I find it irritating when you go into a travel agent and ask them to quote you for a holiday to blah blah blah leaving on a Sunday. They then press a few buttons and go no flights on a Sunday only Friday. You then reply 'yes you can blah blah dep each Sunday at 14.10 also on Tuesdays at 07.25 oh and by the way, Friday flights are fortnightly' making sure that every agent hears your reply. They then press a few more buttons get on the phone, and then 10 mins later 'oh sorry sir your right'.

I agree 100%. I bet a good 3rd of MAN and at least 1/2 of LHR pax are just ppl looking for connections. I reacon a weekly flight to places like the dominican republic and cancun (definetly florida, even in winter) would work very well. I think the fact that you have to get connections puts alot of people off. If BFS had even 1 flight a week to those carribean destinations, people would be attracted to them and would be very successful. Las Vegas however i think would work best once every week early march to late september. I would love to see EI to bring in some Us destinations. I dunno what you think but i think it would work well!:ok:

Did Globespan not offer BFS-LAS for a while?

Visitors...
 

Noticed a WIND JET A320 at BFS today...any ideas why it was there?

Also four similar small aircraft oover towards the tower / RAF apron...not sure what they were...again, any ideas?

Not sure about Globespan, but know last year MyTravel operated a couple of departures from BFS to LAS over Easter, and then again over peak late June early July.

NWSRG

The WIND JET A319 came in from Gander, and was probably a fuel stop before departing to Italy.
The four twin props behind the tower were Royal Navy Jetstreams T Mk2's used for observer training and came in from RNAS Culdrose. They are due to return today.

Last week I think it was Wednesday around 3.00pm, I saw what looked like a Boeing 707 with a large radar on the top on finals for 25 at BFS. The reason I say Boeing 707 as it had four engines and slim fuselage and with the radar looked like the USAF spy plane of the 80's.

I am not a spotter
 

Gate 22

Might have been one of these rare visitors.

RAF - Sentry

I am not really a spotter as in the 'train spotting' tag, however I live with a view of the approach path to 25 at BFS and the westerly at BHD. BHD is quite far away, however aircraft can be easily identified through binoculars. So when a Belfast bound aircraft comes in from the north (normally the transatlantic traffic) it would fly right over the house and that sentry was loud. So it prompted a look out the window. But thanks for that it probably was that aircraft.

gate22

The Ulster Aviation Society produce a journal for members every month entitled Ulster Airmail.
There are interesting features and articles and it lists non scheduled visitors to both Belfast International and Belfast City airports.
Website is
ulsteraviationsociety.co.uk

At work I often get accused of being a spotter but being an aviation enthusiast has helped me enormously in my thirty eight years career as an ATCO.

Well WA, it hasn`t helped you with your vectoring!!!!!

Only joking old boy, its good to see you back on here again.

Cheers, TR

Alacrity,

Thanks for the info...some unusual passers-by on our wee patch!

Easyjet have no flights for:

BFS-PRG
BFS-VCE
BFS-SXF

during summer 09... have they dropped the routes or have they not got round to scheduling them yet

bit wierd as the BFS-PRG route is usually over 100 passengers during summer..

anyone have any info?

As far as I'm aware, Easyjet decided to cancel Berlin before the winter seats from BFS were put on sale, stating a lack of future bookings on the route.
With venice, I think winter seats were already on sale and had been planned to operate, but then pulled at the last minute before the winter flying schedule started. Likewise with Prague, winter seats were on sale for all winter season, and then the flights pulled as of Jan 09.

Appears that these destinations are cancelled for the foreseeable future, and I guess no chance of them being operated for summer 09.

Well there's 6 airframes for summer 09 just like last year so you never know..

FlyBE starting BHD to IOM and BLK from May 09.
Trouble ahead for Manx 2??

Flybe.com - News


Regarding the 6 airframes EZY have for summer 09 at BFS. Is there any gaps anyone has noticed in the current summer schedule to allow for these destinations to be included, or are the 6 aircraft already fully utilised??

EZY Airbus
 

Any sign of EZY basing any Airbus in BFS in the near future?

Ezy scarebuses
 

I can't see it myself, BFS was destined as one of the last boeing bases to be converted to airbus but with easy accelerating the retirement of the workhorses not that far away.

But it could be a while due to the need to re train flight deck crews and the slowing economy which could cause them to defer orders but that would make my first point invalid.

As far as I know Aer Lingus have 3 based units at BFS, however departures up to 09.35 tomorrow morning show only 2 EI flights:
EI 0068 Rome 07.10, and
EI 0032 Heathrow 07.40.

Does one of the based aircraft sit idle? Is this usual?

EI have dropped some mid-week flights to various points, eg Ams, Bcn.

True Blue