BELFAST CITY AIRPORT (BHD)
 

Let's stop being Babys and stop the slagging. :ok:

We are a small country of around 1.5million and have 3 airports with almost 7 million pax a year there is no need to be negative

Did I miss something? Where'd the original thread go?

It went on a WW flight to AMS

Ditp , i'm new here but dont understand all the snipeing at baby & the city for putting on new routes.
Whilst i do agree that a daily AMS is clearly not working at the moment , i imagine the reason the route planners allocated the route was in the hope of getting feeder traffic to/from the KL hub , albeit without the benefit of a codeshare/transit pax product.
I for one hope BHD continues to develop new routes & is allowed to expand as the market demands dictate , rather than have artificial obstacles to competition put in their way.

At last, someone without an agenda speaks some sense..:D

What about having the amsterdam every other day and fit in a couple of JER flights during the week ? How about reinstating the ORK flight.. . might be a market there?

I think perhaps 3 a week would be max for AMS but there would be plenty of options for alternative routes given journey/turnaround times. Baby don't seem to do themselves any favours on the advertising front either , with distinct lack of radio/tv adverts.

WW are offering BHD-AMS for £16.99 each way with 22kg of free luggage, they have done this offer on BHX-AMS also. That just needs some decent marketing there is no reason it shouldn't work with offers like that.

Lots of coverage in the Belfast papers today, some good, some less so. Couldn't be bothered saying more or posting a link in case someone takes offence at the comments and the thread is closed down again.

LTM.
I agree. The articles covered in the BT yesterday are such alot of c*** and everyone knows it. I don't intend to go through the long list of inaccuracies in the articles but it is no less than we have come to expect. Being sensored for telling the truth is most frustrating.

Care to elaborate ellie may?

The article is on the homepage of the Belfast telegraph if anyone wants to read it. Basically Brian Ambrose claimed when FR pulled out BHD might have had to close its doors. Why has this came out now well over a year later and especially when they have done well to get routes sorted...

So that would surely raise the question what state was the airport in before ryanair arrived? They weren't there that long. Im sure it affected them badly when they left but their survival was not dependant.

Why on earth would Brian Ambrose release these sort of comments, makes little sense to me from a confidence point of view. Maybe trying to get traction in the runway extention etc, attract publicity for same.

Mr. Ambrose must be realising if he wanted to get a sizeable share of the market to Europe he needs some serious catalyst like Ryanair.....

Clearly the comments are to underline the hit taken when Ryanair pulled out , also trying to highlight the impact felt beyond the airport with fewer visitors to N.I seems like common sense to me that a runway extension that leads to more routes and a return of Ryanair could only be beneficial to the local economy. With more jobs being created both at the airport & beyond. There would be no increase in operating hours & no aircraft which are larger or indeed noisier than those which already operate or have operated out of BHD.

Personally I don't see why ryanair can't go to BFS, easy and ryanair fly from the same airport in other places why can't they do the same here, there is plenty of routes that they could launch without copying easyjet ie Germany, italy, Cyprus, Greece

Or Ryanair could only achieve what it did by below cost selling being up against Easyjet, on top of capacity restrictions could not make profit and left with a big bang blaming someone else as always but looking like a white knight in the process?? As said previously if they wanted to be in the Belfast market they would be there.

Midnight
Some elaboration.
In 2010 when FR were at BHD for 10 months the airport made the lowest profit in it's history, so why would their departure had that much impact on the airports viability?
If the airport had closed, would there really have been 1500 jobs lost, the airport only employs 200-300 staff.
Did FR really bring in so many people that the wider NI economy was impacted by their departure despite the fact that all of the destinations they served were still available. were the people in STN really flocking to Belfast and have they stopped doing so because its now only available on baby and easy.
Submit the correct information to the planners don't blame them for not granting your permission before you do.

Well done on the German route!

Stansted flights, and with very respectable monthly loads were such good value, leads one to believe that FR were not making alot on this route. However, one really never knows the yield. The fact that 930 pm is the last flight in a night in effect makes each aircraft less efficient from cost/operating point of view and that needs to be factored into the overall profit equation to equate to BHD being a profitable destination for FR.

Second issue for FR at BFS is BE, FR made no impact on BE on GLA route and PIK was a complete disaster, some flights 15-20 passngers. When FR went on STN BE's figures on LGW continued to grow month on month! LPL achieved great loads, but BE has never made a success of that route.

Ryanair simply wont be going to BFS as that would sour the relationship with Easyjet plain and simple. They couldnt strike a deal that was attractive enough and besides all that if they did come to Belfast market, they would go after the same routes that Easyjet are on to sun destinations to make a 189 seat jet work on, lose money competing in the process as Easyjet so well established here.

Runway extention alone wont see FR back, the other restrictions needs to be lifted and FR would want and need absolute flexibility across the board, without same their is an impact on cost. The subject of extending the runway has been debated to death on here, and the best reasoned argument on here is that NI needs an aviation policy and strategy that looks at what is best for NI as a whole.

If Ryanair are so confident that they can attract lots of extra passengers to the place, why dont they increase operations at Eglinton??? The days of FR £1 seats are gone, NI opportunity is for inbound passengers and to my mind marketing the Northwest as a tourist attraction and leading up to the north coast is as sellable as Belfast, so given that FR dont see that I dont believe the opportunity ex BHD for FR is as big as this thread would suggest. Any increase at BHD will in the main in my view simply be carving up the limited market the currently exists.

EI-BUD

interesting what was said in the previous comment.. i cannot remember a prestwick flight going with less than 100 on it each day, most of the time it was hitting the 150/160 figure easily.. As for Liverpool, it was quite often to see it come in with only 20 on it at 8am or so each morning. It was only ever completely full when there was a footie match there, or in Manchester (same for Prestwick, but it was still always busy).

Have I missed something?

EI BUD
 

I think EI BUD is right about the runway extension, I can't see BHD having agreed to upgrade 04 to an ILS this year only to rip up for a longer runway.

The interesting time will come when bmibaby V.2 look to replace their classic fleet, if they went down the NG route they'll be in the same boat that FR were in, an Airbus solution might be better.

Flying officer Kite,

The PIK route was initially daily and the total pax in any month was in or around the 5500 mark, it was then increased for one season to x2 daily and the numbers went up to about 7500, this can be verified more precisely at CAA website.

Assuming these numbers that would have meant load factors of around 47% and 32% respectively on those flights.

Dont know the loads for Liverpool, but the level of passengers was pretty impressive, and would have made LPL one of the top routes x BHD when it went to x3 daiyl on FR.

EI-BUD

v2? Why would anyone bother? :ugh:

FR derate their engines hence why they couldn't fill the Boeings on the way out.

I seem to remember Baby rerating their engines to increase their performance specifically for BHD operations.

I'm sure a fully rated 73 engine could handle the City just fine.

No doubt this will precipitate the thread being closed:hmm:

However the few times I travelled to PIK ( very useful for Scottish Air traffic control centre) it was virtually empty. I for one miss it.

Hope that comment doesn't upset our self appointed moderator.:hmm:

RedED

The FR machines had 26k thrust allowable to them this could be de-rated by using a fixed de-rate to 24k or 22k with further reduction through using assumed temperature. These processes however are down to the operating crew taking into consideration the performance. It was not the case thye had 26k engines permanently de-rated to 24k from the factory.The 800 suffered at BHD with it either carrying full load but not enough fuel for European destinations or carrying the fuel but suffering a penalty with regards to passengers.

Regards

EGAC Ramper that was my understanding re FR i don't think the short field performance on the NG as delivered to FR @26K is as good as the classic at 22K with full pax load

The short field t/o performance on a 22k 300 is better out of bhd than an 800. But it doesn't have the legs of an 800 at altitude. Bhd is basically unsuitable for the NG or classic on long med destinations. Airbus I have no idea.

EI-BUD, 5500 a month, works out at an average of 177 a day/flight (based on a 31 day month), which is how i remember the '1437' being most of the time, and with a 189 seater thats alot more than 47% Or are those figures BHD-PIK and PIK-BHD combined??

Also, Inkjet, have the airport said 04 is getting an ILS? I thought there were too many obstructions for one to work properly?? great stuff if its true though :)

Yes the 5500 and 7500 figures include total in both directions, this is how the CAA handle the figures. 177 per flight is most unlikely as my info is that restrictions on Ryanair's 738 at Belfast City was max of 169 on outbound and 149 on the inbound. So I am not sure any flight would ever have had more than 169.

EI-BUD

Not only is 04 to get an ILS, the 'HB' is finally going to be replaced/fixed sometime this summer before the 22 ILS is replaced late summer.

Autumn approaches on 22 with a NDB nice!!

interesting, though i stand by my position that i never saw a quiet Prestwick flight.. ah well :)

As for the figure of limiting the number of seats available for use, i had heard that rumour too, but it wasnt true. Ryanair flights were sometimes (not very often mind) completely full or even overbooked by one or two

Yes, but why would you need to restrict capacity on what was surely the shortest sector in the network?

As for overbooking, really? I thought MOL's claim always was 'read my lips, no overbooking'. This surprises me, especially during the 1p flight days, as you should always be guaranteed a few no-shows, but apparently that is the policy. Only reported case I've read of Ryanair overbooking was when a family gave wrong age for infant, so they needed an extra seat, and instead of offloading the family (4 seats), they forced a solo traveller off instead - naturally traveller wasn't too happy!

Indeed, many airlines say it doesnt happen, and for the likes of Ryanair it is very rare, but it has happened. When checking the Ryanair systems ive seen 192 booked on a flight before, same for many other airlines.

Interesting that in days when more airfields are getting rid of NDBs that 'HB' is getting a new lease of life.. Is there any benefits to using one when there are soon to be ILS's on both ends of the runway? Or is it more for overflying the field, training etc?

Flying officer kite
 

The HB needs to be operational whilst the ILS is down other wise your left with a radar vector to a visual approach and it's associated minima in other words GO TO BFS

The HB will allow an NDB approach which the crews will love and no doubt greater spacing on the approach ie lots of time in the MAGEE hold

though hasnt HB been out of action for quite some time?? I remember a long time ago a NDB was potentially going to end up at Ards, but that never came to be. Is the one at Enniskillen (EKN) working these days?

It can happen i guess, but in the (far too) many years working with various airports I can only recall one incident/day when an ILS was u/s.. but i guess a backup device is always handy

F O Kite
 

But in this case the ILS will be down for some time intentionally and its the HB or nothing!

Quite correct as NATS have the engineering contract at BHD :ok: