of 737 operations at BRS in 2001/2.

Cheers,

WWW

sorry if this has been covered but why are all of BA's routes still bookable from Brs.

Also very sorry to see BA leaving Bristol after working for them for a year and a half it is a big shame.

Also considering wow withdrawing their Norwich service I would like to see someone take this route on as I am looking at moving their early next year and it would be easier to come back and see my family, flying rather than the 5 hour drive.

Having worked both here in BRS and down in EXT, It is blatently obvious that EXT neither has the capacity or infrastructure to handle a busy network of aircraft and departures such as the BACON BRS routes, also there are virtually no facilities for business people, no seperate lounge, no internet facilities, no 'STARBUCKS', there is no way BE could move all those routes to EXT, it would be commercial suicide. It'll be interesting to see what happens, I can see them doing an about turn with BRS and suprising everyone, but who knows, at the moment it seems that the futures orange, bring on FR I say lets get some real competition going on down here, it'll be all good for the airport and pax, If EMA who handle less pax than BRS can operate with the 3 big LOCO's based there EZY, FR and BABY and BHX closer to them than CWL is to us then why not BRS? :}

Not sure who else would take it on if WOW can't make it work, can't see any other carrier being able to make a go of it. BE will continue NWI from EXT.

Are the BACon BRS routes profitable?

If they are, then why hand this business over to someone else?

But there has been flights from exeter to norwich anyway. When I choose to fly I choose to fly becasuse of the services from where I want to go from and where I want to get to. I can get a lift or taxi to Brs if i don't want to drive but going to exeter is that little bit too far.

We were told at BACX, as it was then that the brs base was profitable, but saying that so was the ezy cph and was very often full as I am sure MV will confirm as I believe his son used it regularly. I would love to be able to do what wow did at Plh when Ba pulled out of there and lease a couple of the erjs and fly to those routes which were full and wanted, but hey, what do I know

all the best

T21/T23:ok:

Hello terrier, me old mate.

Nice to see you back on here, albeit with an updated monical, as Bristolians are apt to say.

The publicly-available stats for the easyJet BRS-CPH show it built from a decent beginning into a very good route from a load point of view, often around the 85% per month mark.

Of course, high loads don't always mean good yields and easy's explanation for stopping the route (and the one from NCL to CPH) was the £7 per head pax tax the Danish government imposed at CPH. I believe this has since been reduced to half that.

Someone at BRS 'who should know' told me at the time that he thought another carrier would quickly step in. No-one did and that was a year or two ago.

As for BA at BRS, I have been told more than once by someone within BACx (as it was then) admin staff that BRS was a profitable base. The last contact I had with this person was early this year so I am talking about the BACx days - whether things changed when it became BACon, I don't know.

However, even if BRS remained profitable, that would be of little significance I suppose if the organisation as a whole was losing money.

Finally, I am a bit surprised that BRS-NWI didn't do better. The land trip from Bristol to Norwich is almost as bad as that from Exeter to Norwich, and the former has a lot more people living in its area.

Perhaps the greater pax take-up from EXT is down to Flybe's better marketing and/or brand awareness, or simply that for some reason there are more people wanting to travel between Norfolk and Devon/Cornwall than from/to the Bristol area. I don't think it was down to ticket price because WOW usually seemed pretty competitive when I looked.

Hey,
Does anyone know what Flybe's plans are at BRS yet? Weather they will continue any routes? Or will other airlines like easyjet, ryanair or even Lufthansa will operate the routes flybe drop or choose EXT over BRS? Does anyone know the TOM 762 from BGI is back to BRS, from the one off charter that went out a week or so ago? Whats the date in February when First Choice start operating the long haul routes?

Hello rampboy.

First the easy (no pun ;)) bit: according to their website FCA will commence weekly ops to Florida from 4 Feb 07 and fortnightly to Dominican Republic from 13 Feb 07. The fortnightly flights to Cuba are due to start in May 07.

As for the TOM 762 to BGI, brochures show it is a 15-night holiday so, if the last night is the overnight flight back, I suppose it will be in this coming Saturday morning. The web Mayfly, for some reason, is missing out this weekend altogether at the moment.

I don't know if you have read the lengthy thread on the Rumours and News message board concerning Flybe and BACon, but there are numerous posts from people employed by those airlines who don't seem to have been told yet what the plans are across the network. For example, there seems to be a divergence of opinion as to how long the ERJ 145s will be kept.

It may be that until the takeover deal is actually signed and sealed specifics will not be announced.

Have heard no rumours about EZY, FR or LH, other than LH was supposedly looking at BRS and other regionals because it was getting fed up with security-led delays at the London airports.

FR's Girona route starts in mid Feb 07 and easy will have to decide how its tenth 319 will be employed later next year.

All i know from what i have been told, is Flybe will be phasing out BA aircraft and routes from BRS from Dec 31st and including the their handling agent too i think like dispatcher's and check in etc. By the end of March BA should be out of BRS but even us dont know whats really going on.

There has been a bit of national publicity about the First Choice Banjul flight on Tuesday.

Reports say the B 757 had to call in at Dakar Airport in Senegal on its return flight because fuel was unavailable at its destination airport in the Gambia.

The press of course go to town on the story because the captain had to find the money himself, including 'raiding' the bar takings, to pay for fuel and airport facilities at Dakar.

What intrigues me more is that First Choice say this should not have happened because they had made arrangements several days earlier with the Dakar airport authorities.

Why would they need to have done this? Is there a problem at Banjul with fuel supplies or was it a one-off?

As far as I am aware, the First Choice flight had no problems the previous week, neither did the Astraeus Friday flight to Banjul.

The return schedule for the Tuesday flight is already quite tight to meet BRS's winter night time curfew for runway resurfacing, and last Tuesday's flight had to land at CWL in the early hours of Wednesday.

On a plus point I note the following morning's flight to FUE took off more or less on time at 0825, presumably with the same aircraft

If so, it seems they must have got the 757 back to BRS pretty sharpish as soon as the runway was open on Wednesday morning.

A lot of airports in western africa are run by some very dodgy people, and this can sometimes mean fuel and ground handling can be awkward to say the least, FCA did there best in the circumstances, the DKR refuel stop was set up in advance by at least 24 hours, and they have put a/c in there before so just goes to prove my point about these dodgy characters.
I can't imagine it would of been too nice for the pax but what else could they of done? I imagine that should it happen again then an alternative to DKR will probably be used, TFS being the obvious to come to mind, still FCA from what i see tried there best to minimise distruption to pax but just got buggered about by DKR. The coaches met the a/c in CWL and drove pax strait back also providing them with a drink for the journey, and the a/c was positioned back at 0645, well in time for the FUE.
I cant see why the papers and radio 2 are haveing such orgasms over it bloody idiots :} :}

The easyJet summer 07 flights for BRS have been released this afternoon.

The only new route is Bordeaux which will initially be 3 x weekly, then daily from the end of May. We mused about this a few weeks ago when Flybe pulled out and with it being one of Bristol’s twin cities and a very popular route.

It seems La Rochelle will not be sacrificed though because that returns 4 x weekly from the end of May (frequency as last summer).

Changes from last summer are that AMS will be double daily (as this winter), CDG will carry on once a day having started this winter, NCE will go double daily from the end of May (daily before then with the odd day double daily), and NCL will remain the 4 x daily started this winter.

KRK will be 5 x weekly until the end of May then 4 x weekly as last summer and this winter. I thought this one might go daily as the loads have been pretty impressive – 90% or a bit above in each of the first full three months of the route (Aug, Sept and Oct).

MRS and RJK will not commence until the end of May (both 3 x weekly as last summer).

MAH will return for its usual short midsummer season in mid July (again 3 x weekly).

It’s good to see the return of VLC and PSA (both dropped for the winter) and they will go daily, although PSA will be 6 x weekly until the end of May.

No return for HAM (probably not a surprise) nor BUD (which is a surprise to me).

All other routes and frequencies are the same as last summer as far as I can see.

It looks as though the fact that several routes/increased frequencies don’t commence until the end of May means that’s when the tenth A319 will arrive.