Are you allowed to plane spot from Ikeas carpark still?

as long as you dont take a spotters strop if asked to move five feet Ikea are fine. check out ni aviation fourm on the interweb

well nothing today as expected. Ikea spotters said EI are off to city once contract with BFS expires HA HA HA HA HA. they say they have been in. :E

dog in the park; AerLingus staying firmly put at BFS..the base is performing well.

Though still no winter schedule for continental european routes... I would suggest that LHR route situation and BA are part of that story.........

EI-BUD

just saying what the spotters said.

dog in the park; where or what exactly did the 'spotter' say, I must have missed something. I would suggest that even if a spotter surmised that Aer Lingus are unlikely to move that may be a fair suggestion. The majority of us in the industry often dont know any more than some of the spotters who know a thing or two about things!

Even if AerLingus were for moving and negotiating with BHD, the limitations around early closure would be big impact for flying program especially Tenerife, Lanzarote.

Bmibaby European routes seem to be getting good loads, good to see that BHD can command a fair share of the market. Next CAA stats will make for interesting reading.

I doubt we will see EI move its base out of BFS as EI-BUD has said BHD has too many limitations for them and EI has stated the base performs very well.. but...

I could see BA pulling out of BHD and EI running a couple of BHD-LHR flights under the codeshare, that way BA is still keeping by their word of retaining the link between BHD-LHR..

Its anyones guess as to what will happen, as we have seen in the last few years there have been quite a few surprises

Tigger thank you for your post, I always value your contribution. I have said it before and remain committed to my view on the matter. BA are not interested in point to point domestic traffic, they are interested in the interlining opportunity. Belfast differs from the other domestic points in that AerLingus are on the case. I cant see BA having a long term interest in the Belfast market due to the saturation of operations by low cost airlines. Yes this is also the same at GLA, EDI, etc but they dont have an alternative airline flying into LHR that could feed passengers to the network.

It comes as no coincidence that AerLingus have not finalised the winter BFS Europe schedule, I feel that Aer Lingus are looking at LHR to EDI and ABZ. The airline who fills this slots has to interline with BA, and why would BA not want an existing ally onto these routes, codesharing? Giving Aer Lingus Belfast Heathrow in its entirity, plus preserving the relationship between ORK SNN DUB and LHR and the valuable feed into long haul. Many have commented that it is not substantial but it is substantial enough. BA dont need to fly these routes and can still get feed into long haul.

I dont suppose EI can afford to leave European routes much longer to release into booking system.

EI-BUD

reference BA keeping their word, was Willie Walsh not quoted as saying he (BA) intended to return to NI. He wouldnt have said that if he was planning on only using Aer Lingus, who have been operating as a code share for quite some time.

I must admit i hold the cynical view that BA may not last long here, but i hope im proven wrong.

Also worth noting that Aer Lingus fly 3 or 4 times a day, and BMI about 6 or so times, so unless Aer Lingus have surplus aircraft sitting about theres a big gap in the market if BA dont operate here

Who does the man flight out of harbour these days? I used to use this service 5-6 times a year and never had any problems and always thought it was a great little airport,and right next to city unlike aldergrove.

Flybe operate MAN

NEWS!
 

It doesn't mention which Airport though, what it says is Belfast not specifically BHD.

Crucially however, he doesn't say which Belfast airport BA will operate the route from!

BA are working hard to merge BD into there mainline operation before the end of October. BA are planning to release there W12 schedule in June. So it might be 6 to 8 weeks before we find out if it will be BFS or BHD.

From today's NI Travel News email. I've quoted only part of the article.

If right then that is good news.

BBC News - Willie Walsh says Belfast to London Heathrow route safe

BBC has no mention of BHD, just Belfast - Heathrow .. guess it will be a case of sitting tight and seeing what happens, neither article mentions if it will be using BA aircraft or not

From the BBC article
One hundred and sixty people? To handle ~ 8 A320s on LHR-BFS a day and the J41s and ATPs of British Regional? I think I see why it fell into the red....

Yet more news