The LHR switching to an all ERJ operation is just the type of medicine the route needs.

Good to hear about GSM and I look forward to seeing the winter schedules, I think we may see Prague returning, or another ski holiday equivalent such as GVA or CMF even.

bmi, LHR and Open Skies
 

Quote from yesterdays Independent:

"BMI would be free to deploy some of its ample supplies of precious slots at Heathrow, presently used to shuttle to places like Palma and Teesside, to launch services to key US cities: New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles."

Just been on a driving lesson to MSG, the signs are being changed at a pretty fast rate, I saw some that were still Teesside International just a couple of weeks ago that are now, "D'ham Tees Valley".

Regards.

Where is D'ham ?;)

It's abbreviated on some of the signs due to a lack of room.

Well that just about says it all about the name change:confused:

First Flyglobespan flight from the base departs a week today, fingers crossed everything goes well and we have a good summer this summer, what with Wizz joining in July too.

Looking through the bmi schedule for the summer it seems they're loving destroying the LHR route. First flight out on a Monday is 1125 on the 333 down to LHR! Also latest flight back up on a Friday is the 332 arriving at 1055! No teatime arrival or late night arrival.

Big mistake by bmi if this is true.

A ludicrous schedule - I think their attention is a few thousand miles to the West...

Ludicrous, yes. Accidental...no.
bmi know exactly what they are doing and trust me when I say that MME does not feature in their future plans. The route has been maintained purely as a slot protection exercise. It is not in their interests to upset thousands of loyal pax when the route finally is pulled, hence the steady erosion in timetable over the last few years.:mad:

... and the open skies agreement of the last week is just what they've been waiting for.

The MME route will be effected by the open skies agreement, but I cannot see it going altogether, as bmi need their regional routes to feed the future LHR-USA routes, so yes, we may loose one or two rotations a day, but I cannot see it going completely.

Also, bmi regional are a much more respected company, they have high load factors and are currently the best performing of all the bmi Group, so bare in mind that the MME-LHR route is now 100% in their hands, they have the potential to resurrect the route, whether they actually do or not is a different matter...

DTCAirportWell lets just say that that everything is relative..........
Then are Peel / DTV just perared to sit back & continue to be messed about? & if so how long does the current agreement last ?:ugh:

What can Peel/DTV do about? If bmi don't operate MME-LHR, nobody else will.

I think it would be better for all involved if bmi was to leav altogether. I say this because at the moment bmi are stopping other airlines from starting routes into London, I don't mean there is an agreement, just that at the moment they are providing enough competition to make airlines think twice about doing flights into London.
I think what would be better now for MME is for someon like Flybe, Ryanair or Globespan to do a twice daily Gatwick and for KLM to go to at least 4 daily on the AMS with F100s. This would then cater for the London area traffic as well as providing decent connections (through AMS) for onward travellers.

I think now 'open skies' has been agreed the government should step in and allocate slots into London on some sort of basis. It doesn't have to be all into LHR but as long as each regional airport outside of x miles of London has some sort of link. Just an idea though.

Do you have any grounds as a basis in making this statment ?

I think he is meaning no-one else can operate it at the moment on account of the slot problems at LHR.

Someone, probably GSM, would almost definitely launch LGW if LHR goes down the pan.

After months of speculation on what aircraft type Flyglobespan would send us, we finally got Boeing 737-600 G-CDKT this morning.

Regarding the LHR bmi flights, from the bmi website, it apears to be operating Mon-FRi 4 times a day? Where did it say about no flights on Mon am and Fri PM? Having said that the cheapest fare you can get on some flights apart from the 330/345 is up to £190 single! So hopefully they are making lots of money!

127pax on the first flygobespan flight to Palma on Saturday. Does anyone know how many the 737-600's can take?

mmeman
The B736 can carry 130 passengers pax. So it looks like FlyGlobespan have made a good start!