Finding the right airport for the ERJ is not easy, they are having some success in Norway, but the route from Eveness to Tromsoe lasted about a month and loads were dire.

I think if they stick with oil related routes and football charter, then they can make a living, but going back to Midland brand is daft, it meant nothing then, at least outside of the Midlands or UK, they need code share work to achieve a critical mass otherwise they will struggle

Just to add to what Cyrano says, even if BMI chose to update their fleet while remaining within the 50 seat range, what replacement equipment is actually available? Turboprops don't fit their business model. Indeed, I think there is an argument that part of the problems regional airports are facing is down to lack of suitable equipment, and by that I mean TPs are simply not suitable in all situations --- the BMI business model being an example.
BMI seem to be holding their heads above water, so perhaps their route choice is not all bad. Were they to move to routes with more traffic, they would end up competing with big carriers flying much bigger (read cheaper, on an ASK basis) equipment.

M-JSC
 

I think you right about equipment the ATR would make far more sense for them, my flying often takes me to one Canary Island and departing from another one, using the inter Island ATR72 service and they are more than OK, near STOL performance, tanker fuel for 6 sectors if need be, power back off stands and 22 more seats than a ERJ for less fuel burn and turbo prop pay scales, no doubt the football gods wouldn't get on them, but it would open up LCY which the ERJ can't do without the steep approach kit which is a fortune to retro fit

It's not just the football gods that might not like TPs. But an important point is that using TPs can also lead to important losses of productivity, making the fuel economies less and less important. I'm not so sure that would apply to BMI. But it would certainly impact an operator working on a more intensive timetable.

BM have made the following changes to there S14 Schedule.

ABZ-OSL - Flights reduce to 6 x weekly from 13MAY14. BM will no longer operate BM1351/BM1352 rotations

ABZ-KSU - Will reduce from 5 to 3 x weekly from 09MAY14. Flights will operate on days 1, 3 & 4 only.

KSD-FRA - NEW 6 x weekly service begins 26MAY14

SVG-EVE - Flights no longer available to book for travel after 09MAY14

SVG-KSU - Flights no longer available to book for travel after 09MAY14

Holiday pay
 

Hear that holiday pay due has been paid??

Totally missed that...! Anybody else?!

Hopefully the summer schedule re-jigs (which aren't yet updated in the PDF of the Summer Timetable on the website) are productive. It seems quite short notice to cancel the SVG-EVE/KSU flights with 24 hours notice? Presumably there weren't many customers to have to re-accommodate.

KSD-FRA seems an oddly orphaned route, particularly given that it seems to originate at KSD? Is this tacked onto some charter work based around KSD?

I'm hoping BRS is working out. HAJ died off fairly early on (which was always an odd route choice given the proximity of HAM), but everything else seems to have been fairly stable, excluding the odd (and frustrating) missing days during the winter schedule.

Given the plethora of flights from other UK airports to DUS, I wonder why they don't give DUS a try from BRS.

DUS might be interesting, as there's nothing into that part of Germany (DUS, CGN) and DUS still has some LH long-haul. ZRH is a credible destination, but I suspect VIE would be pushing the cabin comfort and block times too far.

Otherwise BRS has apparently blanket coverage of Europe with Easyjet. I think BM have to leverage their ability to bring people into hubs to get done uniqueness in the market.

Just booked a flight o/w BRU-EMA (Eurostar outward)
Sunday 26th October

What percentage of flights on this route are cancelled (due to under bookings)?
Need to be back at EMA with ideally no hic ups.

BRU-EMA.

Offering this information with the basic caveat that past performance is no guarantee of future performance, etc.


Flight Reliability Ratings
Delay #Flights Late
Airline Flight On Time % Avg Max Total Cancelled Diverted >15m >30m >45m
BM 1238 100% 8m 10m 48 0 0 0 0 0

Looks as healthy as it could be, given a decent amount of data (48 flights)

Following the start of a new route from Karlstad and yesterday's announcement of 2 more routes at Kalmar, is there a deliberate focus on the regional Nordic market ?

The UK - Scandinavian ventures dont seem to be "setting the heather alight"

Kalmar - Gothenburg is a very short route. I'd be interested in seeing what numbers BMR need to make that profitable. The last operator that tried to establish themselfs in Scandinavia went bust after a few years (thinking now of City Airline, callsign was Swedestar and they flew Embraer 145s IIRC).

City Airline operated E135's, E145's, and latterly 2 x MD87's which were used principally to Mediterranean sunshine destinations. City Airline was briefly taken over by Skyways, but the combined entity ceased trading in 2012. MAN and BHX were amongst the several destinations served by the company's Embraer fleet. Good luck to BMR with their own Nordic venture.

These sort of hit and miss routes only end one way....

Flying domestic routes in Scandinavia the crews need to be very careful to avoid being liable for social insurance, quite a few Brits in Norwegian have had tax bill for the internal sectors flow by them during training despite being based in the UK

Charter apart the only way to make ERJ's pay is flying for someone else where if they were to use their own bigger equipment they would loose even more & that means a network carrier.

Kalmar-Gothenburg looks to be almost a positioning sector to get the aircraft into Gothenburg to maintain the daily Birmingham-Gothenburg service - one of the few routes that seems to be doing OK. Stavanger-Gothenburg was flown on exactly the same basis - route ex Stavanger in the morning (the short-lived excursion to north Norway), then aircraft goes to GOT to fly the GOT-BHX.

I can only assume that both the Kalmar and Karlstad routes are being underwritten by airport / local authorities, to sufficient levels to cover the operation and the daily KLR-GOT leg.

If Flybe put a daily 175 on BHX-GOT, which can't be beyond the realms of possibility given their route development plans, I'd imagine the whole thing will go up in smoke.

I think it's a good sign that BMR are being quite active and assertive in going looking for routes with potential. I'd be more concerned if they'd picked a bunch of routes and then stubbornly stuck with them even though they weren't growing.

The Nordics make a lot of sense as a point of expansion outside the UK. I think it's quite smart. It fits in the range of the ERJs, and the maint base at ABZ. Northern Europe is a fist fight between EZY and FR at the bottom of the market and BA/LH/KL/AF further up. If you haven't got a sponsor (as BM have with LH out of BRS), it's perilous territory.

By comparison, there's lots of money floating around the energy business in the Nordic region. (Look at SK running GOT-IAH direct in an all-business configuration). DY don't do regional flying, so there's no immediate LCC risk. I think it's good to see them hopping equipment around markets, looking for demand.

The only reason BM should be considering new equipment is to lower the ASK cost, and that only makes sense when LFs are sufficiently high and robust. They're not there yet.

Having flown BRS-FRA/MUC a few times since the LH codeshare kicked in, LFs are noticeably higher. I've a worrying niggle that LH are screwing BM on rev-shares, but given that fares are still quite high, it seems to demonstrate that given access to good sales channels and hubs, the model is working.