The AN225 is on the ground at EMA.

How is Sterling doing?

Heard a rumour about Lufthansa starting a twice daily service to FRA starting March 08. anyone heard that?

Regards

Stu

You must have good eyesight...:eek:




Its loading or unloading freight at the mo :rolleyes:

FRA has been doing the rounds for some time. It was operated daily a few years ago by one of BM's Fokker 70s, it did ok from what I can remember, but being only once daily in the middle of the afternoon, it was never going to take critical yield away from the competing services at BHX. There has been a lot of talk at baby at EMA, that regional will be introducing a second Embraer into EMA, possibly to launch a new German route or some of the North Sea destinations we fly from other airports, but until I see a second a/c, also considering slot constraints at FRA, I'm not sure.

I heard from a colleague of mine at Tiny Town that bmibaby at EMA is definitely getting no additional based units next summer, though apparently the bmi charter programme might be larger.

I went back to EMA for the first time today since leaving in September, and it was nice for November to see the airport so busy, particularly the Ryanair check-in hall. Presumably if more based units are coming, they're going to need additional desks, even if Ryanair are dissuading people from checking in at a traditional desk.

Lufthansa launching flights to EMA would presumably fall in line with their announcement last summer that they are interested in being less "LHR-centric" in the UK, which has seen them increase frequencies at BHX and NCL, as well as launching the new BRS-FRA service.

is this def' passenger & not additional Lufthansa Cargo flights?

FC

It is now 4 weeks since baby announced their new routes to Warsaw and Gdansk yet there is still no mention of them on the airport's website! Is the marketing department unaware of these or just choosing to ignore the fact!!! Perhaps someone at baby should be giving them a wake up call?

With regard to a possible FRA service by LH, I think this is very doubtfull due to their operation at BHX, FR to Hahn is far more likely I would have thought.

Says it all really ;)

http://mysite.orange.co.uk/donno2006/AN225_3.jpg

The Antonov was an LCY diversion.:}

i thought LCY was London City ? :\

Little thing called sarcasm ...

you mean like that womens lovely red coat we saw at the airport *nema*. I was talking to some of the easyJet crew yesterday outside of my crewroom (nice uniform), no news of them expanding anytime soon at EMA :sad:

I think the new Ryanair Summer 2008 routes will be out within the next 4 weeks :O and the loads for TFS are in the high 90s with a very good average spend from the inflight bar service.

Lee

And FR seriously need to look at replenishing the bar after the TFS sectors for the poor sods taking out the Murcia afterwards!!:mad:

Dont get me started on that one, but Alpha had the great idea of doing our bars in BHX now. So now when I go on to my a/c and tell the dispatcher I need some more mags/milk i get a big fat, you've got no chance. Maybe things will chance, as TFS is moving to a 0600 departure, so maybe it will be back in time for a less busy flight.

Lee

I too have been quite disappointed to see that the new baby routes have not been mentioned on the EMA website, when most Ryanair and the new Sterling launches have been focused quite prominently. Hopefully this will be a start for baby to operate into more adventurous destinations from our home base, as we've been ignored for a little while!

I was loving that hooker coat! It was nice to see those of you that I bumped into yesterday, my visit not accompanied by too dramatic a soundtrack!

I don't think easyJet would base any additional aircraft at EMA unless there was a massive shake up of the other based carriers. They've managed a profitable mini-base with three based aircraft so far, so why mix with that formula. It is nice to see them bringing BCN back though.

....It is nice to see them bringing BCN back though.

It is, but it's at the expense of the CGN route. The airport has one of the lowest percentages of passengers travelling on business - just 12.4% of the total, or to put the airport spin on it "the highest number of leisure passengers in the country" it really does need to hold onto such routes and do what ever it can to attract more business oriented ones.

Sorry to get on my Catalan high horse (for the second time in this thread, I think the last time was telling people how to properly pronounce Girona), but I'd say BCN is something of a business market, even though it obviously also attracts a number of sun worshipers and weekend breakers.

finding_nema,

You don't need to get on your high horse, I wasn't suggesting BCN is purely a leisure destination, in fact I have business contacts there so the new route will be useful to me, although a daily sevice would be better!
It is the fact EMA are losing a daily CGN service which is my concern.

I'm really surprised that no airlines appear to be able to make CGN to the Midlands work. From what I can remember we've had HLX try from both CVT and BHX, germanwings from BHX and easyJet's EMA service over the last few years. Obviously the main airport for the region is DUS, but considering it's so slot constrained and the market sown up between flybe and Lufthansa, it's surprising that the slack hasn't been picked up by CGN.

Not meaning to be on a high horse, Catalan ferociousness and all that ...

43 pax inbound on tonights UKIA