Not to sound defensive here but OTP is now very good.

SXF stike action looming...
 

An update on the EZY at SXF industrial action situation: Union member voted overwhelmingly (94%) for strike action which is expected to start next Monday (4th July), just for the holiday season:

Easyjet: In Schönefeld droht Streik zum Ferienbeginn - Brandenburg - Berlin - Tagesspiegel

The article says flight attendants earn some 20% less than at AB. Well, seen AB's recent profit numbers ? They get massive support from regional politics (at DUS, NUE and TXL), and still make no profit. AB survives on size ('too big to fail'), personal connections of its boss, and some people just not wanting LH to completely monopolise the German market. Compared to FR working conditions, and maybe even 4U, working for EZY can't be that bad. Berlin's job market is really weak, many esp young people work for nearly nothing. We'll see. The worst-case scenario would be the end of based jets at SXF (just like they did with DTM and EMA). I think roughly half of EZY's SXF flights are SXF-based jets. NB My impression is that people move away from self-organised holidays with budget airline flights back into the safety of package deals as offered by TUI, ThomasCook etc. A big EZY strike will clearly increase that trend for Berlin.

At least the residents around Admiralbruecke can enjoy the strike days: Finally a bit less noise from the hostel guests ! :}

http://www.welt.de/reise/article1337...abei-sein.html

I work for Easyjet and i'm not fully up to date with what the real issues are in SXF. I do know that they are seeking a very hefty pay rise. Morale at Easyjet is slowly improving but it's been a hard couple of years. The ironic thing is that from a UK crews point of view, pay has never really been the main issue. In fact, in the UK pay is amongst the best in the industry when taking into account your final end of year pay. (i.e basic+sector pay+commission). The crew based in Italy are on even more so I'm not sure what the pay suituation is in SXF.

You should know better than to believe anything TM sends out, easyflyer83. A very hefty payrise is most definitely not being asked for, but this is not a discussion for the airline forum anyway.

Cabin Crew plan to strike for 48 hours in July.
Easyjet cabin crew strike could cause disruption at Toulouse - 28 June 2011 - Guide2Midi Pyrenees News

EZY confirmed that it will open this October last week.

does this mean that southend will not get the three jets that were to come from lisbon for their start up in april?

LIS base
 

Guys,

Two weeks ago, the CEO of Easyjet said that Lisbon base will open as soon as the Terminal 2 is ready to support the company, which is scheduled to the beginning of 2012.

new bases
 

Ok, so Lisboa is next. I've read somewhere that easyJet is also thinking of opening up bases in Cph, BCN and AMS. In fact that it was likely to be any of them if not Lisboa. Is this likely to happen in the near future? Southend took me by surprise as I thought that easyJet already had a strong enough position in the London area. If you look at the routemap, easyJet have a strong presence in the west and south parts of Europe. Will expansion come to a halt before easyJet tries make all of Europe orange? How does the orderbook of a/c's look?

Cheers

BHX need EasyJet to set up a base, the airline no longer serve the Midlands apert from GVA & GNB during the Winter.

Lots ot of routes unserved, excellent transport links (railway, motorways etc).

Massive catchment.

Why are they not interested ?

Come on, BHX5DME... This has been discussed for years in the BHX forum. Ain't going to happen. You mention one thing already: Our railway link (West Coast) to London is too good these days (85min to Euston). And you think the M5 and M6 are excellent motorways, really, when, at 2am ? And BHX's management is not the brightest. But mostly, EZY is very big at LPL, MAN, LTN and BRS, while we at BHX can't even feed WW and BE properly with passengers. You want a BHX-BER on a A139 (!) when even BE's FRA has been stopped ? Get real... BHX's catchment area actually is much smaller than you think, people are turning their back to it.

MAN - but for how long more? Watch the space.

Erm, considering they have just signed a new deal for up to 2015 at MAN, and the fact based unit number 7 has just been announced, do you mind telling me your basis for the above statement?

Hilarious. New routes, 6th aircraft arrived in May, number 7 early next year. That doesn't happen to a condemned base. Not least when competition between bases for additional aircraft is so strong within Easyjet these days.

EZY will move to T1 aswell in November as T3 can't cope with Easyjet expansion.

easy & BHX
 

jpthomas72

Some strange examples used - flybe to Frankfurt is competing with major International airline with four frequencies everyday and to a massive hub but
Berlin would be competing with Ryanair at EMA only or at push easy at LTN.

Also flybe had two weekday frequencies on a Q400, which on a good day was serviceable and it was all geared to the UK based passenger with very
little code-share feed at Frankfurt (Qantas?). The only surprising aspect is that it lasted so long.

Catchment Area - not quite sure what you mean by your statement. Isn't it clearly defined as the number of people living with a certain radius? If so, it is big and most seem to agree that BHX only gets a 40% share. Although I agree that the proximity of London & Manchester is a major factor but not insurmountable.

The easy way (no pun) to improve on 40% would be get direct services to places where people want to go and easyjet seem to able to give an airport this option (see Manchester) but if the airport bean-counters are happy with their lot and won't make any short-term concessions on fees, then that is fine if it fits into a well defined long-term strategy (dubious?).

If they have made concessions and easy still are not interested then
that is that but very frustrating for us in Midlands when comparing to other airports although I realise it is never as simple as that but I would love to know the nature of past discussions between easy and BHX.

Pete

Sky News reporting renewed hostilities between Stelios and the EZY board about fleet size. Stelios wants a fleet reduction and cash returned to shareholders (he holds 38% of the shares IIRC)

Time for a buyout, and to go thier own way? Carolyn seems well suited to the role - sorting out lots of problems.

A small fleet reduction could make the airline more profitable and need a lot less capital. Easyjet is looking at running on 204 planes. Not all routes will make the same profit and some will be marginal. As the oil price is likely to be high for some time (unless we have a global melt down) it would be wiser to run with 170-190 planes. Then the firm does not need to pay for 14-34 planes.

As far as I hear it, EZY are looking at various senarios of fleet changes, some might suprise you.

Care to elaborate?

This is just the latest. Stelios has been banging on for some time,in the financial press, about returning more cash to shareholders (him being the largest) as he openly said he wanted to raise cash to `invest in more projects`...no doubt more failures like Cruise/Car/Cinema etc etc.

However the only entrepreneurly success he ever had, Easyjet, is being well run by the present management, which now just ignores his regular `teddy out of the cot` routine, and appears to wind him up. His views dont seem to find favour, in the financial press, either like they once did.

I`m afraid the expression` Busted Flush`comes to mind...shame because I liked the guy and he put low cost on the map but times move on eh...