Looks like S17 is on sale now from Jet2 with a few new routes!!!

Good point - it's horses for courses, especially so far as cargo is concerned.

Is Etihad cargo still flying to EMA?

Doncaster Sheffield has double daily service to CDG... up the road from you.

Spoton

And what does the CDG flights ex Doncaster refer to?

First post advertising a route - not really a reply to anyone! Please come and use this service from the East Midlands. Great news that Jet2 will be running flights actually from the East Midlands.

A shame that Aer Lingus franchise partner Stobart Air appear to have dropped EMA-DUB from 1 November 2016, not least when transatlantic connectivity is growing at DUB.

Schedules are not completed yet, the service never had T/A connections available since it was planned to drop from 2 to 1 daily.

Well I hope it isn't dropped. The existing flight was indeed not well timed for connections but part of the rationale behind IAG's purchase of Aer Lingus was to recover lost ground at UK regional airports so I hope connectivity would improve, rather than be diminished.

DSA's EI DUB flights are showing for November yet, so either Stobart is shaking up its regional operations, or the schedule and fares aren't loaded yet.

Jet2 2017
 

2 more new routes for Jet2 summer 2017 -
Almeria (LEI) 1 weekly - begins Thursday 25th May 2017
Thessaloniki (SKG) 1 weekly - begins Tuesday 2nd May 2017

Takes Jet2 up to 39 destinations & 7 based aircraft for summer 2017
x3 737-300 & x4 737-800

It seems that DUB-EMA has indeed been dropped, along with CWL and DSA.

http://www.businesspost.ie/stobart-a...n-and-britain/

Very disappointing; what is it that prevents the East Midlands being able to hold on to services other than those offered by leisure and low cost carriers? I include in the east Midlands DSA, since you would have thought that by consolidating on one or the other airport Aer lingus / Stobart could perhaps have made a success of the route.

I suppose at least Eurowings are still keeping faith with EMA, at least for now, and there's always Flybe, who aren't really low cost - but even they haven't shown any inclination to expand.

ATNotts,

I agree, it is somewhat questionable for Flybe and Stobart to offer "competing" services from both DSA and EMA when the routes offered already have strong competition from the likes of LBA and BHX.
Unfortunately I think your hope that Eurowings will have continued faith in EMA maybe somewhat premature!

Balair

I hope you don't know something that I don't.

If Lufthansa Group can't make a success of DUS from EMA then I fear that there's little likelihood of any Star Alliance giving the airport a go in the future. And that's if we remain in the EU.

Anyone any idea when the Iron Maiden 747 is due in?

Rumour has it about 13:15 Saturday.
I can't vouch for the accuracy of it though.

Anyone planning to use EMA this weekend (including Monday
morning, leave plenty of time as the Download Festival is taking
place at the racetrack next door and the traffic will be horrendous.

It was obvious the Dublin service wasn't going to be sustainable with the frequency it ran to. Take a look at Liverpool, to which EI also returned last year. The airport is in a similar position to EMA - fairly close to a larger airport with well established links. However, the EI service from LPL to DUB is now four a day, with connections to ten or more north American destinations. EMA was (is) one a day with no worthwhile connections. To have any chance of making any headway it needed to have been at least twice, ideally three times a day, to provide convenient one-stop service to long haul destinations.

The root of the problem goes back to when EMA welcomed Go and Ryanair with open arms and more or less let them run amok. That put the wind up Sir MDB and forced a reaction - the change from BMI to Baby - which immediately robbed EMA of its global connectivity. Long term, that sort of traffic is the life blood of airports that want to serve sustainable markets. But EMA totally embraced the low-cost carriers (which I acknowledge helped the numbers to an extent, but only in a certain way) while eschewing full-service that would have been a steady performer in the long term. Short-termism versus long term vision on the part of the airport management of the time.

There was nothing wrong with letting FR or Go/U2 in to fly to places in the back end of Poland or similar, but the low-costs should never have been allowed onto the CDGs, AMSs, DUBs, GLAs, EDIs. But they were, and leisure traffic at EMA was largely sucked up by the cheapies, while at the same time BHX more or less ignored to the low cost sector and put its energy into developing a sustainable full-service network. The business passengers went down the road to BHX and that's where they'll continue to travel from on a regular basis unless there is reliable, alliance led (e.g. Star, OneWorld, Skyteam), connectivity from EMA. That won't happen while the low-costs continue to run interference in those markets.

The immediate opportunities for sustainable twice-a-day or better business-led flights should be DUB, AMS and (to an extent) CDG. If you can establish those, with connectivity, then there's a chance the network will grow. But they won't work for the full-service airlines (which tend to be in it more long term than the fickle low-cost carriers) while they have to compete with a low-cost carrier - these airlines still need to sell some cheap tickets to fill up the back of the bus.

Sadly FR, LS etc are too entrenched now, and for the most part they call the shots in where and when. EMA can't even compete particularly well for new low-cost carriers now, for doing so risks upsetting the incumbents on which the airport is extremely [almost totally?] reliant (consider what is happening near Oslo right now, with one airport on the verge of shutting down because Ryanair are leaving - EMA can't let that happen).

Sorry EastMids but I have to disagree with most of what you say.

EMA, as do most regional airports benefit hugely from LCCs. Both FR and LS have been and continue to be excellent customers for EMA and have probably been the airports only carriers ever to have shown long-term commitment to growth and expansion.

EMA would not be the airport it is today without them; It would be uncompetitive and most likely unprofitable with a small number of full-service regional subsidiaries and a handful of holiday charters. And your suggestion to turn away LCCs from certain routes to encourage full-service carriers is stark raving mad... That would just be shooting yourself in the foot and a completely unsustainable way to do business.

Remember that airports are increasingly looking at ways of maximising non-aeronautical revenues in order to reduce aeronautical fees to win new business. To do that you need passengers and the fact remains that only the LCCs can deliver large increases in passenger numbers quickly. That's why you see airports like BHX, GLA and NCL increasingly turning to LCCs. Look at LGW compared to 20 years ago!

I do think there are some opportunities that could work ie KLM Cityhopper with 2 or 3x daily to AMS but the proximity to BHX, MAN or indeed HUY probably makes it unattractive for the airline. That said it will only ever account for a small part of the airports total traffic.

FRAatSTN - the question I was answering was "what is it that prevents the East Midlands being able to hold on to services other than those offered by leisure and low cost carriers?"

To that end, I stick by my answer - it was the way they let in those low-fare carriers that destroyed the long term business market. I also admitted that the arrival of those LCCs helped the numbers - which it did at the time - but quite a few of the markets haven't survived or have subsequently declined, primarily because LCCs don't invest or take a long term view, but take the opportunity when its available and then quickly scarper when things don't look quite so rosy. The low-fare market is simply too fickle for an airport to depend on it alone, but that's pretty where EMA is now (I'm taking passengers, not cargo).

Again I say there was an opportunity for both LCC and full service, but the way EMA let the LCCs in wrecked the full service offer. The payback is now pretty obvious - one of the worst performing airports over the last year or so in terms of passenger numbers (mostly decline or stagnation at EMA whereas most others have seen pretty sustained growth), and an inability to cut new deals - or at least other airports can offer better deals - because EMA dare not upset its incumbents. Just look at Ryanair at EMA - not exactly scintillating performance but EMA is stuck with it, and is in no position to lure the new breed of LCCs that Birmingham is now managing to do. An airport absolutely can be selective - it can offer incentives or rebates on new routes, but not on existing routes. Being rather choosey about what airlines were they let in and from/to where worked extremely well at Birmingham by protecting the full service market, and has more recently allowed the LCCs to come in on other routes off peak - look at its figures and growth. But the LCCs never encroached on BHX-GLA, or -EDI, or -AMS or -CDG, which EMA let happen and which destroyed the long-term business market on those routes.

I'm always intrigued by the concept of airports not letting airlines in. If you mean achieving this by not offering any sort of discount for either promised passenger quantity or new routes then I can understand that. However has an airport (that is not overcrowded and hence slot constrained) ever told an airline they are not welcome as they don't align with the airport's business model? I find that a lot harder to believe.

Unless the UK has turned in a banana republic, it must be unlawful under competition law if a publicly licenced airport refuses to contract with an airline that is willing to pay the published fees. At least that is the case in jurisdictions I am more familiar with. My understanding is that in return for being publicly licenced, airports must serve any airline that meets the published criteria and coughs up the required dough.

Luton lets anyone in and then lets them fight it out with Easyjet. El Al, Transavia and Vueling come to mind and even Ryanair are now fighting a same route battle with Easyjet.

Agree, airports can't put barriers up to carriers they don't want serving particular routes, but, and there is a big but, they can be less generous with sweeteners that encourage carriers to build up big bases and become dominant in their market, dissuading new entrants to come in. These same dominant carriers seem to have a belief that somehow it isn't their job to pay for facilities that they use, leaving the airport to annoy passengers with petty extra charges for things like drop off, express security, baggage trolleys. The airport can't recoup all the missing revenue from the passengers, so investment in terminal facilities suffers, and that in turn will put off full service airlines.

For my money, although BHX, and to a lesser extent, MAN got a lot of stick for not piling in with the big "low cost" airlines early enough, they have played a better long game by ensuring their legacy carriers offering connection via European, and Mid. East hubs were looked after before enticing the cheap end of the market. The result is that they have a better mix of business and leisure carriers and routes.

Frightening potential problem could loom, as Ryanair concentrate more on primary airports. What would happen were they to transfer more business away from EMA towards BHX? A prospect, perhaps not so remote, that doesn't really bear thinking about.

Whilst you have a valid point I think the working relationship between Ryanair and the greater MAG Group probably works to prevent divestment to a competitor.

Add to that Ryanair use EMA for training operations

Bottom line is that East Midlands has a more rural and leisure oriented catchment than say BHX or MAN.

Both BHX and MAN were late to "wake up and smell the coffee" with regard to the low cost evolution of short-haul and this worked to the benefit of airports like EMA and LPL for a while. This situation has now changed. Had this not been the case at BHX then EMA today would be more like CWL (+ cargo).

I think you are massively overcomplicating matters re EMA. The airport has fantastic private transport accessibility but its population catchment, although not that small, is fairly finite and confined. In other words the exact location of the airport on the M1 could not be better to ideally serve its catchment area population- it literally gets the absolute best from its relatively small geographic catchment. The reason why its passenger growth has slowed in recent years is because it has come under attack from the South with BHX's greater efficiency due to runway extension [runway extensions do NOT just mean ability to handle bigger aircraft]. Greater efficiency = lower costs and these lower costs suck passengers out of the East Midlands to BHX. The other main reason is that it has come under attack from the North and DSA. Many hundreds of thousands of passengers from South Yorkshire have traditionally used EMA because of the ease and time of getting there. This number has obviously reduced as DSA seeks to establish itself. Would it not have been better for EI to have more flights from one of the airports rather than divide the flights between 2 airports?

The real question that should be asked is are MAG really that interested in taking DSA on? If EMA wanted to beat DSA they, on a level playing field, could. EMA has the bigger population catchment. In other words why are BE flying daily from DSA to CDG when they could so from the larger population East Midlands? Forget sustainability - It's all to do with the deals these days.

Don't entirely agree with you the catchment being heavily leisure orientated. Among other major employers are Rolls Royce, Boots, Toyota, Expedia and Capital One all of whom ought to have a requirement to fly to meetings in Europe and further afield. I actually think that pre-MAG ownership the management were more interested in courting a big low cost operator, and paid too little attention to the business and commerce requirement of the region.

As for the private transport accessibility I would question that. J24 of the M1 is a total pig in a poke, and the planners have managed to allow major events at Donington park, both car and motorcycle racing as well as things like Download which make getting to the airport on time on some weekends something of a lottery. For that reason, I'd certainly think twice about flying from EMA on a summer weekend - or for that matter, any Friday evening when again, the M1 is often snarled up back as far as J21 northbound due to "sheer volume of traffic" which is a euphemism for rank bad infrastructure planning.

ATNotts
And to support you the A453 South up to Moto and through to the Airport is at a standstill.
Punters are de-camping and walking up the Northbound A453 some with kids - in the rain and what 2 miles away.
Where are Airport Staff - no where to be seen. Even if they had a bus outside the Holiday Inn to take punters in.
JOKE

They're stuck in the same traffic. Several flights were delayed as crew were caught in traffic.
Why would the airport divert a car park bus on the off chance there are people walking up to the airport? As harsh as it is, it's pax responsibility to get to the airport on time. And yes,i know it would be good customer service, etc,

Agreed, it is passenger's responsibility, but does everyone travelling to EMA know about events such as Download are likely to impact on their journeys? I do, but then I live not 15 minutes from EMA - but not everyone does.

EMA has problems regularly, whether it be Download, Superbikes, even the car boot sales! Road access isn't actually that great, with a single carriageway road, which is often used as a main diversionary route when either the M1 or A42 are congested.

Jet2 sent travel warnings to their customers about Download.

I agree with all your points regarding road access. At least it's better than LBA!

How dare you!!

At least the old bill came to the rescue and closed the A453 link to M1 South filter at Jct 24.
This was basically the issue - turn what is normally a quiet road into a busy road. The answer - complete chaos when its busy (you only have to be there at peak times during normal days to understand)
Turn the filter off - some sense of normality.
And yes it wasn't the airports fault but seeing a family walking up the A453 against the traffic flow with buggy and cases. It made me so ANGRY (hence the name):\:\:\:\:\:\:\

It didn't help that someone chose yesterday to threaten to throw
himself off a bridge over the M1. The southbound carriageway
of the M1 has now been closed for over 24 hours and the area all
around the airport is gridlocked as the Downloaders try and make their way home.

Not wishing to appear harsh, but exactly how long are Leicestershire Police going to allow this situation to drag on for, another 24 hours, till the weekend - till July??

I'm a simple person, but surely, with a clear carriageway, and deployment of a safety net underneath the gantry where this nutcase is threatening to jump from, they could encourage him / her either to jump into the net, or get removed from the place where they are threatening to jump from.

Can it really be that difficult?

I've edited it for you ATNotts:

Where this nutcase is threatening to jump from, they could encourage him / her to jump

Yes. Even if such a thing as a safety net suitable for this sort of application exists it first needs to be properly deployed. That takes time and makes assumption that doing so doesn't further up the ante with somebody who is, judging by press reports, seriously disturbed.

I'm afraid Police will just have to let it run its course. Negotiation skills, exhaustion and hunger are likely to be only available tools.

Turns out he was only on the back of an information gantry. That's lower than most bridges. Surely you could just get 4 artics to pull up underneath and then wrestle him down? H&S / human rights probably prevented this. What an idiot.

AT Notts
I'm with you. Or get the Saudi police over to deal with him ��