BRS-HAM is pretty much Airbus as well. But BRS-TLS and BRS-CEG remain private flights (I assume they're still running?). I guess they're just full enough all the time not to be worth opening up?

Another good BM experience yesterday, operating the morning BRS-BRU for SN. Punctual enough (despite the ground crew at BRU being late for push back).

Bizarrely though, we parked up on the apron in front of the terminal, and were brought to passport check desks in a part of the terminal I've never been through before (through the doors that I think used to be Republic of Ireland?) 4 passport desks, no machines?

BRS-TLS and BRS-CEG now run with Eastern E145s (or sometimes a E170 for cover). These flights operate from the dedicated Airbus departure lounge in the Centreline building on the Southside of BRS

I'm using Fast Track Security (either through status or pre-booking) pretty much all the time now. It seems largely deserted most of the time, so that works for me (along with the Aspire lounge when it's quiet) as a quasi-dedicated departure lounge!

I see we're back to the regional-jet lottery for the Derry services. Lost track of what operated over the weekend, one CRJ2 and a couple of French E145s I think.

Looking at FR24, previously-based E145 G-CKAF is now doing European routes out of Birmingham.

A DOT LT ATR 42-300 (Lithuanian registered) operated BRS-CDG-BRS yesterday. FR24 shows it has been operating for Loganair (same owner as bmir) on the soon to cease Flybe franchise on Highlands and Islands routes for the past week at least. It flew to BRS from EDI yesterday lunchtime to operate the CDG from BRS.

A FRA and a MUC rotation have been cancelled at BRS in recent days.

May CAA stats are in as despite the messy start, LDY-STN load factor was about 80%. Surely one of the best LFs within the BMIR route network?

Over on the Derry/Londonderry thread that's been calculated as a 69% LF...

Yes. Yes it has. Thank you.

LDY
 

Yes but what is the all important yield? Judging by the fact it's a PSO route it obviously isn't great.

I think in this case the lack of a non PSO was down to what economists call market failure
There wasn't quite enough demand to support a twice daily A319 / B737, meaning one has to look at something under about 80 seats. London City is too expensive to support a route at peak times, and Gatwick's pricing structure for anything less than 150 seats. Heathrow slots were out of the question

That leaves very few viable options for a route - the only non PSO option I can think of is Southend with Stobart. Stobart would have known this and may have decided that after Waterford they would also want some PSO cash to get involved compared to trying to open more mainstream European routes

This is the kind of route that PSO is designed for - connecting outlying, remote regions (or those with relatively poor transport links) to major economic centres and transport hubs.

DJ6

Have to disagree with your statement 'This is the kind of route that PSO is designed for...' for the following reasons;

1. City is less than 90 minutes by road from BFS.
2. PSO normally stipulates red eye timings to a major hub for connectivity to international markets. STN does not meet that requirement. Additionally there is usually a requirement for an element of codeshare.
3. The market was there for a single daily 738, but not a double daily.

Your reference to Stobart's experience of WATLTN and GWYLTN is also incorrect in my view. These were both highly profitable routes for RE before the airline was acquired by Stobart post examinership. However, when Stobart transferred from LTN to SEN the sector length was 20 minutes longer, the ethnic Irish north London market evaporated and the regular day return passenger rejected SEN as a viable LON option due to rail station not being completed in time.

bmi really have to get a grip on this. Their reliability has to be significantly below their performance at the same time last year.

Thursday morning's BRS-FRA-BRS rotation is now cancelled for the rest of summer. Why pick just one morning of the week? It's incredibly frustrating when you're trying to use it as a feeder/business route to find it won't work on one day of the week.

The DOT LT ATR 42-300 that turned up at BRS on Sunday seems to be still there and operates the CDG rotations each day yet, according to posts elsewhere in this forum, a bmir E145 is operating from Inverness for Loganair.

Well they added 2 145s from Hop but one is predomantly on that random PSO route and the other is operating for Loganair. You would have thought they would have used them to stabilise their existing established routes.

Derry route has stabilised this week on a Slovenian-reg E145, S5-ACJ.

That assumes the issues are caused by a/c shortages, For example, do they have the crews?

I see BM are currently running a recruitment campaign for direct entry captains at the BRS and MUC bases. They are also advertising for cabin crew to be based at BHX and MUC. Does anyone know if BM are planning to announce plans to expand there network in the near future or are BM currently short of crew?

https://www.flybmi.com/about/careers

Looking at some of the recent delayed flights, where aircraft seem to have been in the right position at the right time, other explanations would be ATC complications, tech problems, ground handling complications, or unavailable / out of hours crews.

Correlating delayed flights against factors that would have affected other airlines seems to rule out ATC delays in some cases, which would leave ground handling issues unique to the BM fleet, tech problems, or crew availability problems.

So my hunch is, crewing is a contributory factor to the recent problems, and I hope they fix that before approaching any route expansion (for which they also don't seem to have sufficient frames).

Wednesday/Thursday saw BMR9001 operating from Bristol to Newquay and back with a lot of circuits down in Cornwall in between.

Forget Wednesday's aircraft, Thursday's was G-CKAG which arrived from Aberdeen on Tuesday evening.

Possibly suggests type training for new pilots?

LY-ARI continues operating from Bristol.

S5-ACJ replaced by F-HRGD on the Derry schedules.

Cheers,

MH.

SOU-MUC
 

The above diverted to BRS this evening even though others waited in the hold for the weather to clear up. To add insult to injury the aircraft operating has taken off from BRS and flown straight past SOU presumably empty and on route back to MUC. Anyone know why it didn't hold like the others? Also why did it not fly back to SOU to at least operate the return leg? Surely its not just to keep the customers happy but also to save the refunds/compo?