Mart I think they tried this before as winter route, and last year they cut the route short in the summer season, ie re routed some passengers onto Dublin flights, so I have a feeling that LPA is as seasonal as Ibiza would be for easyJet...

I think this is becoming more of a lies network than rumour network, as people are posting on here what they want to be true that what really is

BHD2BFS : you are probably right, I still have an 'opinion' based on of observations that i have made, though I feel that the suggestion that EI will fly from BHD to LGW, MAN, EDI is absolute dreaming and no substance. EI never act in a predatory manner these days, I mean yes they went into LGW and BFS up against EZY but in the main at both bases they didn't go onto routes that were operated by EZY. So it would be a risky turn of strategy...

in fairness as well when they went into lgw and bfs they we're a lot more aggresive and competing on cost, and making life difficult for the unions and fighting off take over threats. indeed they are much more carefull now. that said, a seventy seater ATR is much less of a risk than an trying to profitabally fill an airbus double the size.

Yes mart901, an ATR is far less of a risk, but remember it is Aer Arann that would be taking the risk and not Aer Lingus who are profitable, not massively but making very respectable profits considering the scale of competition from Ryanair on the vast majority of its routes.

Given that AerArann are not long out of the woods in terms of financials and being on the bring, they are unlikely to be in the moods to get into an operation that requires cash lossses even if they see it being long term attractive.

Other considerations are
- Aer Lingus stated that the next steps for EI and RE with EIR are provincial UK routes that could provide feed for T/A ops at DUB, routes that are not economically viable with 320
- Stobard group what happens with that, no obligation for EIR to develop that further
- BFS could be good for a 321 NEO operating JFK and BOS or Toronto on alternate days, what scope is there for that at BHD??? None. And would EI switch back again in say 3/4 years?

Just my thoughts.

EI-BUD

yes it does seem a somewhat elaborate rumour. I also don't see where they would get the airframes from unless the rumour that they are ordering more comes to fruition rather quickly.

Aer Lingus
 

Say if BA do drop LHR and Aer Lingus take the route over. Why would you have a mixed operation out of BFS and BHD to LHR with the same airline ?

That I think is where the issue lies and probably some of the reason they are holding fire schedule wise. Although BFS-LHR is good for EI the pax figures on the BHD-LHR would be a big draw for them. BA can easily say they are inb the market and then hand some or all of the slots to EI under code share.

bmi
 

Any ideas why the 6.50 LHR service ended up leaving at 11.14 today?

Upon reflection, a new operator has to come onto LHRABZ and EDI. Virgin is the most obvious candidate. Would BA want to interline with Virgin on the routes? Probably not, strategically. Bmi disappearing removes a major ally for Virgin in terms of feed to their LHR long haul flights.

BA securing EI on the 2 Scottish routes from LHR would be ideal. May be marginal for EI, but do a deal with EI for BHD/BFS LHR and that could be the nugget. BA dont get involved with VS, dont assist VS. EI and BA continue to work on their significant relationship involving feed to LHR from the 4 routes DUB, ORK, SNN and Belfast.

The upside here for EI would be in such a deal that no other airline ever likely to fly Belfast London Heathrow other than BA, so do a deal with BA would secure the whole LHR market and looking at today's stats could be up to 60K pax per month. Not far off the total capacity that EI provide per month on all routes ex Belfast...

Axing ACE and TFS would be short sighted in my view. BHD losing the LHR route would be a very devastating blow. which could amount with Baby and bmi combined to 1Million pax per year. Both airports need the LHR route and starting to feel like only 1 will have it???

EI-BUD

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18438034

A Chief Exec of an international airline will choose the airport with greater catchment area, less taxes and most potential to make money every day of the week. Dublin has a geographical advantage on this "island" just like DXB and AUH have for the rest of the world. Life is not fair, stop crying like little spoilt children and manage your business' within their place.

The sooner both BA and UH get back in their boxes and accept that Dublin will ALWAYS win, the better. A single airport in Belfast would be bad news for consumers because it will ultimately end in less competition and higher prices.

In my opinion, BHD is best served being a business focused, easy to transit regional airport with potential links to European cities where business demands it. Any move away from business friendly philosophy will damage BHD. BFS is best suited for being the 24hr facility that can handle loco's, charters, long haul and air freight.

AC

Hi dpconlan2011,

Looking at ACARS logs, it would appear that A321 G-MEDU operated the BD 92 last night then returned to LHR as a delayed BD93. That would have left no overnight stopper in BHD.

G-MIDS appears to have positioned in to operate BD81, not sure if it came directly from EMA where it had been under MX for the last few weeks. According to other forums, BD have been very short of aircraft recently because scheduled MX, repaints and aircraft being transferred to BA AOC. TCX69 could prob confirm :)

AC

BA/EI on LHR
 

The objective of the authorities in requiring BA to make slots available on EDI and ABZ is to maintain some competition on the routes from LHR.
I think it therefore unlikely that EI would be given the slots to operate in cooperation with BA. EI would rather have to distance themselves from BA otherwise VS would have a strong case to argue they should be given the slots to achieve the competitive objective.

The approval to acquire BMI also required BA to continue to interline with competitors such as Virgin on EDI and ABZ - VS already interline with BA and will continue to do so whether or not they do end up operating routes to EDI and ABZ. Indeed the restricted frequency they will be able to operate means they will need to interline with BA in order to have any chance of impacting the higher yielding pt2pt market who want high frequency services not 3 or 4 flights a day.

On Belfast ( and Dublin) the likely objective for BA of any cooperation with EI would be to reduce total capacity and push up yields and to save some slots for other services.

So far example , if EI currently fly 3/day BFSLHR and BA 6/day BHD/LHR
a cooperative operation might fly 7 or 8 a day BHD/LHR with each carrier
flying c50% of the service.

I don-t see the attraction to BA of handing over ( or even leasing ) the 6
slots to EI to operate the route . If they are not saving the slots they might as well operate the route themselves .

I see BFS are agreeing with BALPAs comments yesterday and BHD are against it.
Have to say though if they are trying to poach EI to start regional routes from BHD and put flybe's nose out of joint, whats to stop BFS from offering a good deal to flybe? Then BHD is no longer a profitable business because EI could never replicate the movements of flybe..... Then BALPA's thoughts become a reality

BCAL boy, BA would not need to hand over more than 3 daily pairs of slots.

As far as the authorities are concerned EI coming onto ABZ and EDI LHR would be no different than another member of the OneWorld alliance.

BA wont want to allow Virgin any scope to support its long haul routes. Strategically it would suit BA to see VS isolated and struggling.

EI could operate the 2 scottish routes in competition with BA and this from BA's point of view would be far less drastic than competing with VS. Whatever airline enters the route will have a similar experience to bmi, except they will be less well recogised or established in the market.

It is becoming clear by the comments and feedback on this thread that without an LHR route at BHD the airport will be in huge diffs. The market is limited, to suggest that 2 airports are commercially viable that may be ok based on last sets of accounts, but in terms of long term and investment 2 does add up.

There has been good and fair debate on for and against one airport for NI but the story is that the market is small with quite low amount of inbound tourism relevant to other cities.

I dont see Dublin's marketing campaign doing anything for Dublin, nothing more that it would be if they didnt do it. I.e. In my mind its like a hardware store suggesting come in and get all your hardware items instead of going to the Gift store. What I am saying is that customers in Belfast will go to Dublin for routes not served from Belfast, and to the routes served they mostly stick to Belfast. Dublin could achieve better mileage by marketing the towns in the middle, eg Dundalk, Newry, Banbridge and counties like Fermanagh and Leitrim, Donegal.

Finally EGAC to comment on your remark:
Dont forget here that BHD has many limited factors that are well documented, including night curfew, 0630am opening and not before, short runway and caps to flights. which are all relevant.

Whether BHD is better than BFS debate rages on and I cant see any substantial evidence to show that BHD is the better choice. Except for LHR route, though if you had 6/7 times a day from BFS you could make a better comparison.

EZY growing nicely on MAN by the way...

EI-BUD

It may become clearer after the slot conference today and tomorrow but EI are moving to the city on a mainly domestic network. Will it be Bye Bye Flybe or bye bye EI, we'll know in time.
Also, I hear Ms City Airport saying that both NI airports are profitable in relation to the BALPA report, perhaps some basic training on how to read a spread sheet is required if she thinks that the city is profitable.

If EI do move to BHD, you can sure BFS and MOL will be having a chinwag..which may not be so good for Ryanair's future growth at Derry airport.

If EI move ezy or jet2 will replace the routes lost, there are good money spinners

AIRPORT66
 

I see the BALPAs report into why there should only be 1 airport in Belfast has really ruffled Katy Best feathers wonder why that is.

No disrespect to BALPA or anyone else, but as stated in the Aldergrove thread, both BFS and BHD are privately owned operations, so the market will decide if both airports are sustainable.

While both are commercial enterprises, if I remember correctly, did TBI want to buy BHD many moons ago with the intention to close it, and build a second terminal at BFS. This was then blocked by the Government. This may have been prior to the new terminal, just something makes me think this was on the cards at one time??

So if Government policy was to change, and BFS felt they could be financially better by buying BHD and shutting up shop, could this be a potential way of obtaining the one airport option for Belfast??

Yes but 1st BHD has to be up for sale and if BFS approached BHD to buy it they wouldnt be selling it cheap but then again last year it only made a profit of £15k so they myt be happy to sell off
Also am I not right in thinking the owners of BFS try to spend as little as possible on their own airport where would they get the money from to buy their competitor out?

BHD2BFS;
Yes the profit of £15k was the most recent that is reported but figures were alot stronger then, ie passengers passing through. So depending on what was driving such a low profit (perhaps Ryanair deal, but whether it low fees it still was some fees) in the accounts, it would seem that a profit in the near future of £15k would be desirable.

And if BFS were (if) to be attempting to buy BHD it wouldnt have as much to do with the level of profits but more to do with the potential revenue that BFS would achieve for all the additional passengers that they could see through there doors. Probably around 2m last year?

Besides BFS could realise much greater fees if it had no neighbouring airport.

EI-BUD

The £15k profit is a smokescreen, the salary increase of the senior director for that year was many times that amount.


....And that is the reason why 2 airports provide competition!

2 Airports
 

Here we go again with useless drivel about 2 airports. Does anyone complain about there being 2 burger bars in a particular town? does anybody complain about there being several seaports in Northern Ireland? does anybody complain about 2 car sales outlets in the one area? Of course not - thats free enterprise. If both can make a profit for the owners by attracting customers then so be it.

In aviation comparison terms, Washington DC has around the same population as Belfast, has 2 airports and nobody is crying for one airport to close (and BWI and others are no further away from DC than Derry/Dublin are from Belfast.

Quote: "In aviation comparison terms, Washington DC has around the same population as Belfast, has 2 airports and nobody is crying for one airport to close (and BWI and others are no further away from DC than Derry/Dublin are from Belfast."

Good point, but if you include BWI (Baltimore) as a Washington DC airport, then it has three: BWI, DCA and IAD.

panpanpanpan, fair enough clearly you are close enough to know what the senior director was paid. However, we have had this debate date and your contribution has been valuable, though I argue yes competitive for the travelling public but the individual airports in attempts to woo the airlines from one to the other, are whittling down the ability to be profitable to the extent that any funds remain to pay for costly infrastructure that will be needed in the future.

Clareview;

I wouldnt agree that this is useless drivel all sides in the discussion have inputted and today and yesterday the very question about 2 airports for Belfast was raised in NI and was widely featured on the radio. I would go as far as saying that the pprune community had it first and had debated the issues.

The burger van is highly unusual comparsion. You can move the burger van to the next town if it doesnt do well/ to where the opportunities are, burger van not important piece of countries infrastructure, and amounts of investment not in any way comparable.

EI-BUD

Clareview : to hear more drivel about whether Belfast needs 2 airports etc, tune into UTV tonight after the news...:ok:

Not a good comparison. Washington DC has a similar population to Belfast, but it's surrounded by ex-urbs in the neighbouring states. The contiguous metropolitan area (incl. Arlington, Silver Spring, etc) has a population of more than 5 million.

I hope UTV later will be impartial and realistic but somehow I doubt it.

EIBUD - the company accounts are available for public perusal, I am not close to the director but have a few friends that are employed at Harbour.

I find it amazing that 2 airports can create such a depth of feeling when there are so many other life changing issues in our small province. I find it even more amazing that Harbour seem to bury their head in the sand and rarely (in public anyway) seem to counter some of the frankly absurd nonsense that is promoted in our media.

I can remember when Harbour was a portacabin with a few twin otters flying about and Aldergrove didn`t protest too much then! I have a feeling they are hurting badly and wonder just how much they have to do with the anti BHD campaign that appears to be underway?:hmm:

Thanks panpanpanpan,
Yes I hope that it is an impartial piece of reporting/debate.

For the record as much I am of the opposite view to yours (which I respect), I really like the City Airport, nice environment to be in and quite modern too.

I for one am not on a anti BHD campaign, though I am committed to a strong Aviation Policy/ Strategy for Northern Ireland.

re: the days of BHD being a portacabin, I have vague memories, and I would suggest at that time that BFS felt no level of threat to their own operations(Small as it was then...!)... and how things have changed.
EI-BUD

If for any reason BHD did close, what will bfs gain? Pax numbers are down at BHD so they will only gain around 1 million pax (great i know) but with a decrease in overlapping they would never gain bhds 2million share

Call me cynical but what would the odds be on Aldergrove stoking the debate and injecting an amount of uncertainty at a time of potentially pretty critical decisions being made by relocating airlines..? "you should be careful about going to City, it will be shut soon".

Wonder does Mr A read pprune? The supermarket anology has been aired here before, Tesco telling Sainsbury to close because Tesco wants to build a bigger store and make more money, it really is absurd when you think about it!

I would still love to know the connection between that "doctor" from Belfast City Airport Watch and Aldergrove.

Already talking by all accounts, not sure Easy would be terribly happy though unless there are some terms... Can you see MOL accepting any sort of terms but his own?

I don't think either airport has reached their potential. WW enjoyed good bookings and loads on the few european services they launched and this to me anyway has proven a demand. On the point of BFS I reckon as has been pointed out on other threads plenty more US flights even if just charter/seasonal and more varied european destinations could be added. DUB will profit if APD remains an issue and customers have limited destination options. I don't see how closing one airport down will change any of that, lets put it this way - closing BHD and switching the services to BFS would just result in all the same domestic stuff being flown out, effectively just duplication. You wouldn't add anything, possibly even loose out over all. If one company owned both then yes it would make commercial sense to close the one least likely to attract new business in the future.

Yet ANOTHER airline jumps the BFS ship

BBC News - Aer Lingus to switch from Belfast International to George Belfast Belfast City Airport

How many airlines have moved to BHD over the years with free deals and discoverd oh we have made the wrong move.British Midland realised after a short time that it was the wrong commercial decision. Interesing times ahead to see what routes EI will operate,canaries gone and FLYBE up in arms.

So the rumours on this forum aren't lies, I, and others said some time ago this was going to happen. Also as I said before the routes planned are primarily domestic, LGW MAN GLA EDI BHX and of course LHR. I think the impact on Flybe will be the interesting one to watch, on this front. The loss of LHR will be a serious blow to Aldergrove but the international route operated by AL are all served by others. The impact on the Easy domestic network will be minimal as they will watch the blood bath at the City if Flybe decide to fight at all! More on that later.

Don't know for sure that their intention is to operate domestic routes GMU this morning said they were transferring their existing network of international destinations to the city, perhaps that is the case and the only domestics will be the unserved destination vacated by the late bmi baby.

BMI @ BHD
 

Straightahead

I have seen no evidence to suggest BMI regretted their move to BHD after a short period.BMI have been operating there for more than 10years and I am sure there have been several opportunities to move back to BFS ,if they weren-t happy.

For the airlines the critical factor is the rates they are offered by the Airport Operator and if these hadn-t been commercially favorable to BMI they would not have stayed.

From a customer point of view the favorite airport obviously depends on where you live , but as the airports are very close the impact on traffic of
moving airports is not vast and if anything BHD is probably preferred ,particularly for shorthaul domestic like LHR (and particularly for inbound business travellers to N.Ireland ).

If the BMI group had been unhappy at BHD they wouldn-t have moved the BABY routes a year ago and although that has gone its because of underlying probs , at the airline , not the choice of airports in Belfast.

I suspect the major driver for EI in the move , is to develop BHD/LHR in cooperation with BA and presumably some of the sunshine routes they currently operate are not sufficiently lucrative to avoid being sacrificed.

BA owns 14% of Flybe ,so it will be interesting to see how BA manage cooperation with EI alongside BE , particularly if EI also launch BHX,MAN (and LGW where BA already codeshare on BE ).