Johnrizzo2000 - how would someone 6ft 6in cope in the business class on the CO flight???:hmm:

I think they would cope very well. I'm 6'0 and i have plenty of room. I have seen many people who are taller than me, and they seemed comfortable! All i know is, if youre over 6'0, economy is hell! Plus the service in businessfirst is great!

CAA June stats (provisional) show BRS now through the 5.5 million annual pax barrier for the twelve months ending June 2006 – 5,538,612 to be precise.

552,000 pax used the airport in June this year, 9.4% more than in June 2005.

Given the large number of easyJet cancellations, and the World Cup enticing people to stay at home (although undoubtedly there were some who did travel to get away from the football) this isn't a bad result, in football parlance.

Flybe are have all but confirmed that Bristol -> Belfast City will enfact cease at the end of October. Air Southwest have been rumored to be taking up the route!

If Air Southwest could offer twice daily flights on weekdays Im sure they could do well on the route with the advantage of serving BHD and not BFS

Flybe did operate 3 rotations a day (slightly fewer at weekends) on BHD-BRS until the end of summer 2005 including early morning and evening services that made day trips possible.

This was in competition with easyJet's 3 rotations a day (slightly fewer at weekends) on BFS-BRS.

Flybe typically carried 6-8,000 pax per month whilst easyJet typically carried and still carries 19-22,000 pax per month.

This shows there was and presumably still is a market between BHD and BRS even in competition with the Orange BFS service, but of course the vital thing is whether that undoubted market is big enough to make money for an airline. Flybe apparently thinks there are better opportunities elsewhere.

As for Air Southwest and Flybe in the southwest generally, there are some interesting CAA comparative figures for June, albeit provisional.

Air Southwest carried 1412 pax on BRS-NWI-BRS whilst BE carried 3141 pax on EXT-NWI-EXT. Both services are operated once a day with WOW using a DH-8-300 and, AFAIK, BE a DH-8-400.

On BRS-MAN-BRS Air Southwest carried 3789 pax on 3 rotations a day (slightly fewer at weekends) and on EXT-MAN-EXT Flybe carried 5062 pax on 2 daily rotations (slightly fewer at weekends). I believe the equipment is as on the NWI route for both airlines.

As a further comparison, on CWL-MAN-CWL Air Southwest on two rotations a day (fewer at weekends) carried 1379 pax.

On the face of it Flybe is doing better on these routes than Air Southwest but, as always, we are not privy to their costs and don't know what sort of yield is being generated by either carrier.

johnrizzo2000,



Too expensive.

It seems that not a day passes without further easyJet cancellations from BRS on one or more routes. It has been well documented on PPRuNe and elsewhere that easyJet has a serious shortage of available flight crew and this is causing major problems across much of the airline’s network.

I did a quick check last night and discovered that between now and 6 August at least thirty rotations (sixty flights) from/to BRS have been cancelled, viz, BUD 4, HAM 7, PRG 6, CIA 5, VLC2 and VCE 6.

Does anyone know when the situation is likely to get back to anything approaching normality?

I would like to spend a few days in Budapest with Mrs MV but cannot risk being stranded in Hungary if the return flight is cancelled after we get out there.

I understand the true figure of cancelled sectors for their network in August would shock everyone!

Just arrived at work this morning to be confronted with a humongus FLYBE advertising hoarding on the main entrance roundabout, looks excellent, but seems somewhat strange for it to be BE, being that they seem to be dissapearing from BRS rather rapidly, seeming they could of advertised maybe BRS's biggest carrier Easyjet or maybe the CO route, or even FCA's long haul. Maybe sumets up the FLYBE sleeve that we dont know about :confused:

I see that EZY have cancelled the late Alicante, lack of crews again no doubt! Has someone in la la land pushed the self distruct button. Schools broke up for the summer today and I bet there was a large volume of kids booked on this flight looking forward to their summer holiday, I would hate to see the look of dissapointment on their faces when they were told their flight is cancelled.

Ezy's name is getting really dragged through the mud, must be loosing huge amounts of repeat customers.

Actually it was a tech fault with the aircraft that couldn’t be easily rectified. All passengers dealt with very efficiently by the Servisair ground staff, some put on tomorrows Alicante and the remainder from Luton.

That's good to hear, at least it's was out of Ezy's control and the pax were dealt with swiftly to cause least amount of delay to get them on their holiday.

Flygibralter plans to start GIB-BRS service next april using 737-300, also going to STN and MAN, more info on the Flygibralter thread

Continental on the downslide?
 

Flew back from EWR with Continental on Friday night with only about 40 pax on the flight. Crew were adamant that Continental are now rethinking the viability of this route due to recent poor capacity figures. Seems like C believe they aircraft could be better used to enhance capacity on one of their more profitable routes. It would be a shame to lose this flight as its such an easy way into the States and beyond and, of course, avoids the chaos of LHR.

Actually there was 55,but 12+161 out and 16+159 yesterday so perhaps not every flight is as low you think

Send the CO out via Cork on alternate days from EWR BRS ORK EWR and EWR ORK BRS EWR and make us all happy!

It would be a great shame if this route is axed. I have spoken to several people who have used it, including my son who has flown it half a dozen times this year, and they all speak highly of it, especially the convenience and the avoidance of the LHR hassle.

The route did quite comfortably exceed the initial 12-month passenger target of the airline but compared to other CO routes from the UK to EWR, notably BFS that started at the same time, monthly load factors seem lower for much of the time, although not in every month (CAA stats).

According to the Belfast Telegraph, around 40% of those using the BFS-EWR link are US-based whereas it is well documented that the BRS-EWR link is predominantly used by UK-based residents – the airport MD mentions this in the minutes of the latest consultative committee minutes on the airport’s own website.

I suspect that if BRS could achieve a 40% American loading the route would be extremely profitable.

The airport and airline have tried many initiatives to try to get US residents to use the BRS gateway. Bristol is not well-known in the USA, despite historical links, and those Americans who might look at the route would see that Bristol is only around one hundred miles from London and, thinking in American distances, might well believe it to be a small airport on the edge of Greater London, so why use it if the much larger Heathrow and Gatwick are available?

Let’s hope the situation is not as dire as one or two on this MB might be suggesting.

Even if more Americans can’t be tempted there is a vast number of local people who, for various reasons, still use the London airports for their transatlantic travel. Perhaps some of these would be easier to persuade.

Tom,

It's a thought but the problem might then be reversed - too many pax!

We never did get that easyJet route from BRS to ORK, and now I believe the Orange Machine is deserting ORK altogether.

FCA BRS-SFB definatly starts in febuary weekly now, and POP fortnightly starts in febuary also, for some reason not on FC website at the moment but apparently it is on sale in the shops. Varadero still starting in May.
If these routes are selling as well as I hear then it would be nice to see some more longhaul added for winter 07/08, I suspect a CUN is probably already on the cards but a nice BRS-MLE via LGW would suit me(can't really see that one though :} ), what do you all reckon?

Just makes me think what the long haul program would be like with an extra couple hundred metres added on the end.