It did cross my mind that the number of advanced bookings may have effected the size of aircraft they sent us, so at first I was skeptical about the B736, but if they're filling her up then it can't be bad.

Yes I have noticed that as well.. It did originally say 2 B733 for Durham so maybe they have a lot of bookings already for the summer so will be moving there aircraft round at a later date!

EMA01

I heard everything from 2 733, 1 736 and 1 738, 1 733 and 1 73G, the list of combinations is almost endless - I even fell for an April Fools joke that they were temporarily sending us a B763ER!! :O :ugh:

Lol. Im sure the most average aircraft there will be a B733 though because bmibaby operated them. Atleast GSM are doing well!

EMA01

Good start by sounds of it for GSM but it just goes to show what offering popular low risk destinations results in-full planes!!Anyone fancy a return to KNOCK??!!

As for FR it looks like GRO goes from strength to strength and what do people think about them returning to a daily DUB and maybe even a CIA 3xweekly?

Back to GSM and possible future destinations I am going to be bold and say GVA will be a dead cert for the winter and one thing that has surprised me is their announcement of flying YHM from NCL originating from STN on a 757-surely wouldnt it have been better to route through MME and give her a trans atlantic as NCL already has their Toronto flights!!

The Wednesday DUB rotation is returning, although I think it's only temporary. I would love to see it back at 1x daily. They won't touch CIA again, although I believe FCO is in GSMs route network, they could certainly make a success of it.

I assume by now the Ryanair NCL-GRO route has launched, has this had any effect on our GRO route? If not, I feel a frequency increase coming on, to 4x weekly I think.

Gerona
 

Dont think the start of the NCL - Gerona will affect the Durham Tees Valley flight at all. In fact I would expect it to do better than the NCL service as there is competition at NCL from Easyjet to Barcelona and I think a few other charters from NCL. There is no competition on the route at Durham.

Generally I would think all the GSM routes will do very well, again with no or little direct competition, unlike NCL where there seems to be on some routes numerous operators in direct competition causing over capacity.

What the hell is going on today? Why have we had 13 flights cancelled on the first day of Easter weekend???

Cancellations
 

DTV please elaborate...

Which flights were cancelled? If it was just T3's to ABZ and BRU this is the norm given these are predominatly business routes and it being a public holiday-same happens at christmas.

Dropping my brother off on Thurs for the 6am AMS flight and noticed troops were congregating for a flight-anyone know what airline/equipment came in for them?


Why won't FR touch Rome (CIA) again? By all accounts the route was popular.

Route cancelled today are:
TAY15C/16G
EZE580/581/582/585/586
EZE4461/4462/4467/4468
BMA332/333/339/340

The troops you saw on Thursday went out on XLA8806 G-BOPB Boeing 767-200ER, which arrived as XLA006P, probably from either London Gatwick or RAF Brize Norton. This aircraft also wears their new livery. It arrived at 07:07 and departed at 07:55 according to the DTVA Group. It returned today as XLA8807 at 08:58 and left again at 09:55 under the same flight number.

Yes, the CIA route was popular, but it obviously didn't work for Ryanair otherwise they wouldn't have chopped it.

Has somebody mentioned already Eastern reduce all there services around bank holidays, because they are a business airline and most businesses close at Easter hence no traffic, what is the point of running empty airplanes and burning holes in the sky.

The flights shown as cancelled were never bookable, and simply do not opperate over bank holiday periods.
It is something that happens at Durham T V airport each Christmas, Easter etc.
Cant understand why they dont just simply "not" put them on the departure/ arrival boards after all there are no PAX booked on them.

Well in that case we've got some serious problems, because we should be easily able to fill 75% of those routes on Easter weekend.

This happens at all airports not just MME, Eastern barely operate over Xmas, Easter etc because there is just not the passengers required. TNT don't operate on weekend so why would they operate on bank holidays ?

bmi don't surprise me running only 2 out of 4, I presume KL took at least one of theirs off too?

You would think Brussels and London would be popular with holiday passengers looking for a weekend break?

FR DUB-MME

CAA stats for FEB are showing DUB-MME at just over 50% load factor, its small wonder they dropped frequency. I cant see it going back to daily ... I wonder if FR are considering dropping it completely??

Also, The Wednesday service is only resuming for the month of May and September

DTV, you don't have a clue do you :confused: , you think just because a few flights were cancelled we have serious problems :mad: Eastern cancel flights over christmas and easter as several people have already said and as Wellington Bomber stated, what's the point in flying planes that have no pax!!
Come on, use your common sense! :ok:

Well ok, I can understand Eastern cancelling, but all the other operators should have easily been able to sell their flights.

Thanks for the info on the troop flights DTV.

I honestly don't feel there are any issues at MME at the mo-FR's GRO route has got off to a good start, BRU seems to be ticking over and GSM have started postively and most importantly punctually!

It is a shame bmi have down sized but we have to remember KL will always offer cheaper fares and better connections and having an LHR service at all is the envy of most other similar sized regionals.

The only hope I have now following the miraculous recovery following our friends from Castle Donnington's departure is that the likes of GSM, FR and perhaps Wizz begin to build up their destinations over time.