I think there were 10 passengers yesterday. Quite a few press photos being taken.
Interesting experience at the airport. I've never been in a deserted airport before!

Not even Belfast International on a Wednesday afternoon?

badoom-tish

etc

Links air
 

With due respects I will give the route 3 months MAx


How many time have we seen domestic flights on a j31

Just does not work

If. Doncaster Belfast was worth it the likes of FlyBe would be doing it or even Eastern

Sorry to be negative but might we re call flights ex Oxford


Best of luck to all but it's not going to a Work

Blue Islands seem to manage fine with a J31/2, as do Citywing for the most part(who actually use Links Air J31's). Links Air are not a start up in the same way that Varisity Express were however they need to market the route well, as that has been what has been a big factor in killing a number of recent attempts at domestic routes from regional airports (Darwin and Minoan spring to mind).

learjet50 - Well perhaps the well reported issues that Fly Be are having means they are not interested in expanding, meanwhile they are happy to mop up the extra profit from LBA to Belfast following the cancellation of the Jet2 service to International. With Flybe currently running 4 sectors a day to City from LBA, Linksair don't have to poach many to fill a wetdream.

As for IOM I don't move in the circles of high finance but as its not served by LBA it may well be a winner. Could quite fancy a weekend break there myself; at £129 return its not much more than a rail return from Yarkshire to London.

Links Air will soon be carrying numerous passengers to the IOM TT, after which there should be a smattering of holidaymakers along with regular business passengers.
I'm not sure whether or not it will prove a success long term, but it should be fine for the next few months. I hope so, as I'll be a regular during July and August.
Eastern used to fly Jetstreams to the IOM from Birmingham, Newcastle (and I think Edinburgh). As you don't need many passengers to fill a J31 I imagine that the Doncaster routes could be made to work. The key is good marketing.

Very nice piece in todays Belfast Telegraph about the route. They do seem focused on marketing which is good.

It seems that the youngsters that frequent such threads as this have little knowledge of how things were back in the late 20th century, when the UK skies were dominated by turbo prop operations of 50 seaters and smaller.

These days it seems the youngsters only recognise so called LoCo operations of brightly coloured jets and FlyBe.

Of course none of these LoCo's could make anything happen out of DSA because their business model is totally inappropriate, Manx (then BA) regional made a living out of Jetstream operations, Eastern seem to be doing OK out of it, and perhaps it's the perfect sized aircraft for such a commuter route out of DSA and it's an ideal route tester/builder to hopefully upgrade to larger equipment if the market justifies it.

Jetstream operations might also work out of NQY, they need something down there to accommodate their limited catchment area.

Well I've bitten the bullet and booked myself DSA-BHD with them in June for the kicks. Just hope they are still operating the route by then.

This morning's service to / from Belfast has been canceled but they have been operating reliably for the past three weeks so hopefully it's just a quirk.

Aircraft problem i've been told.
I wonder what the loads have been like sold far.

Timmy - all will be revealed in about 10 days time

Nifty move - G-LNKS positioned in to Belfast around 11:00 to operate delayed LNQ201 out to Doncaster, without having an inbound leg.

LNKS and JIBO were up and about today but no GAVA. Perhaps that's the sick one.

The morning flight for today to and from Belfast was removed from sale yesterday afternoon and the flight didn't operate.
Wonder what is going on, but it doesn't fill you with confidence.

Given the comment by davidj6 suggesting all will be revealed in 10 days, one could speculate. Changes a foot. Perhaps a take over by a certain IOM based operator to secure aircraft and expand the brand beyond the IOM as had been indicated with the change in brand name? Otherwise I can't see what could be revealed.

CAA provisional stats for April perhaps.

Ah I see ExpressFlight, why didn't I think of that!

Airline cancels flight shock, could have been for a whole host of reasons - can always rely on TimmyW to spread a little sunshine! :rolleyes:

Booked flight at end of May to Belfast from Donny. Having paid, it wouldn't print tickets or receipts. The link said something like, 'oh, this is embarrassing!' However, when I checked my email, I was able to print both at once. There are bound to be glitches, and I'm looking forward to my flight. Glass half full!

(As a minor annoyance, the website seems to deal in American dates and times like 5/27/14 at 5:05 PM, but on the actual eticket it reverts to what we are used to).

CAA provisional stats
 

The published schedule on Links Air's website indicates April saw 28 round trips to Belfast and 7 to the Isle of Man.
http://www.linksair.co.uk/timetables
In calculating summary stats, I assume all flights operated.
Belfast - 28 round trips, 420 pax, so 7.5 passengers per flight
Isle of Man - 7 round trips, 94 pax, so 6.7 passengers per flight

I'm assuming that all flights operated with a 19 seat Jetstream 31

Thus for load factors:
Belfast - 39.5 %
Isle of Man - 35.3 %

These numbers are better than I had expected. Granted they will need to improve on both load factor and also (based solely on my experience of regularly checking fares quoted on the website in April) the yield, but for the first two weeks of operating, it's rather stronger than some other small airlines new to regional flying in the UK we've seen in the last few years.

Tbh. Rather impressive so well done and good luck to them

Question; the load factor calculated for BHD/DSA, does this take account of the flights that were cancelled? I recall many examples during the first weeks.

Best of luck to the airline, I do sense they will need to grow the operation in order to keep the unit costs relative.

(The published schedule on Links Air's website indicates April saw 28 round trips to Belfast and 7 to the Isle of Man. In calculating summary stats, I assume all flights operated.
Belfast - 28 round trips, 420 pax, so 7.5 passengers per flight
Isle of Man - 7 round trips, 94 pax, so 6.7 passengers per flight

I'm assuming that all flights operated with a 19 seat Jetstream 31

Thus for load factors:
Belfast - 39.5 %
Isle of Man - 35.3 %

These numbers are better than I had expected. Granted they will need to improve on both load factor and also (based solely on my experience of regularly checking fares quoted on the website in April) the yield, but for the first two weeks of operating, it's rather stronger than some other small airlines new to regional flying in the UK we've seen in the last few years. )

could you post link to the website????

I logged 53 Doncaster to / from Belfast revenue sectors for April, the exceptions being:

11th April Inaugural day, LNQ206 / 207 not rostered
14th April LNQ206 / 207 were canceled
24th April LNQ206 didn't operate in but was positioned as LNQ100T

Gives a mean of 7.93 pax per flight

Anyone know what the break even figure is for the j32

Surely cant be many

Back in the mid-1980s Air Commuter said thus:

1983 | 1530 | Flight Archive

Assuming that costs have scaled linearly then it's not going to be fewer than that.

Rob39, interesting question, though while it might meet the text book definition of breaking even, the operation is small and therefore unit costs are high to support the management, admin and costs associated with running the airline.

They seems to have gotten off to a good start, lets hope it grows, new start ups are as rare as hens teeth these days. I would be interested to know what is the main source of bookings, i.e. travel agents or the website, it certainly is a challenge for new companies/ firms to get their name out there and shift the behaviours of the customer.

I travelled on the first arrival into the newly opened DSA for passenger flights, I'd like to see it grow and prosper like to many others!

There are no "breakeven figures for a J32".

There will undoubtedly be a breakeven figure for a specific LinksAir J32 operating between airport A and airport B on a specific day/time, given standard weather, but breakeven depends on so many factors, it's only of interest if you've got the full facts.

Which we haven't.

LINKSAIR: Statistics for 2nd month of operation :
Belfast City – May, 87 flights, 718 pax. Ave per flight 8, Load factor 43.4%
Isle of Man – May, 30 flights, 244 pax. Ave per flight 8, Load factor 42.8%

Hearing on the grape vine, Links are set to announce a 2nd aircraft at DSA

Was on the LNQ200 DSA-BHD this morning. Approx 9-10 on board. Was a very good service through the airport - it was clear they are going all out to impress. Only downside was the lack of any refreshment on board (website mentions a bottle of water but there was nothing). Really hope they can make a go of it, it's a lovely airport to transit through.

Any clue what second aircraft is for

Links Air already own 4 Jetstream 31's but one of them (G-CONY) seems very elusive.

GINFO says they've owned a Swearigen Metro since April 2014 too...

Could it be a new route ?

A few of the morning flights to Belfast haven't operated this week.

Mondays went, as did yesterdays (I was on it), believe this morning's didn't operate if that's what you mean by 'a few'....

According to posts elsewhere, this mornings plus tomorrows and friday mornings flights aren't oeprating, and after mlooking at the Links website, this seems to be the case.

At 2316 18 Jun the morning flight on Fri 20 is showing as sold out and the return flight has seats available at the higher prices. So unless the thing is sitting idle at BHD overnight it seems to be operating.

This mornings Belfast flight did not operate.
There's also confusion as to whether the Monday flights operate as advertised on their booking engine, given there is a 5 min turn aroundf between the IOM arrival and the Belfast departure.