ITS OFFICIAL
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It has finally been released who is the new airline coming to BHD

Due to ongoing problems with there other hubs, Virgin Atlantic will be moving all their UK routes to BHD. Come see their A330 and 747's land at BHD soon.

But a recent meeting between Ryanair and BHD officials may answer it. Aerlingus arent moving from BFS, BA (Baby) are pulling out completely and any other airline doesnt give a #### about BHD.

Ryanair threw there toys out of the pram a few years ago, but their routes were making money from BHD and they wanted to expand from here. Derry airport isnt really a long term plan and they cant fly from BFS.

Thomas Cook at BHD
 

The flight has traditionally been operated by Thomas Cook (Belgium) on a Thursday charter to Reus for the peak season only. I thought it was to operate this yer

For anyone interested, the olympic flame should touch down sometime this afternoon between 4 and 5 pm.

Aer Lingus
 

As long as it's not aer lingus :ok:

Just saw the clip of it arriving on the BBC news site, never seen so many new uniforms and newly painted equipment before. Is the aircraft here for a few days or will it depart again today?

Probably leave today or tomorrow. I believe the torch leaves on the Larne ferry so aircraft not needed

It returned to LHR tonight

New to the forum folks!

Think I may just add to the already interesting discussion with a photo of 'Firefly' yesterday.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8019/7...47fe2b0e_z.jpg

Thanks.

BD's BHD-LHR route will cease to operate under there current BD flight numbers and will begin to operate under there new BA flight numbers from June 27th. BA will tomorrow begin to contact those customers who already hold bookings for BD's flights to LHR to advise them of the change to there flight numbers. Any new bookings for travel after June 27th will cease to be handled by BD's website from around the 7th June with all new booking enquires being automatically redirected to BA's website. Online check in for customers traveling after June 27th will need to be done through BA's website.

Flights are expected to op with flight numbers starting BA81xx and will continue until at least late October to op to and from T1 at LHR

The exact date that the route will switch from being op by BD aircraft/crew to BA aircraft & crew will be announced in due course.

When will the Belfast flights start to go to T5?

This has been the case from the middle of May if you searched BHD-LHR or LHR-BHD via BMI's website you where automatically directed to BA

According to BA, the Dublin flights are expected to move to T5 "in time", so I'd imagine it'd be the same story with the Belfast flights, assuming they stick around long enough...

The key word in the article is eventually.

We were briefed a couple of weeks ago that for at least the next 12 months BA will be operating flights from Terminals 1, 3 & 5. The reason for this is that T5 is at very near capacity and there is just not enough space at present at T3 to move all the current BD operation from T1.

BA have NO plans to move any of the routes operated from T1 to T5 before the end of the S12 schedule in late October. W12 will see BA consolidate routes currently served from T1 and T5 together in one terminal.

The following routes are expected to be the first to move from T1

Aberdeen (to T5)
Basle (to T5)
Edinburgh (to T5)
Manchester (to T5)
Nice to (T5)
Vienna to (T3)

Flight to Belfast are expected to move with the other domestic routes. Flights to Dublin will for now remain at T1.

Bye Bye Baby
 

5 more days of Baby operations at BHD. Really sad for all involved. The airport will once again be a quieter place.

So BaLaddy, with these moves to T3 and T5, what will be left at T1?

It would surprise me if BA were to use 3 terminals rather than 2, ie 3 and 5.

Still feel that there are implications for the longevity of BA on DUB and BHD routes, add to boot the slots for EDI and ABZ that are to go to another airlines....

And still as at 06/06 no sign of EI issuing Belfast to Europe winter schedule.

Baladdy what do you think re BA exiting DUB and Belfast in favour of EI?

Quite worrying that EI have not release winter schedule. What does this mean? Either they havnt decided on which airport they are to fly from or are they quietly leaving (although I doubt it) but it can't be good for sales. If they leave it any longer ezy or jet2 myt jump on their routes

Aer Lingus
 

I think we'll find out about Aer Lingus the day that BMI baby stop operations. Who knows what airlines will replace the baby routes at BHD. I don't see Aer Lingus moving though because even though they don't have their winter schedule out of BFS released they have their BFS-LHR flights up. I would like to see Ryanair back at BHD but I doubt it will happen, or Monarch, Air Berlin or Lufthansa Regional :ok:

It won't be Aer Lingus mainline anyhows - it would only be Regional (AerArann ):O

Quote: "The following routes are expected to be the first to move from T1"

Aberdeen (to T5)
Basle (to T5)
Edinburgh (to T5)
Manchester (to T5)
Nice to (T5)
Vienna to (T3)

Flight to Belfast are expected to move with the other domestic routes. Flights to Dublin will for now remain at T1. "

Makes sense that flights to a particular destination are at the same LHR terminal. So duplicated routes (BA and ex-BD) should be the first to go all under one roof to avoid chaos.

In the case of DUB, it keeps the ex-BD flights and the EI flights with BA codeshares together at LHR1.

There is also the question of space ..... it's unbelievable that the massive LHR5 isn't big enough!

BA Flights
 

Almost all of the former BMI flights have now beem switched to the new BA flt nmbrs eff. 27 Jun, on the BA.COM website.

Also can now use Avios points on the Avios website to book BHD/LHR .

I've just had a look at the BHD to LHR timetable for July and November on the BA website. In July, they appear to be alternating - one flight operated by BA and the next by bmi throughout the day. By November it's an all BA operation and there are six flights per day. No departure from BHD to LHR between 08.45 and 13.45

I see BA fares to Lhr seem to start at £54, against £20 for EI from Bfs. I know BA will include one case, but this seems a big difference. How will this play out? Remember a lot of pax are only going as far as Lhr on this service, not all are connecting.

TB

Fares on BA v EI
 

True Blue

Its a bit more involved than £54 v £19.99 .

Most airports levy charges on departing passengers including LHR and BFS.
BHD ,unless it has changed recently, is an exception applying the charge to arriving passengers.

Therefore if you fly LHR/BHD , you pay 2 sets of charges - one lot deparing LHR and one lot arriving BHD , while conversely flying BHD/LHR there are no airport passenger charges applied deparing BHD and no charges on passengers arriving LHR.

IF you query oneway journeys on BA.COM ,throughout the month of Aug,the lead-in price for BHD/LHR is £37 everyday .For LHR/BHD the lead-in price is £81 everyday.

If you query a return journey , BA seem to be averaging out the taxes and the lead-in is around £54 eachway.

BMI lowest lead-ins were normally £29 for BHD/LHR and £39 for LHR/BHD and didn-t tend to change so much whether the sector was oneway or part of a roundtrip.Think is probably due to greater sophistication in the BA yield management systems and processes.

You will also see that if you do a roundtrip quote with dates flexible,you
are shown lead-ins over a 7 day period each way.Everytime you change the outbound date the system recalculates the lead-ins for the return journey,usually to match the outbound price.e.g. selected outbound £54.all 7 retun dates had lead-in £54.Changed outbound date to day with lead-in £56 , all return days changed to £56. I think the return sector prices may also vary depending on whether the journey involves a saturday night stay at point of turnaround.

Other points to note.

1/ The EI £19.99 on BFS/LHR incurs a £6 admin fee for most people plus £12 if you check a bag . Thats £38 v £37 on BA. Also on BA you get a free drink and nibbles....EI will charge abt £5 for a G&T and £1.50 or so for nuts or pringles.

2/If you are not parking and are flexible enough with Belfast airports
with a bit of research on both websites ,you can sometimes get the best fare by booking EI for the LHR/BFS leg and BA for the BHD/LHR leg rather than booking the rountrip on either carrier.

3/EI seem to be a lot cheaper if you want a flexible ticket option ( certainly if booking a few weeks in advance ). In Aug BA are quoting £286 each way ,EI are quoting £276 roundtrip. This may change on EI when they are selling the last few seats in the last 5-6 days to departure.

4/ The option to use Avios miles on BA is now available on the Avios website incl the reduced taxes/charges of £13.50 eachway.Also if you are using avios on an international flight frm LHR the BHD/LHR/LHR connections are free.

In summary a lot more research on-line is now required to get the best deal.

bmibaby's last day at BHD
 

Sad to say that there are only 4 arrivals remaining at BHD by bmibaby:

-1745 East Midlands
-1830 Amsterdam
-2050 East Midlands
-2120 Stansted

There are 3 stated departures including WW9771 to East Midlands, 1 to Stansted and one to East Midlands.

And a 4th not on the board, the 737 that comes in from Stansted, I imagine will not leave until tomorrow.

Best of luck to all employee's affected by the closure of operations at the airport by Bmibaby..
EI-BUD

Yep really sad the place will be a lot quieter. I flew out recently from STN on a near full a/c and back on a busyish flight too. Shame, they just seem to have got it going. BHD does really need an STN connection.

Can't see a STN flight ever coming back unless FR does. Plenty of airlines have tried it over the years and failed- WW, AB, BE and even FR

When is Ambrose going to play his hand and announce these two new airlines. Taking his sweet time about it!

If I was him....tomorrow morning......

To add to the list of failed routes...didn't AirUK have a crack at Stansted from BHD?

eastern; yes you are right they did. They operated a daily service summer 1994, 146 service monday to friday, and a F100 on Sat and Sun. To my memory the LBA route shifted over from BFS and at that time there BHD did not have much of history of regular flights to/from London.

At that time we had to rely on BA Super Shuttle, bmi service or Britannia twice daily to LTN all from BFS!!

Looking back on some old literature that I have from the 90's in summer 1992, Air UK were operating BFS LBA, which was running quite a while. In that timetable, Air UK published Jersey European (BE) flights from BHD to LBA, so they 2 must have been co-operating on the routes in some way. As JY were doing 5 to 6 rotations on SH6 per day, whereas UK were doing a daily mon - fri SH6 from BFS!

I would put my bet on an announcement this week.

An announcement that no airline is coming?

I don't think anyone knows what will be said. As with the last few years there have been quite a few unexpected announcements in our little patch of aviation

The challenge I see is that BHD is now almost completely tied to Flybe. Other than the BA LHR link, the only airline that still serves BHD is Manx2 with 2-5 daily flights in a 19seater.

Minor technicality I suppose but regarding Stansted. To suggest that all of these airlines have tried and failed is a bit disingenuous (sp?).
Ab were really only filling time that an aircraft had spare, there was no real drive to make it a success. FR were very successful on Stansted - loads were strong and allegedly yeilds were good - other routes (Bristol and Prestwick in particular) werent so good and combined with the runway ext debacle they left. Again baby loads on stansted were good but the whole airline has been culled - so again no reflection on the Stansted route. As for BE - well who knows?

Heard the previously mentioned rumour on here, that EIR are to commence flights from BHD to LGW, BHX and MAN, the 3 busiest routes from BE. So EIR potentially deciding to cherrypick already well served marketfrom NI. Really, if true what will this achieve??? Cheap and cheerful from BFS on EZY and more business friendly schedules on regional frames from BE and BHD. So this will bring what to the marketplace???

Lets not forget AB airlines and their purple Bac-111s to STN.

indeed
 

I flew with on this route \ airplane on 1996? I knew it was the way forward, just didn't realise the future was orange not purple.

Did they not trade as AB shannon at some point also? If I remember they had a flat fare system.

Final baby departure from BHD has just left. Positioned out empty to EMA.
Business from BHD closed.

AB operted B11 from BFS and they were part of the AirBristol group I think, they had AB Shannon also, did they operate the Aberdeen London Express airline between Stansted and Aberdeen some time ago, late 90s I think.... also with B11