good news for a change
 

Just looked at the railfares Darlington Kings X for mid January on the new East Coast Carrier National Express and the Air Fare beats it by £30.

BMA to LHR
 

That is good news - although recently my opinion is that the times are not great for Joe Public. I experienced this problem first hand when I flew to Montreal in March with Air Canada and had the option of adding on domestic flights to Heathrow for £90 each. The problem was, the afternoon flight was too late so we would have had to get the morning flight which would have meant around a 12 hour wait in LHR!!! Coming back we would only have had 55 minutes to connect to the morning back to MME and the booking agent wouldn't allow it with a terminal change so we would have had something close to a 15 hour layover in LHR coming back off a red-eye!

Needless to say I drove and got some cheap car parking online 5 miles from LHR. Such a shame as I would have preferred to fly, but would not have waited for those lengths of time...it's not as if the transatlantic flight arrived at a different time to others either!!!

-HD-

Yes, I work at a low cost airfield and it has on my license low cost air traffic controller. The CAA won't even use capitols!!! So I suggest you don't fly when I'm working because you'll get a low cost service! :)

MME Movement Archives
 

I have a question regarding MME past movement info.
I realise that there are sites which have tracked movements at MME for the past few years and documented some of the more unusual visitors, but I was wondering whether the airport keeps a master movement log going back to the 80s, 70s, etc.
I know British Midland (now Aviance) always kept movement books for flights handled by them, as when I worked there they had them going back about 5 years, but I don't know where ones before that ended up.
Does the airport keep such records going back to previous decades? If so, does anyone on the forums have access to such information?
Any information appreciated.

An e-mail to Andy Hutchings via the Air North website might help or I've got Air North magazines from the early nineties somewhere if you want to PM and aren't in a hurry...

As far as I know the Airport used to keep ALL movement logs. The originals were kept by the authority and copies were sent to the CAA.
The last time I knew about such things they were kept were back to the 1960s, but things may have changed since Peel took over, you could always give the admin section a ring?

Am I right in thinking that this same person caused considerable upset, and a number of resignations at Liverpool?

Coincidence?

After months of wondering it looks like we could finally be about to discover the fate of LHR; bmi have just axed INV, ALC and NCE for S08.

I was right in my prediction that we're going to discover the fate of LHR, but I didn't expect something this good - bmi are hinting at an improvement:

From a quick look at the booking engine it looks like the first flight of the day is leaving an hour earlier than it does now, which is a major improvement.

Are they still using ERJ's on the route or has it returned to mainline?

At this point in time it's operated with a mix of E145s and A319s.

ATC Closure
 

From the AIS website:

Q)EGTT/QFAXX/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5431N00126W005
FROM 08/01/05 22:15 TO 08/01/06 06:00 C0059/08
E)ATC CLOSED DUE STAFF SICKNESS. EXTENSIONS STRICTLY PPR.

Looks like ATC are also being struck down with this superbug?! :uhoh:
Any known impact on flights?

Last flight is the KLM at 2150, next movement is tomorrow morning around 6 (the morning departures) so no effect really, only possible one is the Police helicopter so I guess the Newcastle one will be covering the whole area tonight!

MME TFS Thomson Flight
 

Just been checking Thomson Holidays for Tenerife and I can't Find anything for Tenerife from Teesside after April. Is this a glitch on their site or is it another nail in the coffin?

No glitch, Thomson I believe are pulling out of MME in April after years of speculation. The only flight left until then as far as I know is the Tuesday ALC-MME-ALC in the B752. I hope for MME's sake that they get another charter airline in with a one aircraft base to minimise the effect TOM dropping out will have.

Considering the termination of the seasonal base, the Thomson schedule for Summer 2008 is not too bad at all, it is as follows:

Alicante -2----- B73H (operated by a B752 until 09-06-2008, MAN-ALC-MME-ALC-MAN)

Palma ---4--- B752 (NCL-PMI-MME-PMI-NCL)

Mahon -----6- B733 (MAN-MAH-MME-MAH-MAN)

Reus -----6- B733 (DSA-REU-MME-REU-DSA)

I believe Air Europa are also operating two or three weekly flights on behalf of Thomsonfly for Summer 2008, one being the TFS that paarmo mentioned.

In other news, the roads for the Industrial Estate have apparantly been laid out on the south side, nothing on the new terminal/stands/taxiways though surprise surprise.

Not sure if this was announced a while ago, but FR are starting routes to ALC from MME :)

Apparantly, Ryanair are to announce a North East base very soon, and from what I hear, we're in with more of a chance than you might think.

I've been told Milan Bergamo is soon to finish from NCL, which will leave them with just DUB and GRO, whereas we'll have ALC, DUB and GRO, now I know that's far from conclusive, but it has to be significant?

Regards.

or maybe they'll give it to the North East airport with the most RYR flights in a week...

Ryanair
 

Although technically not in the NE..I think you might find Ryanair are off to Leeds.....