Oh, Onion..bless.

Many years ago there was a plan to build a direct rail link between NCL and MME.
This was so that MME could be used as a long term car park! Dear old Jimmy even had the funding in his back pocket.

Both airports are in dire need of devlopment. NCL is an embarrassment every time you have to use it. Goodness knows what vistors must think when they arrive for the first time. It is the ONLY airport I have ever travelled through that stops you leaving the arrivals hall because of useless rotating doors!
MME, well enough said!

Lhr-mme
 

Does anyone know how it's doing now that the Embraer's have taken over?
Certainly looking to book seats for tomorrow's flights gives very little availability, with quite a few flights (331/339 up, 332/338 down) having only premium economy seats left. I still think A319's are too big for this route though, maybe a leased 146-200/300 would be a good step before the Embraer 190's get delivered (if indeed they are for mainline/regional).

Been trying to book flights out of MME via LHR or AMS and have had real trouble finding flights at a reasonable price, and its been the MME sectors that have pushed the price up, and this is two weeks away. The problem with the MME-LHR is the aircraft is too small and the flight times are all wrong this is causing pax to move over to AMS and pushing up demand on that service. The A319 was the correct aircraft when the timings were better but have to agree that its a waste at the moment with the s**t timings.

MME - PMI With TCX?
 

Does anybody have any information about the Saturday flight to PMI with TCX?

On the Thomas cook site it dose not come up with Thomas cook But IBW?

:bored:

I expect you booked through TCX but they will be using IberWorld to fly the route on their behalf

The flight was originally planned to be operated by Iberworld but it seems Thomas Cook Airlines are now flying it instead. This flight is shared by Thomas Cook and First Choice if I remember correctly (maybe not next year though!?).

Looking at the March passenger figures,

Aberdeen, 3124 pax, a load factor of 58.55%
Amsterdam, 10343 pax, a load factor of 69.51%
Brussels, 874 pax, a load factor of 34.25%
Dublin, 5437 pax, a load factor of 65.38%
Heathrow, 8976 pax, a load factor of 33.85%

March 2006 included Easter so some of the routes performed worse this year than last year.
Eastern's Aberdeen continues to be the shining star, this month it out-performed similar flights from LBA, HUY and NCL.
The Brussels appears to have made a strong start, and is doing pretty well.
The Heathrow did badly, and that is not surprising! Load factors and yields should be better now with the ERJ's on the route.

I suspect Aberdeen will do well because Thats where people get onto the rigs, form Aberdeen.

Cork
 

Anyone heard anything about Cork starting again? I know someone in Cork and they have been told 3 times a week service to Durham Tees Valley is starting, but don't know which airline. Can only think it would be Aer Arran or maybe Ryanair? Must stress only a rumour.

Can't see it being RYR, Aer Arann is a good possibility though.

Cork-Durham
 

Could be RE to replace Cork-Southampton which currently operates three times per week and which has been doing badly since FR launched Shannon-Bournemouth. I know Jet2 have been doing well recently on Cork-Newcastle, however I don't know will RE be able to rival Jet2's fares. How far is MME from Leeds Bradford? RE won't want to be stealing passengers from that service

Well I've finally done the analysis of the April passenger numbers...

Aberdeen, 2596 pax, 52.66%
Alicante, 4738 pax, 90.08% (shared between GSM + TOM)
Amsterdam, 10711 pax, 75.22%
Brussels, 861 pax, 39.07%
Dublin, 5422 pax, 65.20%
Faro, 1659 pax, 70.90%
Gerona, 3490 pax, 76.94%
Heathrow, 6284 pax, 62.87%
Malaga, 4560 pax, 83.52%
Palma, 2680 pax, 79.29%

Aberdeen continues to do well, outperforming NCL, HUY and SOU flights, LBA was slightly higher but that is Eastern + Flybe together.
Brussels has started strongly and continues to do well, 39% this month compared to 34% in March.
Amsterdam seems to be hanging around the 75-80% every month.
Heathrow has made a recovery on the load factor % since the introduction of the ERJ's, and I would suspect yields are much better on this route too.
Dublin continues to plod along around 65%, and Gerona has done well since it started, better than DUB anyway.
The Flyglobespan flights seem to have done fairly well, all around the 80% mark which can't be bad. Could be better though, based on 130 seats on a 736 (anyone know for definite how many GSM's have?).

DTV airport closure
 

Its all very well discussing new routes and passenger figures but what does the future hold if the airport is unable to provide an uninterrupted ATC service?!
I notice over the last few days many short period closures due no ATC services..what will the airlines think of that??? :O

DTV Closures-The saga continues!!
 

And so they continue..what is going on??
Aircraft holding both overhead and en-route at various times over last few days..what is happening to our local airport??

I feel this is a real attraction (not)to future airline operators??

Yep shut 0700-0730 and 1830-1900 GMT today, not exactly busy times but still not good. Due to ATC staff shortages again I presume. NOTAM doesn't state this time just says ATC not available.

Its only good luck that the Northern Echo/Gazette havnt got hold of this, it would put passengers off flying as they would no doubt pump up the facts

Don't tempt fate! They could still get hold of it yet!

If an astute Journalist reads Pprune.....he will know about it now

The TCX flight is operating the PMI service for the first 2-3 weeks I believe using an CWL based crew.

Secondly - staff shortages. Something that has been a problem at MME for a number of years but has never previously been so bad as to force so many closures. The problem I believe is that there is still at least one controller on long term sick, and of course SCRATCOH dictates you must have at least a 30 minute break per 2 hours. Since there doesn't seem to be enough controllers to run 3 morning and 3 afternoon shifts (1 for radar, 1 for tower and 1 on a break), I have heard they are currently running 2 mornings, 2 afternoons and 1 day shift which would explain the times of the closures.

If it continues, I can see GSM in particular being rather put off and I don't see why they would want to come back next year. If only upper management at the airport had took a grip on this situation several years ago and paid the going rate for ATCOs and MME may not find themselves in this mess right now.

Rumour also has it that SRG are not happy about the current situation and are visiting management at MME in the near future.....

It willl be another Londonderry scenario if they're not careful. :ugh:

Nobody on radar from 2100-0445 (GMT) so 2200-0545 local time overnight tonight, shouldn't affect anyone apart from the BAC express flight, as long as the Globespan gets back on time.