" I wouldn't have landed at Seville until after 11pm which I didn't fancy."

Spain only wakes up at 22:00 ...................

NCL-BRS
 

The schedule is not at all helpful. The route was for many years the busiest air route between two English provincial cities but last year was overtaken by Manchester-Southampton.

From a high point in the period 2005 to 2008 when annual passenger numbers ranged between 246,000 and 253,000 there has been a gradual decline although the years since 2010 have been relatively static with annual numbers between 165,000 and 176,000.

The worst part of the schedule though is the fact that apart from Mondays it's impossible to do a day trip from either end. Sundays and Fridays in winter both have three rotations, all in the afternoon or evening. Thursday sees two rotations - one in the afternoon and one in the evening - with both Tuesday and Wednesday single daily and Saturday blank. Summer sees marginally fewer rotations each week.

Tomorrow one of the two northbound rotations is sold out and on Monday one of the northbound and one of the southbound are sold out.

You'd imagine that easyJet knows what it's doing but as a former fairly regular user of the route - mainly as a 'day tripper' - it does seem rather an odd set-up to me.

The train operates every hour on a direct route so that might play a part but it's a five-hour journey.

bmi regional does operate against easyJet at BRS on Paris Cdg. easyJet failed to increase its single-daily BRS-CDG despite selling out frequently so bmir came along a year or two ago at 2 x daily and is still there. Another option as Jerry points out would be to use the 2 x daily NCL-CWL with Eastern.

EZY have run the route throughout this period, so must have a good understanding of the numbers. Clearly they can make more money elsewhere.

It's blatantly clear that easyJet can make more money elsewhere, which is why (in my opinion) the airport need to try and find a carrier that is actually going to serve the local area and economy the way it needs to be. Such as, I hope Eastern and Flybe come to an agreement to serve NCL-BHD with a few daily flights, because the easyjet schedule isn't amazing there either. At least day returns are possible though.

Knowing the south west, how awful the traffic is and (at times) how badly connected places can be... By the time you've paid £200 for NCL-CWL, got yourself into Cardiff, then into Bristol and to whatever your destination is (or paid the best part of £100 for a taxi) I'd rather spend £60 on an easyjet flight and £39 a night at premier inn, or splash out £60-100 for Hilton/Mercure... You're not making your 9 o'clock meeting in Bristol, by flying into Cardiff. You'd be pushed to get there for lunch!

Unless it is on a Monday, a day return to the south west of England is impossible by plane and implausible (and prohibitively expensive) by train. You could drive... But there's 12 hours of your day gone.

Bmi regional offer very reasonable fares of £49-69 one way on similar length flights across their network, and a very efficient, friendly and welcoming service I for one will be keeping my fingers crossed.

airlines are responsible to their shareholders - nobody else

That'll be the Flybe that operated NCL-BHD and then dropped it?

Which routes, dates are you looking at? From my quick look such fares are very few and far between. While you may be able to pick up the odd bargain, in the main their fares are in line with what I'd expect to pay on a business orientated airline operating thin routes.

Bristol
 

Interesting comments re Bristol. In summary of 3 travellers ( a wide sample I admit!) they all find it far from traveller friendly. Cardiff is an alternative but does always work. Reading between the lines the other contributor is either happy with the route or doesn't have any need to use it!!

While every company is responsible to its shareholders, the airport's job is to get more people through the door to spend more money while there! I'll be taking the train down and flying back so the airport gets nothing from car parking or the money I may spend in the terminal. So it does come back to the airport to work with airlines to provide services that work for its customers. Admittedly the c80k passengers that are no longer using the route any more may not have been making anyone any money or perhaps the airport has managed to get them to fly to the places served by multiple operators such AGP, ALC and PMI where the bar takings pre flight will be much higher 😀

"The other contributor" doesn't think he has a right to fly where he wants, when he wants at the price he wants to pay and accepts it's down to market forces (but, come the revolution... ;) ).

I think people over emphasise the influence of airports, they can't make people do what they don't want to do or pay a price they don't want to pay.

ps I don't use BRS, but have colleagues who do and have had to fly out via DUB in the morning and back via BFS in the evening this summer because EZY reduced the BFS service!

I don't think I have the right to fly where I want, when I want, and for whatever price I want. I'm going to Abu Dhabi in 2 weeks, so I'm flying from Edinburgh... I'm going to Riga in November, so I'm flying from Leeds... Without complaint. But I would hope that an important business/leisure/VFR route would have a schedule reflecting that - but beggars can't be choosers with low cost airlines, who fly the route purely for maximum revenue, rather than balancing revenue and customer service. We have 2 airlines, operating utterly crap schedules to 3 cities in the South West, and one operating an extortionately expensive route to Wales... And it's ridiculous

I've driven Newcastle-Bristol many times, I've gone on the train, I've taken the megabus... I've flown direct from Newcastle, I've flown via Dublin, and once (I got lucky with sales) I flew back via Tenerife for £60 because it was, in fact, the most viable and cheapest option to be back in Newcastle in time for work at 07:30 on a Sunday morning... The other option was £200 via Amsterdam or £160 for the train.

Flying NCL-BRS has always been the cheapest option, and for a long time, will continue to be the most convenient option. Door to door, from mine to the missus' works out at 3.5 hours on a bad day, flying. No other method can even come close to competing with that. It's just frustrating that the schedule is woeful.

SWBKCB, a week or two ago, bmir had the majority of their flights NCL-SVG-NCL on sale for £69-79, Aberdeen-Bristol is selling for £62-79 two months out, and £79-110 a month out. If you can book with 1-2 months notice EMA-BRU is selling at £66-90, granted NCL-BRU is £79-160 but BRS-CDG is a steal at £61-80

i'd happily pay £120-160 for a day return NCL-BRS

It isn't ridiculous - it's market forces. How important a route was it before a EZY arrived, couple of DHC-8's a day? How is a weekday service from Newcastle to Exeter (EXETER!!) crap?

Now that is ridiculous....

Swbkcb...you are so right...these spotters make you cringe!!

Please accept my apologies, 10 hours on Megabus is about a tenner cheaper than flying easyJet. Apart from that, every other way is more expensive.

A weekday service to Exeter is crap because it used to be 2 daily services to Exeter

I know markets change, but the NE/SW market can't have changed that much, it's not like the NE/SE market that has understandably lost out to frequent, fast train journeys

Unbelievable.... :ugh:

The question is whether, at the prices you are quoting, either Easy or BMI are doing any more can covering their marginal costs, if that.

inOban - don't start confusing things by bringing in economics! :ok:

What's the point in having single daily flights with crap times?

Anyway I give up, glad to see you're keeping things mature up here as well, resorting to the usual petty "spotter" insults. Not me though... Haven't been spotting for a good few years now

I'll let you gentlemen get on with your NCL bashing. I'm glad you're not in charge though, I don't think insularity can be very good for business

I'm not sure these days what say airports actually have in a route network.

I'm sure Newcastle would love to have 3 daily returns to Bristol,Belfast,Stansted Gatwick and now Copenhagen et al...the airlines do the sums(apparently) and think Bristol to Poland ( that's a pick out of the sky BTW) makes them more money than a short haul routes with a potential of 200k passengers per year?, and that was Copenhagen as well ??
Now the common denominator is...EZY !!

Not sure what the answer is..we are all armchair CEOs. But without being parochial..this is the NE backwater!

No hope south of the region in DTV..at least Ncl is on the up again.