Antwerp airport
 

According to rumours in the Belgian press a "low cost British airline" might soon start scheduled flights to/from Antwerp-Deurne airport.
Any idea which airline this could be? and what would be the airport(s) served? Antwerp currently has only one scheduled connection with London City (Cityjet -5Xday) after BMI stopped the ANR-MAN flights on 29 Nov

Probably none at all. ANR has a 1.510m runway which pretty much rules out every LCC operation. So the only real option would be Flybe with Q400s.

If we are looking at non-LCCs, there have been rumours about BACF and LCY IIRC as part of BACF's efforts to give Cityjet a kiss of death....-

EZY would be allright on pretty much every UK route, I could see ANR-LGW or maybe ANR-SEN being only 202 and 165 miles respectively. A319's operate longer flights from shorter runways elsewhere and in more difficult circumstances. 5000ft with ambient temperatures at sea level will pose no problem for an A319 on flights <500 miles.

Fingers crossed! Would still be an interesting flight.

How much of LCY-ANR is driven by the diamond business versus other forms of trade ?
I note that at the weekend route frequency is much reduced so presumably the leisure brigade is presumably quite small

Antwerp airport is a lovely little place with a fine restaurant landside.

However, it seems to be struggling a little. I used to use it a lot with VLM and later Cityjet when it provided the last flight of the day from Manchester to Belgium. The service was excellent, but the loads never seemed very large and the fares were never very high either, so it did seem a low-yield route. I wasn't surprised when Cityjet pulled out, nor when BMIR didn't make a fist of it.

There were usually only two or three Hasidic people on the flight; these run the diamond trade. Perhaps it's more to London.

Proximity to Zaventem and Eurostar getting their act together do not help.

Would this also be valid for B-737-300's or 737-800's? (I was thinking of Jet2..) I have seen 737's(-300's) taking off from ANR in the past ,but I guess they were close to empty. Also Sabena used to fly with 737's (-200) to LHR in the 80's..
What would be the maximum range out of ANR's 1510m runway for these types and what would be the maximum range from this airport with RJ100/85 or E-175/195's ? ( assuming commercial loads - ambient temps - sea level)
Anyone?

Now that for the first time in the airports history, leisure flights are organised on a 'large' scale and scheduled basis, 2015 will probably end with an approx. 80% increase in passenger traffic compared to 2014 (admittedly 2014 figures were the worst of the decade).
And 2016 summer schedule looks promising, with even more destinations being added
http://s18.postimg.org/7gg7dpnhl/jaf2016.jpg

Referring to the previous poster's question 2 years ago, it seems that the E190 is sometimes weight restricted (+/-10 pax) on the 'longer' destinations like AGP.

I'm surprised they can manage NDR out of Antwerp with an E190.

Perhaps it's a double-drop on either the ALC or AGP that operate the same day?

Timetables indicate a direct flight, only 15min. longer than AGP. So maybe they keep 4 - 5 more seats empty.
ANR will always be rwy constrained; with the end of rwy road tunnel nearing completion to get a proper RESA, political opponents are now complaining about a 7 (yes, seven) meter "illegal" rwy extension (based on a 'measurement' using Google Earth).

I gues the majority of the flights are chartered flights where they put the available seats on the market??

These are regular scheduled flights,bookable directly on the website.(see link below)
Of course JAF being part of TUI-group I would assume a substantial part of their passengers is coming through the travelagencies.

https://www.jetairfly.com/nl#promo-antwerpen

Anyone have thoughts as to when Air Antwerp can realistically restart operations ?
They're selling tickets for flights resuming on 14-Sep-2020, but with 26.2 cases per 100,000 population over the last 7 days, it seems unlikely that 14-day quarantine for those arriving in England from Belgium will be relaxed any time soon

Are Air Antwerp intending to restart operations ? Their website no longer seems to show any airports at all - it's not even possible to enter "Antwerp Airport" as a departure point any more...

Depends what you mean by "restart operations" - the Fokker has been flying charters this weekend

To clarify.... are Air Antwerp intending to restart scheduled passenger flights for which they take commercial and operational responsibility and are sold in their own name ?

I imagine that they can't gauge "when" any better than we can right now. Once some form of travel normality resumes I would imagine they will update their website. At present it's simply futile.

From 01 Jan 2023, tax for flying out of Dutch airports goes up about 20 euros per pax. Does this make a London City-Antwerp route viable again, or are the numbers still too far away from profitability for an airline ?

Having just last week driven around Antwerp and passed Deurne I can only say that given the inadequacy of the road system in the area the idea of driving down to Antwerp to catch a flight to LCY would be laughable.

Frankly it was as bad as trying to get through the Dartford tunnels!

Traffic coming from the Netherlands doesn’t haven’t to go under the Scheldt - although totally agree, the Kennedy Tunnel is a nightmare. Can’t see any return in near future to flights - it would still be cheaper to pay the tax in NL than the petrol and time of driving to Antwerp. Those of us who regularly used the LCY/ANR run have all got used to flying into Zaventem, which is nearly halfway to Antwerp anyway and well served by motorway and rail.