When you come from Bangor and you're family and friends all live in East Belfast and North Down then yes, Aldergrove is the middle of nowhere. Getting to the other side of Belfast is a right pain in the arse from Aldergrove. As eastern can well testify to.:}

The Harbour is more central and has decent transport links ie the train, or if you feel the need to hire a car, a dual carriageway leading into central Belfast, round the Outer Ring or down to Bangor. A bit different to the road to hell, or is that Muckamore Intl?

i can assure you that BFS atleast (cant speak for BHD) is not all gloom and doom... if EZY is not making money with loads of 100-149 people then i really dont know what to say

I think the problem is yield not loads. As for everything being rosy at BFS, EI definitely aren't doing well. Paris is doing as bad as ever, and the new routes to Milan and Munich aren't doing much better, and yields on LHR are still really bad.

why are aer lingus sticking with Paris? They really should consider new routes that would almost certainly be a sucess. Lanzarote seems to be doing very well, and i think the new service to Tenerife will also do well. Why not a service to Turkey, that would be full on nearly every flight. I think they need to take a leaf out of Jet2's book and try somewere different. I know they tried Budapest but a summer sunshine route to the likes of Dalaman, Bodrum, Rhodes, Crete i think would all be a sucess.

what does everyone think?

They could very easily transfer the Paris route to Brussels.
Same distance. No competitors on the route.

Not to dwell on this point, and everyone will have different opinions as to, how far is too far to get to an airport, or how easily people are inconvenienced. After all people still drive to Dublin to save a few quid on routes served from a Belfast airport!!!

Like i said, the city airport is undoubtedly more convenient to Belfast and areas of North Down, esp if you are using public transport, however I think it is a bit of an exaggeration to call BFS in the middle of nowhere. I live in East Belfast, very close to Forestside in Four Winds, and normal journey time to BHD is about 15 minutes in normal traffic. To BFS would be about 30 minutes. Yes, its longer, but hardly inconvenient (like I said if you have a car). Straight down the Ravenhill Road, on to the Motorway and then off the M2, 10 minutes up single laned carrageway and there you are. From North Down, yes you have to pass BHD on the bypass, but BFS is about 15/20 minutes further on along the motorway.

Maybe I'm just not that easily put out, but for the difference of 20 odd minutes in a car really wouldn't concern me, taking into account the time spent at an airport, flying to wherever, baggage reclaim time etc. The other aspects involved in the journey. Have a good friend living in Bangor, who flys with work out of Heathrow. He frequently uses Aer Lingus from BFS, and while he say's BHD is closer, BFS is far from a nightmare to get to.

Though each to their own I guess.

On a seperate note, how are the loads on the Jet2 flights to CMF. When flying to Brescia on the 24th Jan, saw the passengers boarding, but couldn't really judge accurately.

Only 5000 less than U2 carry on both of their routes so not that bad!

No, Ryanair have reduced frequency on BHD-STN from 5 Daily last Winter to 3 daily this Winter. This makes their figures quite impressive. They have cut capacity by 40% while passenger numbers have fallen only 10%. To say that FR aren't having an impact on the London market just isn't true. FR have been operating from Belfast for less than 16 months yet they are carrying almost the same number of passengers on the Stansted route as Easyjet who have been operating from Belfast for over a decade.

I think BD are doing quite well. EI only started Heathrow on the 19th of January last year so BD pretty much had the route to themselves for that month. To be down only 8% after losing a monopoly, and in the middle of a global recession is fairly good going in my opinion anyway.

EI's figures are absolutely shocking, a load factor of just less than 50% by my calculations, despite fares being rock bottom. Shannon-Heathrow is being relaunched by using slots from the Dublin-Heathrow route during the Summer, however EI have less Heathrow slots during the winter so I wouldn't be a bit surprised if BFS-LHR were axed at the end of the summer season and the slots used to operate SNN-LHR during the winter!

Yet another supporter of the "EI must fail at Bfs" brigade. Perhaps you might like to explain why Ei would be so keen to move capacity back to R.of I when the economy is imploding? refer to Sunday Times Business section dated 15th feb " Ireland could default on debt"

Why are you all so keen to see EI fail?

True Blue

I'm not even remotely anti Aer Lingus, far from it. The fact is the figures speak for themselves. EI carried 15,938 passengers on the LHR route in January. By my calculations there were 32,364 seats available (174 X 3 X 31 X 2). That means a load factor of 49.24%. Thats pretty bad by any standards, but when you consider the value of the Heathrow slots being used, its shockingly bad for a route that has now been operating over a year.

As for the headline in the Sunday Times, thats just sensationalist journalism by a foreign newspaper, Ireland still has one of the lowest rates of debt in the EU (41% of GDP versus an EU average of 60%). As far as I know thats lower than the UK rate of debt.

I for one sincerely hope that EI are here to stay...they have upped the game for local travellers. Good aircraft, proper service, and civilised staff...I'll still happily fly with BD or EZ, but EI would be my first choice.

From a ryr man (me), EI can't sustain their operation. With UK ops and ROI ops, there is no way they can. Ryr can, their operation can sustain due to the efficiency and punctuality!

Ei at BFS are going down the pan! How long until lough neagh put up landing fees? After that EI need to raise charges and with a price rise, customers go elsewhere!

Remember as soon as you drop your prices the punters expect it 100% but having the perception of being cheaper is more important. Ei reduced prices and BD quietly put loss leading fares on the market but not that many!

This is why BD can sustain their market. Perception as an alternative closer to the city yet more expensive than that car park called aldergrove!

Super737 has obviously had the O'Leary Chip installed...

It's a shame to see Aer Lingus doing so badly on the route, they offer great fares and service but that doesn't seem to make a difference. I know they perform reasonably well during the summer but that won't be able to sustain the route. I can't see Aer Lingus pulling the route though, it would too much of an embarrassment for a start and they still have plenty of time to make the route a year round success instead of just performing well in the summer.

The rumoured relaunch of the Gold Circle Club might give them the edge against all the other airlines but that seems to be a long way off unfortunately.

At least there's always Lanzarote, nice healthy loads there I hear!

NWSRG, I just hope that those EI pilots remember to call as RYR instead of Going bankrupt i mean Shamrock on the approach into STN. I have to laugh at all of the BFS supporters.

The facilities are out of date and easyjet are contracting not expanding! Meanwhile at BHD there is expansion adding of routes and so forth.

You BFS lovers may post all of your statistics from the CAA (not that they know what they are doing) and bang on about how good they are! Yield over the punters, but as i always say i would rather see an empty seat and lost revenue on another carrier but carry the punter and lose just a bit of money!

Have a good night and don't have nightmares about all of those scarebuses positioning out to DUB!

BFS has already increased their fee's, hence why EZY have even less flights this winter...

If you take the passenger numbers from all the airlines at BFS and compare them to EI, you will see they are not doing as bad as everyone thinks, ive said it once and ill say it again, its all about the catchment area of BFS, theres 1.6 million people in N.I served by 3 airports, in most mainland airports or those in the south im sure theres 3 or 4 times the amount of people within the catchment area... i really dont see how people dont realise this :ugh:, double or triple the population of N.I and you will see the numbers reach the same levels as other bases lol...

EI is planning a major shake-up of routes this summer... increasing frequency to N.I's favourite destinations...continuing the BFS-ACE route and introducing a new route to the sun... (no ETA on that though... possibly due in for Winter 09')

my god did lough neagh increase charges? Just because you say doesn't mean to say by contractual agreement they didn't say otherwise.

I think if my memory serves me well that last January there were 3 returns with FR to BHD/STN at a push 4. They increased to 4 or 5 late in the spring. I may be wrong but I would dispute 5. Also last January FR carried more than EZY on the STN/Belfast route, so if you take the credit crunch into the equation, EZY have grown on the STN route, while FR have contracted.

FR STN rotations
 

STN - BHD kicked off with 4 per day, increased to 5 per day in April 08 and then decreased to 3 per day for winter 08/09. Looks like 4 per day for this summer.

Jan 08 was 3 per day, vs 4 per day for Jan 07, giving a 10 point increase in flown load factor. No comment about yields.

PIK - BHD has been an absolute dog since the increase in frequency at the end of October. In view of this, it's perhaps not a great surprise to see that PIK - BHD has been cut back to 1 per day from the start of the summer season.