Well done Ryanair for putting trust in MME!!

I've bitten the bullet and booked on the maiden flight (Tues 13th Feb) returning the sat 17th Feb and it cost me a very pleasant £53!!!only slight annoyance was having to pay £7 to pay for 1 piece of luggage into the hold!!

I think its great news for MME lets just hope DTV play their cards right and the people of Tees Valley support the route and FR put more faith in MME!!

Its clearly a 'toe in the water' frequency but one that i really think will prove popular for the reasons already stated...the only dampner is that while MME has a month or so without FR competition from NCL also to GRO I just hope a decision is made soon as to focusing on either NCL or MME so that NCL doesnt attract too many MMEers!!

If it does prove a success, and Ryanair up the frequency of the route or add more routes, then I'm quietly confident that Rome Ciampino hasn't seen the last of MME! :ok:

Well this is good news for DTV - 3x weekly is a good start and maybe by Summer 2008 (:)) it may be increased to daily.

It sounds like there are more new routes to come (not necessarily from FR) soon - gathered from the Evening Gazette article tonight.

mmeteesside

I saw the ITV North East News and it had a report on the new route - you saw a parked bmibaby aircraft in the background and in the foreground a beautiful Ryanair Boeing 737-800 in the revised livery with winglets was just parking up - and in classic Ryanair style, the aircraft sported extra, "Bye bye baby" titles! :E

Hugh Lang said at the end of the interview that the airport has, "More announcements up its sleeve".

Have heard that bmibaby have offered a compensation package to flight deck crews to relocate to Birmingham although many seem to be moving upto Newcastle with easy or jet2. Also on top of that they are offering positions to the rest of the staff in Birmingham or redundency money, again many are taking the redundency money and moving upto Newcastle. Then factor into this that the aircraft from MME will be sat idle for a few months and cost even more money. Now the base at MME wasn't losing money yet bmibaby are prepared to spend huge amounts on relocating staff and having aircraft sat on the ground, why? The word is that the new bloke in charge of baby is totally bias towards Birmingham and has no need for a base in the North East.

Someone has just posted on the bmi thread that the bmi LHR-MME route is to be totally dropped and the slots used to launch a new long haul route.

Sadly I can believe this - bmi will know that the departure of bmibaby from MME will have knock-on effects on the LHR route because people are confusing the two airlines.

If bmi do pull out, is there any chance at all that BA could takeover?

Not a chance. BA, in common with BMI, would rather use their slots at LHR for long haul.

Thought so, plus in a way, they would be competing with themselves.

We may be seeing the end of the LHR route, but it would also see the end of the bmi agreement and we may see either FR or AB start a STN route.

mmeteesside

Would imagine that most of the current users of the LHR service would regard STN as a poor substitute - poorer access to central/West London and the Thames Valley and reduction in transfer opportunities.

On the other hand, KLM will be gutted...

Why would KLM Cityhopper be gutted? Do they still have plans to increase the Amsterdam route to 4x daily this winter?

Now there's a carrier I would love to see at MME - Air Berlin! But I would prefer them to use 738's rather than A32X's.

I dunno, maybe SWBKCB is being sarcastic :confused:
The absense of a LHR route would see more MME passengers using AMS as hub. KLM would be jumping for joy!

DTV

I must be losing my commercial marbles somewhat, but why would the people of Teesside / Cleveland welcome with open arms AB, what are they going to provide?

MME / STN woopie do with onward connections to Germany WOW

Now genuine business people want to go to LHR to change to longhaul and they are losing this service, big dissapointment

I agree KLM will be rubbing their hands, and if any Germans want welcoming then bring in Lufthansa as the Star Alliance Partner not some other low cost airline, I thought that DTV had learned its lesson

I just said I personally would like to see AB at MME, I didn't say it would be commercially healthy - it wouldn't be, in my professional opinion, I know we need bmi to stay, even if it means mainline hands the route to regional.

Another region losing flights to our countries capital? :ugh:

In BMI's defence they seem to have clung on to many of the slots at LHR to use them on the regions, more than can be said for BA, who can fly a busy shuttle service to MAN, GLA and EDI but cant provide for its regions, leaving dedicated foreign companies like KLM to the regions.

I can understand BMI pulling out though, it cant be cheap running that service and any long haul routes would more than over compensate.

I suppose with a country so small flights to the regions, from an already overcrouded airport, arent on top of anyones list:{

Well after having gone through the passenger figures for August, I can reveal that the baby pullout has nothing to do with passenger figures (that was a lie!) as they are all pretty good.

Total in August was 109590 +4.2%, rolling year 952736 +7.5%

Alicante 5739 88.1%
Cork 3627 58.3%
Gatwick 4839 60.5%
Jersey 3353 80.9%
Malaga 5095 78.2%
Palma 5345
Paris 6170 67.2%
Newquay 3938 73.9%
Knock 670

Aberdeen 2824 51.8%
Dublin 9161 78.2%
Amsterdam10521 81.2%
Heathrow 7472 42.2%

The Aberdeen was +36% over last August, and doing better than NCL (2399 pax) :)

Baby meanwhile are a pack of liars :} and their pullout obviously has nothing to do with passenger numbers! :ugh: More to do with landing fees as I said before! :oh:

mmeteesside

If it was to do with landing fees, then the airport has its own blood on its own hands. i reckon its more to do with the fact that bmibaby are blo*dy cr*p. Anyway...

Reckon flyglobespan will pick up the bmibaby routes, and if mainline bmi hand over LHR to regional, flyglobespan wil probably do STN too. long-haul connections will be lost to AMS.

If bmi cant make money on the LHR service there is something seriously wrong. Any fool can make money in LHR, It is the most pestigious, most sought after airport for any flag carrier. I just dont buy that domestic service is unprofitable, hubs like LHR exist to feed traffic from smaller destinations to larger ones. Perhaps the BAA should look at awarding slots for endangered/underserved services within the UK? like at some airports in the US. Or at least make BA & bmi's international slots a function of their non-trunk domestic ones.

Perhaps if bmi seperated itself a little more from WW and offered a clear and simple product which offers good value they eould be better off, as at the moment its just bloody confusing.

On the WW front, what the hell is gong on....I know some loads were a bit poor, but I would ave thought that there was more than enough work for one a/c? I think there must be serious trouble brewing at WW. They clearly havent got a clue. MME was a nice safe haven from FR,etc but they'll prob put the 73's into LPL!!! :rolleyes:

Sad
 

When any airline pulls out it always to do with commercial pressure and the locals lose out.

With some of the routes showing strong operating returns how long does it take before the commercial people say yes this route is a winner.

The old saying goes you have to lose money to gain money and new route are always a gamble, but to pull out when some of the routes were looking strong is very dishearting, when you have been down this road more than once is it worth staying in the strange world off aviation.

I was talking to the Aviance Station Manager earlier today and he had asked the bmi senior management the very question regarding the LHR route. He was told there is absolutely no truth in this rumour whatsoever.
He also stated that bmi are to install more self check in machines, have re-signed the lease on the Business and Diamond lounges, so why do that if they are pulling the route ?

MME was British Midlands first route ex LHR and SMB is protective towards it, plus it still makes money so why pull a profitable route ? Pax figures are picking up and I would imagine will increase with the loss of the WW LGW service.

I got the impression from the Aviance Station Manager that something positive may be on the horizon for DTVA but obviously, he could not say what.Possibly an announcement soon.;)

Landing fees at LHR can be crippling, while the service may do well it wont do as well as a service with larger a/c to some long haul destination. They pride themselves on being the worlds busiest international airport and so price a lot of services out of the market :ugh:

If what Northern Hero says is true though i dont think you have anything to worry about.

This would have nothing to do with BAA. As a private company, their remit is to operate airports at maximum profitability. It would, however, have a lot to do with the UK government, who are highly unlikely to legislate in this way. The best example of a city which should have protected access to LHR is Liverpool (and MME)

No they won't - the agreement between bmi and DTVA that only they can operate jet equipment into London would still stand. Although following Northern Hero's comments I now think it will remain in the hands of mainline.

Before the announcement that bmibaby were pulling out, it was mentioned that the airport was getting, "either a new operator or an old one returning" and Northern Hero hinted at this again in the post I referred to above, plus, Hugh Lang himself told ITV's North East news that there were more route announcements up the airports sleeve - so come on guys, bit more effort - who's gonna be flying where?

GSM to operate SH flights for S07
 

Looks like GSM will operate a series of shorthaul flights from MME to: ALC, AGP, PMI, FAO. Not released yet, but if you mess around with their timetables, these routes all come up. Should be announced shortly.

I sure as hell hope you're right! That would certainly take the sting out of bmibabys departure and *MIGHT* stop our annual passenger numbers from falling below the 1 million mark next year.

If you play around with the timetables you get PMI times for the return from 1st April, daily leaving PMI at 1430 arr MME at 1825

The destinations that show up properly are ALC AGP FAO PMI TFS at the moment (the ones I could find!) - certainly looks good from Flyg! :)

mmeteesside

What kind of timetable messing around are you talking about? Can't get any of these routes to show.

No, I can't get any to show either?

The timetable section looks like a hard link - can you show us what you're doing.

In answer to an earlier question BTW, KLM F70 still 3 times daily over winter, though an F50 went overhead yesterday for the 5pm arrival. An one-off or a regular downgrade I don't know.

I think the KL1537 has been operated by a Fokker F50 for the last three days :-(

Hopefully, it is just a temporary measure. The KL1533 and KL1539 are still being operated by the Fokker F70.

When do the winter schedules officially start? I thought it would be this week but looking at the arrivals and departures boards the summer schedules are still running.

I think that what the lads playing around with Globespan timetables are doing, is assuming that gaps in the Globespan timetables are going to be filled with flights to MME.

???

This all makes for very interesting news.. PMI Daily is good and the others are certainly welcome, i would also hope a PRG route would be announced at some point.

I think flyglobespan has been mentioned a few times, the rumours and expectations based on what has been said coming from the press and airport officials looks promising re new airlines and old airlines returning.

So if Flyglobespan do take over PMI/ALC/AGP and introduce FAO a few routes and possibilities are left from what Baby is leaving behind.

In addition is it just a rumour or could there be any truth in BMI making an announcement on something seen earlier in this thread- am not talking axing of LHR as i believe that will stay but could an embraer be winging its way to MME i wonder for new routes?

Am throwing caution to the wind as i havent commented on what could happen and saying what i could see working but this would be it:

Flybe looking at LGW (although understand that BMI London agreement exists) maybe BFS also?
Air Southwest to Newquay
Ryanair bringing back Rome and possibly introducing Cork/Shannon? Is good news on the Girona front though, looks like the acted quickly to reduce NCL to 4x week to introduce MME 3x week (as it looks to have been the case):D
and i still wouldnt rule out Thomsonfly at somepoint, would very well complement their existing charter ops.

food for thought anyway!

I would assume it will be a bit more complex than that, I don't think they would be getting excited over something that could mean anything.

I see what these guys are doing now...and before you get a bit too over excited. This does not mean that these routes are going on sale, it simply means that the routes have been loaded onto the website.

I could very well be wrong but looking at the ABZ flights it shows at least 3 daily flights to different destinations with overlapping flight times, which would mean at least 3 a/c at ABZ not going to happen.

So until the MME S07 routes are announced and bookable we'll have to wait and see.

Ryanair base.
 

I was just discussing on the Ryanair thread about a possible base at MME. I just suggested a few routes that they could possibly start, if ye want to check it out.;)

Shannon55.

Don't think I can post the link but I can see now.

Essentially, go to the timetable section, and on the address change the season to summer 07 and change the destination. If you type in PMI you can see the daily schedule.

Yes if you change the destination in the address bar (go to timetables and click on GLA-BCN for example on Summer 2007 bit) to MME + PMI you can see the daily flights laid out (return only at the moment) and it shows the 2 'headers' for ALC, AGP, FAO and TFS also. However, put in YYZ or JFK and you'll see what you would normally get were you to simply 'make up' routes.

That bmi ERJ rumours sounds interesting, wonder if it could be for JER?

mmeteesside

Aha! Ok I see what ye are doing now.
Changing the URL parameters: ingenious ;)

?OutDepAir=MME&OutArrAir=PMI&Season=SE7
shows daily flights to PMI for example.

Has this not been said before about changing the URL at the front.
Im sure that if you type in NCL to pmi-tfs- etc it will bring u to the same pages.

Hope mme does get something out of this though.

New York from NCL with GSM would be nice

HH6702

I am afraid it doesn't, it comes up with an error message when you try to put NCL to PMI for example, where it doesn't when you put mme to pmi.

Hopefully something will come out of this, but remember Geneva appeared on the bmibaby website timetable?!

Plus they had better hurry up and announce it if this is correct as they start going to PMI on 3rd November!!!

Remember when Birmingham briefly appeared on bmibaby's website as a destination from MME? I wonder if that was a cruel ominous joke from WW's management.

Or maybe a series of staff flights to move everyone to the new base.


Good potential news on Flyglobespan though. I think they could make a success of things.