This morning's flights cancelled!
NCL-IOM (G-MAJY) operated as schedule, but aircraft remains on ground at IOM with its IOM-BHD-IOM cancelled. - Not sure if a/c has gone tech. Too soon to say whether IOM-NCL will operated as scheduled this afternoon

So it seems the current plan is to maintain the integrity of the frontiers after brexit by using technology.


Maybe that has the potential to even up some of the damaging tax loopholes which currently exist.


BHD loses so much business every year by BA directing their NI traffic by road to depart on their flights from Dublin to Heathrow. By doing this, and transferring on through Heathrow within 24 hours under a single ticket / airline code, air passengers can evade paying the heavy long haul Air Tax which would exist if they flew on a UK-originating flight and staying within UK jurisdiction (BHD - LHR and onwards). The same loophole exists if someone arrives in the UK but makes their way to Dublin or elsewhere (Amsterdam?) to take a return journey. Little wonder in these circumstances that Willie Walsh sees benefit in moving activity out of the UK into Dublin!


So basically everyone within the UK pays through the nose for travel from and within their own country under Treasury regulations but the barn door is lying wide open to be exploited in neighbouring European countries for their own economic benefit. The much treasured Common Travel Area within Ireland and the UK becomes rather less 'common' when one party uses it to benefit at the other's expense. Surely this type of madness can only be damaging to the UK's economy. Perhaps frontier technology will help the UK to wipe out these irregularities and ensure that everyone gets a fair deal in future.

100% lad, keep the foreigners and drug dealers and every sort of badness out, we have enough badness and corruption to sort out first lol

As a young man, I just want to live a life of peace and prosperity. I'm tired of bickering and fighting.

It would be great if the current Stormont administration could be replaced to be honest.

I was booking flights with KLM and noticed that from this Sunday, Belfast flights will be upgraded to the E190 on selected days. The current schedule is as follows;

E190: 26th March - 9th April, 1st May - 14th May, every Sunday from 21st May
F70: 10th April - 30th April
E175: Monday - Saturday from 15th May

I'd say the prolonged E190 periods will be due to operational reasons - lack of F70/E175 - or possibly something to do with Embraer crew training at BHD.

The Fokker 70 will leave Belfast for the final time on 30th April.

The Sunday upgrade plus the extra capacity of the E175 over the F70 means that there will be 68 extra weekly seats each way on the route.

Well spotted re: the F70 schedule. Outlasted its great rival, the 146, by just a month at Belfast given Brussels Airline's last service was on Friday 24th.

It would seem the 146 has the last laugh. KLM have signed a wet lease agreement with Cityjet which will see the 146 operate some of KLM's Belfast services. Quote below from the press release.

From May 15th KLM Cityhopper will wet lease two RJ85 aircraft from CityJet to operate four additional Amsterdam to London City services each weekday, bringing the KLM frequency to eight per weekday, four operated by KLM Cityhopper on Embraer 190s and four by CityJet on wet lease using Avro RJ85s. CityJet will also operate a number of existing flights to Birmingham, Hamburg, Bordeaux and Belfast on behalf of KLM.

Feb BHD pax estimate
 

BHD looking down about 9 to 10% in February. With all the domestics in except GLA and LBA, they are at 142K if you say 24K for LBA and GLA combined plus 4K for AMS and BRU then 170K is the approx Feb pax. Not too good compared to the 189k in Feb 16.

No doubt Bfswatcher is now sitting there with a wee cake and party hat on party blower in hand.

You missed the bottle of champers,

you old enough for champers??

Summer routes
 

How's aer Lingus holding up this year on Spain and Portugal? I know it's early days but hopefully they can do a turn still?

Are their A320s payload restricted on flights like AGP and FAO from BHD ?

Don't think so, anytime I was on the Malaga, it seemed to make the runway seem very big...

Not form BHD, wouldn't be that heavy.
____

Fares might be a bit soft, FR only charging 12.99 from BFS-AGP on Sunday! I suspect they can make a profit but with EI and so few aircraft it needs to be a good return to keep it.

I have never saw a AGP service so cheap.

I don't believe there is a restriction, for example the flight which had a medical emergency recently had 175 pax on.

LBA going 5x daily from winter, LPL remaining daily despite all the predictions.

Brian Ambrose will make several new route announcements over the coming months - anyone want to speculate?

My only guesses IF there really are new routes;

Eurowings with a German route,

WOW to Kef and on to US and Canada,

BA on LCY,

Would bmiregional look at EU points on their current
network too thin for 737/319/320?

Cork with Stobart, resurrection of an old route?

Eastern increase on IOM.

Unless Icelandair's routes connect to addition US points, would that form the basis of an announcement.


If there is anything new, it will be in the above....

..so long as the airport holds on to its LHR service, that should be no. 1 priority...

Where has this been reported?

This one is news to me as well!

Unfortunately Harbour is stagnant, no growth and indeed going backwards. Their main player FlyBe just doesn't seem to have either the appetite or capability of any kind of expansion. I can remember some 20 years ago hearing of Harbours plans involving Jersey European as they were then doing great and exciting things - but nothing. Why?:confused:

Harbour is crying out for a leisure London route again, Heathrow and London City are fantastic but prices are astronomical! Why on earth would anyone pay 5 times the price to go to Heathrow for a few days when they can get the same offering from Aldergrove with either Ryanair or Easy.

Its a sad day when staff I know from Harbour think a new Jetstream service to IOM is a good result from their marketing team.:ugh:

Air passenger duty an anchor on tourism growth says airport boss - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

It was also mentioned on twitter.

The article also says that BHD lost out on a Madrid route with Iberia Express to Cork because of APD.

Mr ambrose did not say he will be announcing more airlines or routes, it has been worded as "similar business announcements"
From what I've learnt about the management of both airports is they like to brag if they have and real solid news or announcements

This makes me think it has been carefully worded. It could be similar "aviation announcements" which could be anything from airlines to a new shop in the terminal "similar" meaning about his airport
I don't wish to sound negative but I think if euro wings or LH announce a German route from BFS it would be a real blow to BHD as these are the airlines that would usually like City

There was another article - can't remember which one - plus a couple of twitter posts saying new routes were in the running over the coming months (i.e. not immediately).

I agree that if Lufthansa Group were to open a BFS route - could happen given their endeavours at BHD failed - it would be catastrophic for BHD.

Mr A talking any about quality over quantity...I wonder if he has tried this line with his shareholders as BFS heads towards 6 million?

I think Ambrose should take whatever routes he can get. Passenger numbers will most likely fall this year given that Aer Lingus and Flybe have reduced frequencies, which would be two years in a row at a time when most UK airports are recording double-digit growth.

You have to remember though that legacy Airlines pay more at airport so klm would pay for example may be more than 4-5 rotations by a LCc would pay

Yes but having a LCC paying low fees is better than having no airline paying no fees.

flybe capacity cuts
 

looks like Flybe down in movements by over 10% this summer.

That's pretty much in line with their national figures - they're cutting up to 18% of current capacity by 2020. 6 Q400s are being disposed of the year, and a further 9 are going over the next 2 years. The E195 leases will also expire over the next couple of years. I went into detail about this on the Flybe thread a few weeks ago, but long story short, BHD (and all most other bases) will probably lose an aircraft over the next 2 years.

Depends if BE decide to expand at BHD post the Routes conference.

They're cutting back everywhere else and there aren't any real opportunities left for Flybe from Belfast. They were unable to make European flights work, and pretty much all potential new domestic routes (DSA, JER, NWI etc) have been tried, tested and axed by the airline. Routes Europe would have little to no effect on Flybe's network plans at BHD.

Anyone know why Titan are operating for EI tomorrow?

May be to do with late receipt of a 320, that was due once EZV and EZW left the fleet. Tuesday also op by Titan.

Thanks EI-BUD

Just had a cancellation come though from British Airways.
Looks as if the Winter schedule BHD-LHR has been cut right back.
The fares are through the roof as it is!
Looks as if we'll all be considering the delights of Gatwick from BFS this winter. Or Dublin if making a connection.

So down o x4 daily and what looks like more sensible schedules between both EI/BA in terms of gaps throughout the day.

There was speculation about BHD-LCY with BA so prehaps it may happen yet.

I wouldn't go so far to say it's a sensible schedule with a large gap between 08:50 and 13:05 with two of early departures within 15 minutes of each other and further reductions at weekends.

Looks like BA down from 38 rotations a week to 26 for the winter. The Easy and Ryanair pressure has finally told on BA.